Ranking Business Schools: Forming Fields, Identities and Boundaries in International Management Education

Citation

(2006), "Ranking Business Schools: Forming Fields, Identities and Boundaries in International Management Education", Education + Training, Vol. 48 No. 8/9. https://doi.org/10.1108/et.2006.00448hae.001

Ranking Business Schools: Forming Fields, Identities and Boundaries in International Management Education

Ranking Business Schools: Forming Fields, Identities and Boundaries in International Management EducationLinda WedlinEdward Elgar2006£55ISBN: 1845425154

Keywords English literature, Business schools, Education

Deans may claim that they do not pay much attention to the rankings of business schools – but in my experience, most of them can tell you exactly where their school stands in at least the best known and most widely quoted of these league tables. And many deans can rattle off exactly where their institution stood the year before and the year before that, the criteria on which it performs particularly well and, if pushed, the criteria that are dragging it down the league tables.

If one ranking awards points for the number of academics a business school recruits from abroad, the number of foreigners on the business school’s shortlists for appointments may begin to rise. If another ranking gives points for the salary increase achieved by alumni three years after graduation, the business school may begin to pay greater attention to tracking the career progress of its former students. And if there is more league table “kudos” for business schools with a high proportion of research-active academics, top researchers may find themselves being “poached” from other institutions, with offers of higher pay or generous research support.

All this is hardly surprising. First, it fits comfortably with the increasing desire among governments to monitor and control the production of knowledge and learning in higher education. Second, rankings are entirely consistent with the market system that business schools themselves teach. While academics in university departments for classics, English literature or philosophy can claim some justification for being dismissive towards an exercise that treats the wisdom they impart like washing powder on a supermarket shelf, such loftiness hardly befits the business-school marketing specialist who “swims in the water” of product comparisons.

In her admirable book, Wedlin entangles what rankings really are and why they have become so important. While neatly sidestepping the question of whether rankings are good or bad, she analyses their development and their implications for the field of management education. In doing so, she focuses on how and why the rankings have developed, how business schools have responded to the changes, and what the implications are for the field of management education. By integrating different theoretical approaches and traditions – including organization theory, sociology of knowledge and education – she attempts to explain the role of classifications and other monitoring activities in forming social order and fields of practice.

The book contains plenty to interest the growing army of business-school employees whose duties, at least in part, are concerned with boosting their institution’s position in the rankings. You may even find the odd dean or two with a copy in his or her briefcase. Just don’t expect to find them reading it openly in the staff room!