The Future of Business Schools in a Multi-Polar World

Professor Thomas Durand is Director of the Department of Management and Innovation at Le Cnam, Paris and a proponent of the view that business schools suffer from an over-reliance on research publication in peer-reviewed journals as an indicator of institutional and faculty quality.

His argument is that the competition between business schools supports quality indicators including rankings, accreditation processes and journal rankings that over-emphasise research publication at the expense of other equally or more valuable activities including teaching, non-research publications, case studies and so on.

Thomas calls for European business schools to make a co-ordinated attempt to counter this at a regional level by acting together to promote the impact of teaching, case writing and other forms of publication as valid expressions of quality.

This argument is one with which we are all familiar and which we support. I speak often with case authors who feel overlooked and undervalued in comparison with colleagues publishing in starred journals. Yet we know from our work in case distribution that a case may be repeatedly adopted by many schools worldwide. Isn't this a form of peer review? What better mark of quality can there be than a decision to select a case around which to build a course?

We have a huge amount of data showing the uptake and continuing use of cases around the world and would be happy to help any author seeking evidence of their impact on global teaching and executive education.