The past, present, and future of the business school

Therefore, business school graduates have been educated in the practice of a profession by a cadre of faculty members who are not members of that profession and do not have a strong desi

The Past, Present, and Future of the Business School EDWARD W MILES

of the Business School

The Past, Present, and Future of the Business

School

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Georgia State University

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Scholar, Teacher, Mentor

In recent decades, a variety of criticisms have fallen at the feet of university- based business schools A sampling of these allegations includes the following: Business schools produce research that is ignored by the business community as being irrelevant (e.g., Pfeffer & Fong, 2002 ; The Economist, 2007 ) Very few of the innovations in business of the past half-century have originated in business schools or have been shaped by them (e.g., Skapinker, 2008 ) Business schools bear signifi cant respon-sibility for bad decision making and unethical behavior (e.g., the Enron scandal) among their graduates (Etzioni, 2002 ; Ghoshal, 2005 ; Podolny,

2009 ) Narrowly focused research specializations lead to professors who are “siloed” both in their thinking and in their delivery of content in the curriculum (e.g., Crowther & Carter, 2002 ; Navarro, 2008 ; Podolny,

2009 ) Faculty members have little interest in the critical problems facing business or in helping to solve them (Bennis & O’Toole, 2005 ; Thomas

& Wilson, 2011 ) Business school faculties are populated by academic scholars who have little business experience Therefore, business school graduates have been educated in the practice of a profession by a cadre of faculty members who are not members of that profession and do not have

a strong desire to relate to that profession (Bennis & O’Toole, 2005 )

If even a portion of these concerns have merit, then it would seem that the university-based business school of today is not delivering opti-mally on the benefi ts it alleges to be providing to its stakeholders Among others, these stakeholders include students, graduates, employers, fi nan-cial donors, the collective business community, society at large, and—in

the case of state-funded universities—the taxpayers who help to fund the activities of the business school

While various writers of recent decades have quite ably articulated cerns about the current-day business school, they lament (Pfeffer & Fong,

con-2002 ; Podolny, 2009 ) that these concerns are tacitly acknowledged by business schools and generally ignored by an “ostrich-head-in-the-sand” lack of response Why would faculty members and university administra-tors—drawn from the highest levels of intellectual and reasoning ability in society—simultaneously acknowledge a serious situation, yet ignore such seemingly critical concerns? To get a fuller answer to this question than has been previously offered (or to challenge the pre-supposition of the question), one must understand the context in which the university-based business school operates

One dimension of that context is history The business school is ded within the university The university has a rich history going back to medieval times William Faulkner observed that, “The past is never dead It’s not even past.” Just as Faulkner’s Mississippi culture lives on forever, the culture of the modern-day university carries the residue of 800 years of academic culture going back to the medieval universities of Paris, Bologna, and others To gain a complete understanding of the twenty-fi rst century university-based business school and its alleged shortcomings, one must see the business school in the context of an 800-year institution in which many medieval traditions and values have not died—they are not even in the past

A second dimension of the context is resources and funding The eval university had two key benefactors—the king and the church Both provided resources necessary for the university to exist In recent centu-ries, the university has jettisoned its linkage with the church; in recent decades, the state (i.e., replacing the role of the king) has become much less lavish in funding the modern-day university Never has the phrase “He who pays the piper calls the tune” resonated more than in the twenty-fi rst century university Finding and satisfying constituents who can assure the funding resources of the university is a task that has changed and evolved for centuries The business school operates a microcosm of that same task For centuries, the university (and more recently, the business school) has been quite eager (some would say too eager) to take on new roles to satisfy these constituents (Collini, 2012 ; Kerr, 1963 /2001) These roles include offering vocational training to attract more students, conducting military and medical research to attract government grants, and building

medi-a huge medi-athletic progrmedi-am to curry fmedi-avor with medi-a vmedi-ariety of constituents Over

time, the university has come to embody multiple purposes that were accepted at various points in time for the reason of building favor with multiple constituents Just as the broader umbrella of the university, the business school likewise has taken on many roles for the purpose of satisfy-ing a broad span of constituents Given that these roles were acquired at different points in time, based on needs of a broad span of constituents,

it is no surprise that these roles are, at best, non-synergistic, and at worst, confl icting For example, big-time athletics and academic integrity confl ict

at many universities In business schools, hiring faculty based solely on research record confl icts with hiring based on teaching or outreach needs

A third and fi nal element of the context of the university-based business school is that it is a professional school Universities have a myriad of pro-fessional schools What can the business school learn from the experiences

of the university-based medical school, law school, journalism school, or even music school? Interestingly, few of the criticisms of the business school (many listed above) are unique For example, music schools wrestle with the implications of a “siloed” curriculum; law school observers bemoan the preponderance of research irrelevant to practice, and medical schools are accused of placing too much emphasis on research and too little on teaching The business school has the opportunity to learn vicariously from other professional schools regarding these criticisms and how those schools respond to them Additionally, a comparison to other professional schools will give the business school a richer understanding of which criticisms are solely endemic to business schools and which are actually endemic to mul-tiple professional schools that operate in a university context

In summary, the twenty-fi rst century university-based business school has been accused of operating in a manner that, at best, does not infl uence the practice of business, and, at worst, is “harmful to society…part of the problem rather than the solution” (Podolny, 2009 , p. 63) Furthermore—and perhaps more seriously—it has been accused of acknowledging this situation and implicitly choosing to continue with the status quo The purpose of this book is to explain three intertwined dimensions of the context in which the university-based business school operates: historical context, resource context, and professional school context As the context sheds light on the operating environment of the business school, readers may decide to re-assess which of the criticisms have merit and the likeli-hood that potential interventions may result in success or failure

Lawrenceville, GA Edward   W   Miles

REFERENCES

Bennis, W. G., & O’Toole, J (2005, May) How business schools lost their way

Harvard Business Review , 96–104

Collini, S (2012) What are universities for? London: Penguin Books

Crowther, D., & Carter, C (2002) Legitimating irrelevance: Management

educa-tion in higher educaeduca-tion institueduca-tions The Internaeduca-tional Journal of Educaeduca-tional Management , 16, 268–278

Etzioni, A (2002, August 4) When it comes to ethics, B-schools get an F The Washington Post, B4

Ghoshal, S (2005) Bad management theories are destroying good management

practices Academy of Management Learning and Education , 4(1), 75–91

Kerr, C (1963/2001) The uses of the university Cambridge, MA: Harvard

University Press

Navarro, P (2008) The MBA core curricula of top-ranked U.S business schools: A

study in failure? Academy of Management Learning and Education, 7 (1), 108–123

Pfeffer, J., & Fong, C. T (2002) The end of business schools? Less success than

meets the eye Academy of Management Learning and Education, 1 (1), 78–95

Podolny, J.  M (2009, June) The buck stops (and starts) at business school

Harvard Business Review, 62–67

Skapinker, M (2008, January 8) Why business ignores the business schools Financial Times

The Economist (2007, August 28) Practically irrelevant: What is the point of research carried out in business schools? Accessed August 4, 2015, from http://www.economist.com/node/9707498

Thomas, H., & Wilson, A. D (2011) ‘Physics envy’, cognitive legitimacy or tical relevance: Dilemmas in the evolution of management research in the UK

British Journal of Management, 22 , 443–456

Although it has been almost 3 years in the making, I have very much enjoyed researching and writing this book Being an academic, research-ing and better understanding the roots of the modern university and busi-ness school has been quite meaningful

My thinking on the topics in this book has been shaped by a career

in academia and by engaging conversations with numerous ful colleagues For this interaction, I am quite grateful to Wesley King, Brett Matherne, Richard Baskerville, Deborah Butler, Kay Bunch, Lucy McClurg, Jeff Schatten, John Hocking, John Hall, John Lough, Ebb Oakley, Stan Smits, Bill Jones, Richard Deane, Dave Forquer, Julian Diaz, Mike Crino, Sônia Calado Dias, Uli Zeyer, Tom Quiesser, and Richard

thought-C.  Huseman, among many others Of course, all fl aws in the book are entirely the responsibility of the author

1 Introduction 1

Part I The University 7

2 Higher Education from Antiquity to the Medieval

University 9

3 Medieval Craft Guilds Died Out in Business, but They

Are Alive and Thriving in Business Schools 17

4 Critical Juncture I: The Pseudo- Humboldtian Infl uence 27

5 The Purpose of the University 33

6 Critical Juncture II: Mass Education and the 

Demise of the Humboldtian University: The Great

Paradox—University in Ruin Caused by Its Own Success 43

7 Prestige and Prestige-Seeking in Universities 51

Part II The Business School 63

8 Critical Juncture III: The 1959 Foundation

Reports—Throwing Out the Baby with the Bath Water? 65

9 Prestige-Seeking by Business Schools 77

10 Credentialing: Safe for Another 800 Years? 89

Part III The Business School Among the Professional

Schools of the University 101

11 Professions, University-Based Professional Schools,

and Business as a Profession 103

12 Professional Schools Displace Practice-Based Training 115

13 Lessons from University-Based Journalism Schools

and Law Schools 129

14 Lessons from University-Based Medical Schools 151

Part IV Looking Forward 165

15 Critical Juncture IV: The State’s Reduction in Munifi cence 167

16 Another Paradox: The Business School in Ruins 173

Reference 191

Index 193

Fig 7.1 Strategic approaches for prestige-seeking universities 59 Fig 15.1 Tuition and Fees: FY 1964-FY 2013 (In constant FY 2013 dollars) 168 Fig 15.2 Trend in public degree-granting institution revenue sources 170

Table 6.1 College degrees conferred (in thousands) in the

USA: Selected years 1870–2010 44 Table 6.2 Percentage of labor force engaged in agriculture 45 Table 10.1 Number of business degrees conferred (in thousands)

in the USA and the proportion of all degrees conferred 90 Table 10.2 Percentage of US population age 25 and older holding a high

school diploma and holding a bachelor’s degree or higher 96 Table 11.1 Key characteristics of professions 107 Table 15.1 Sources of revenue for public degree-granting institutions 169 Table 16.1 Business degrees conferred in the USA 174

xix

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2016

E.W Miles, The Past, Present, and Future of the Business School,

• In 1908, Abraham Flexner of the Carnegie Foundation states the same assertion

SET 2

• In 1999 , Stuart Crainer and Des Dearlove, in their book, Gravy Training , assert that MBA students do not really come to school out

of a desire for learning

• In 1972 , Martin Trow of the University of California, Berkeley, makes the same assertion regarding college undergraduates in general

• In 1909, Princeton University President Woodrow Wilson makes the same assertion regarding Princeton undergraduates

Introduction

SET 3

• In the banking “meltdown” of 2009, some observers claim that elite business schools bear some of the responsibility for greedy, unethical behavior by their graduates

• Observers of the time make the same claim regarding the Great Depression of the 1930s

SET 4

• Graduates of prestigious MBA programs of the twenty-fi rst century are sometimes described as being arrogant and looking down upon workers who perform more menial work

• The same descriptions have been used to characterize persons trained

in the Egyptian Scribe Schools of the third millennium B C

SET 5

• In 2004 , Henry Mintzberg, Professor at McGill University, asserts that many activities of university-based business school faculties are irrelevant to practice, and instead of simply being innocuous, are actually detriment to society

• In 1290, Boniface VIII, Pope of the Catholic Church, makes the same assertion about the faculty of the University of Paris

• In the second century A D , Greek/Syrian writer Lucian of Samosata makes the same assertion about Greek higher schools

In the late twentieth century and early twenty-fi rst century, ple voices have raised concerns about the trajectory of the current-day, university- based business school As our above examples illustrate, while these concerns seem quite real, they have parallel concerns in the greater university going back for centuries

For example, in an ominously entitled article, The End of Business Schools? Less Success Than Meets the Eye , Pfeffer and Fong ( 2002 ) offer two conclusions about business schools that the faculty of those schools should fi nd diffi cult to reconcile First, they conclude that “there is lit-tle evidence that mastery of the knowledge acquired in business schools enhances people’s careers” (p. 80) “[A] large body of evidence suggests that the curriculum taught in business schools has only a small relationship

to what is important for succeeding in business” (p.  84) Second, they assert that research produced in business schools has almost no impact on the practice of business They even observe that the impact of business school research is less than research conducted by other parties such as journalists

Equally interesting is Pfeffer and Fong’s ( 2002 , p. 89) observation: Although much of the foregoing argument may at fi rst glance appear to be controversial or provocative, it is neither—the problems are at once well recognized and simply not frequently acknowledged or discussed

They note Donald Hambrick’s ( 1994 , p. 13) lament from his presidential address to the Academy of Management that academic research in the dis-cipline of management has become an “incestuous, closed loop.”

If we assume that the basic goals of business schools include educating potential entrants to the practice of business and creating knowledge that infl uences the practice of business, these observers conclude that we are failing at both tasks This conclusion has been echoed by various other observers For example, Grey ( 2004 , p. 181) offers this logic:

What exactly, are we teaching in management education? Let’s answer the question negatively: What we are not teaching are reliable techniques, that

is, things which when managers do them have (even reasonably) able effects Now let’s consider what business schools purport to specialize

predict-in teachpredict-ing: reliable techniques….[M]anagement education doesn’t ally do much good for managers It promises to deliver something entirely illusory

Observers who admit to the failure of the business school to deliver on the dual goals of teaching and research generally conclude that although students still fl ock to business schools in droves, the status quo is at great risk of being unsustainable Grey ( 2004 , p.  184) asserts, “It cannot be assumed that we will forever be able to sell a product that so manifestly fails to do what it says it will do.” As phrased by Spender ( 2007 , p. 39),

“Just how and why and for how long this is a sustainable strategy is a ter of speculation.”

On the other hand, perhaps Pfeffer and Fong ( 2002 ) and Grey ( 2004 ) may have been a bit too hasty in assuming that business schools have failed It may be that the role of the business school has simply changed Even well-ensconced institutions do change over time One does not have

to look far to see this effect For example, if I go to a high school football game, I see that the “cheerleaders” are not leading cheers They perform

a few cheers—without any attempt to lead others However, primarily, they are engaged in acrobatic displays that are quite intricate and skillful Actually, I did not even see the fi rst-string cheerleaders; that group only appears at “cheerleading” competitions—where they perform for judges, but still do not lead cheers The “marching band” is not marching in any sense the military would defi ne They are engaged—with amazing props and staging—in a dramatic interpretation of music that the average foot-ball fan (and defi nitely the high school student section) fi nds boring and uninteresting However, the actual purpose of this presentation is not to entertain football fans; it is to prepare for the marching band competition the next day in which the non-marching band will compete with other non-marching bands who are also trying to win a marching band competi-tion rather than entertain anyone

Institutions change and depart from their original or alleged purposes This is not necessarily an implication that the institution has become dys-functional; it may well have evolved to a new form that is more func-tional and more benefi cial to stakeholders than the original purposes Cheerleading as an institution has evolved to where its primary function

no longer involves leading cheers However, acknowledging that ity does not require a conclusion that the institution of cheerleading has become dysfunctional While I would not disagree with Pfeffer and Fong’s ( 2002 ) assertion that business school teaching and research have little rel-evance to the realm of success in business, that fact does not necessarily require a conclusion that business schools have become dysfunctional

real-A discussion of that possibility requires a broader discussion of the university

as an institution and of the business school’s role within that institution

In this book, I examine the current-day business school through tiple lenses The business school has always had a tenuous relationship with the greater university as a whole Although immensely popular with students, the business school continues to have its legitimacy within the university questioned by fellow academics Starkey and Tempest ( 2006 ) have suggested that any concept for reinventing the business school must consider its role within the larger university I assert that the greater uni-versity has its own questions of viability and that the long-term sustainabil-ity of both entities is closely intertwined Therefore, I concur with Starkey and Tempest in their observation that a clear picture of where the business school currently is and might potentially go must be viewed in its larger

mul-context of the university Regarding the greater university, Thelin ( 2011 ,

pp ix–x) concludes that

The temptation is for each generation of academic leaders to consider its own

time to be the critical juncture….The problems facing American higher

edu-cation in 2011 are not necessarily unprecedented in their gravity….Troubling today is that for those who are seeking to understand and solve problems now facing colleges and universities, there does not seem much inclination to seek genuine historical perspective about higher education as a lens

Therefore, one consistent focus throughout this book is the historical perspective It includes the infl uence of the medieval university on the current-day university-based business school It includes a comparison of the present-day business school to the original goals of the fi rst American business school It compares the historical roots of university-based busi-ness schools to the roots of other professional schools, including medical schools, journalism schools, and law schools

In returning to our opening sets of concerns, when considered in light

of history, the concerns of Pfeffer and Fong ( 2002 ), Grey ( 2004 ), and others are not recent concerns, but have existed within the larger academy for centuries This contrast begs the question of which of two options is the more appropriate characterization of these concerns regarding busi-

ness schools The fi rst option is the Hans Christian Andersen tale, The Emperor’s New Clothes In this story, the emperor accepts the premise that

only someone quite boorish and unfi t for offi ce would be unable to see the

fi ne quality of the gorgeous fabric prepared by two con artists Once the premise is accepted, everyone in the emperor’s court must also accept the premise or admit to being boorish and unfi t for offi ce The charade continues for an inordinate amount of time until an outsider—a young boy—makes the whole charade fall apart simply by saying, “But he’s not wearing any clothes!”

The second option is that of the centuries-old folk tale of Chicken Little In this tale, an acorn falls on the head of the protagonist, and he

incorrectly interprets that the sky is falling Chicken Little then goes about warning the community’s greater populace with the oft-repeated admoni-tion that “The sky is falling!” Although some community members are convinced of the impending doom, the sky does not fall

Which tale is a more accurate characterization? If the sky is falling,

it has been falling on the university for centuries and no apocalypse has

materialized yet Business schools are thriving and attracting growing numbers of talented students Business school research continues, new journals are frequently established, and the desire of deans to hire the best researchers available at handsome salaries has not subsided Alternatively,

maybe the appropriate analogy is the Emperor’s New Clothes This would

be consistent with Pfeffer and Fong’s observation that their conclusions are neither “controversial” nor “provocative.” Perhaps the professoriate is

so incentivized to avoid appearing boorish and unfi t for offi ce that they knowingly are perpetrating a charade

Most likely, some combination of these two analogies has the most merit But what precise combination? This book explores that question Consistent with Thelin’s ( 2011 ) recommendation to examine the current- day university in the light of history, we will begin with a look at the ori-gins of the university and consider the implications in these origins for the current-day business school

REFERENCES

Crainer, S., & Dearlove, D (1999) Gravy training: Inside the business of business schools (San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass

Flexner, A (1930) Universities: American, English, German New York, NY:

Teachers College Press/Columbia University

Grey, C (2004) Reinventing business schools: The contribution of critical

man-agement education Academy of Manman-agement Learning and Education, 3 (2),

Pfeffer, J., & Fong, C. T (2002) The end of business schools? Less success than

meets the eye Academy of Management Learning and Education, 1 (1), 78–95 Spender, J. C (2007) Management as a regulated profession: An essay Journal of Management Inquiry, 16 (1), 32–42

Starkey, K., & Tempest, S (2006) The business school in ruins? In P. Gagliardi &

B. Czarniawska (Eds.), Management education and humanities Cheltenham:

Edward Elgar

Thelin, J. R (2011) A history of American higher education (2nd ed.) Baltimore,

MD: Johns Hopkins University Press

Trow, M (1972) The expansion and transformation of higher education

International Review of Education , 18(1), 61–84

The University

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2016

E.W Miles, The Past, Present, and Future of the Business School,

a textbook from an Egyptian scribe school of that time Scribes were the administrators in the “civil service” of the time Schools were necessary at that time to train scribes in advanced mathematics Some sections of the

Rhind Papyrus deal generically with mathematics, while other sections are

applications Examples of applications include calculating area for crop

fi elds, measuring cubic volume for storage of crops in silos, and estimating the amount of bread to provide laborers

Other documents dated to the second millennium B C indicated that the scribes (or administrators), through their training and careers, enjoyed

a privileged social class The same was true in the Hebrew culture of that period According to Pedersen ( 1997 , p. 5):

Now and then a clear sign of class-consciousness can be traced in the way the work of the scribe is glorifi ed and manual trades are despised In connection with religious shallowness, this is surely the background to the polemic that the prophets directed at the scribes Jeremiah, for example, had little time for their pretended wisdom or for the court circles that made use of them

Higher Education from Antiquity

to the Medieval University

Seen from the point of view of education, ancient Middle Eastern ies can be comprehensively labeled scribal cultures It was the scribe who received the highest education It was he who mastered the secrets of the arts or writing and arithmetic and thereby had access to high offi ces bring- ing power and social position

In today’s age, where business schools are sometimes viewed as mate interlopers in the university—an enclave viewed by some as the rightful domain of the “pure” arts and sciences—it is quite ironic to note that the fi rst documented appearance of higher education is a profes-sional school for the applied purpose of training administrators Another interesting observation is that the professionals who were trained in these scribe schools were sometimes accused of snobbery and looking down on workers without such education This alleged arrogance and the “pre-tended wisdom” seem quite consistent with modern-day characterizations

illegiti-of some people who have graduated from prestigious MBA programs The modern-day university is a descendant of European permutations and iterations of higher education Higher education has existed in many civilizations, such as China, India, Japan, and pre-Columbian America However, present-day models evolved primarily from multiple European traditions (Collini, 2012 ; Perkin, 2006 )

Greek culture was among the fi rst to articulate some of the themes

of the current-day liberal arts education The Greek tradition embraced intellectual development through subjects including arithmetic, read-ing, writing, literature, and philosophy Further, they believed in artistic and physical development, including sport, dance, and singing In Greek society, it was believed that citizens should be broadly educated so that they could participate in the process of governing Because of this value assigned to broad-based learning for the greater benefi t, many view Plato’s Academy as the fi rst true “university” in the modern-day sense of the insti-tution (Collini, 2012 ; Kerr, 1963 /2001)

The Greek educational tradition also foreshadowed three divisions that are still present in the academy Followers of Socrates and Plato were con-cerned with philosophical truth and virtue The Sophists were pragmatists who were more concerned with producing practical solutions to more immediate issues Although the Sophists were not viewed as legitimate by the Plato and his followers, their procedures of rhetoric and argumenta-tion laid the basis for the offi cial form of disputation used for centuries

in the medieval university The third division was the Pythagoreans who

were focused upon mathematics and astronomy (Kerr, 2001 ; Lucas, 1994 ; Stewart, 1962 ) These three divisions can still be seen in today’s university

in the form of the humanities (Plato), the social sciences and most sional schools—including business schools—(Sophists), and the sciences and engineering (Pythagoreans)

Additionally, Greek society initiated two other present-day elements

of the university First, schools for specifi c professions appeared, such as the medical school of Hippocrates on the island of Cos Second, one key element was added in the transition from Plato to his student Aristotle Whereas Plato focused on teaching, Aristotle additionally believed that research was another benefi cial track to learning For example, Aristotle

himself studied the classifi cation of animals, culminating in his book, On the Natural History of Animals , that many view as the origin of the disci-

pline of zoology (Pedersen, 1997 )

In summary, the basic roots of the liberal arts education and its merits have their beginnings in Greek society The Greeks—like the scribe cul-tures—also developed specialized professional schools Additionally, the wedding of the dual roles of teaching and research fi rst appeared in higher education

With the rise of the Roman Empire, the Greeks were conquered by the Romans However, intellectually, the body of Greek writings was “con-quering” the Roman Empire According to Lucas ( 1994 , p.  25), “The Roman version of the Greek rhetorical school was virtually indistinguish-able from the original model.” Because the learned writings were in Greek, scholars had to be profi cient in written Greek—quite similar to the more recent practice that well-trained scholars had a need to be profi cient in Latin in order to access the important literature

Then, the Roman Empire declined into the Early Middle Ages As the Roman Empire was overrun by various tribes, including Visigoths, Vandals, Angles, Saxons, Franks, Ostrogoths, and Lombards, the stability

of a single governing institution in society was lost Many of the writings

of the Greeks were lost because they had not been translated to Latin In the late sixth century, Gregory of Tours observed that:

The towns of Gaul have allowed learned studies to decline or even perish….

It is no longer possible to fi nd any person who, as a grammarian trained

in dialectic, would be capable of reporting on events either in prose or in verse….Woe for our age, for scholarship has died out among us (translated and cited in Pedersen, 1997 , p. 38)

At the same time of the decline of the Roman Empire, Christianity was

on the rise, embodied in the institution of the Catholic Church Coupled with this set of events, Christian monasteries evolved Cassiodorus (c 490–c 583) was a key fi gure in the shaping of the Christian monastery

In his interpretation, the monastery had two key purposes One was to provide a Christian community in isolation from the outside world In part, this isolation had a preservation element as well as a spiritual one Because of the breakdown of the stable government of the Roman Empire, potential attacks from roving tribes and scavenging bands of knights were

a threat While the aristocracy retreated to their fortifi ed castles, another safe haven was the equally fortifi ed monastery (Karabell, 1998 ; Lucas,

1994 ; Pedersen, 1997 )

The second purpose was to be the seat of benefi cial cultural endeavors One of the key endeavors championed by Cassiodorus was that of caring for the existing literature This work included collecting books, caring for books, copying books, and translating books Over time, this mission grew to include advancing knowledge in addition to preserving it For example, one monk, Thomas Aquinas, built upon the philosophy of the Greeks by synthesizing it in his writings on the theology of the Catholic Church

In summary, the early Middle Ages did not see momentum in the tution of the university This time was characterized as a “holding pat-tern” in which the writings of previous ages were maintained through monasteries Interestingly, Karabell ( 1998 ) claims that a key element of this era has been maintained since that time up to the present-day uni-versity This element is that the university interprets the world outside its walls as a threat In the Middle Ages, the threat was physical, the result of lawless bands of marauders Today, the threat is to the unbiased knowl-edge that is generated by objective scholars who are not beholding to the agenda of any outside entity If today’s university loses its mantle as the purveyor of unbiased knowledge, it has lost an important element of its legacy Karabell observes that this view of external threat has biased the modern-day university to an inward focus similar to the monastery In order to maintain objectivity, today’s university faculty members cannot intermingle too much with the “outside world” or their standing within the professoriate becomes suspect

Karabell’s interpretation seems quite consistent with the modern-day business school Critics (e.g., Davenport, Prusak, & Wilson, 2003 ) claim

that many business schools employ faculty members who are talented researchers but have never worked in any meaningful capacity in business; they have only encountered the actual world of business by being a cus-tomer at Wal-Mart or at the grocery store Part of this reason for business school faculty not having a broad interaction with the world of business draws from the monastic traditions of the university’s roots

In the eighth century, Charlemagne became King of the Franks He eventually conquered much of Western Europe, and in the year 800, was crowned Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire by Pope Leo III. At this point in European history, the Catholic Church was the dominant insti-tution; with Charlemagne aligned with the church, both principal insti-tutions of the time operated primarily in concert Charlemagne was an advocate for learning, and he initiated a system of monastic and cathedral schools that laid the groundwork for the rise of the medieval university

In part, these schools were intended to educate the future clergy of the growing Catholic Church Therefore, the monasteries and cathedrals were the logical hosts for such schools However, Charlemagne also instructed these schools to provide education to lay people as well for those who wanted it (Wieruszowski, 1966 )

As might be suspected, the monasteries were lukewarm on the cept of educating lay people Their cloistered environment, providing isolation from the outside world, was inconsistent with inviting the lay people of the outside world to come inside for education Therefore, with monasteries not all that thrilled with Charlemagne’s plan, the cathedral schools fl ourished as the precursor to the medieval university (Haskins,

con-1923 /1957; Wieruszowski, 1966 ) Several noteworthy universities (e.g., the University of Paris) evolved from cathedral schools, but none evolved from monastic schools

The modern-day university typically traces its roots to the medieval universities of Europe that began to fl ourish in the thirteenth century, including those of Paris, Bologna, and Oxford One key distinction of the European medieval university was that of a degree of power and autonomy held by the central corps of faculty—the precursor of “academic freedom” (Collini, 2012 ; Compayré, 1893 ; Haskins, 1923 /1957; Hofstadter & Metzger, 1955 ; Perkin, 2006 )

The university that evolved out of the Middle Ages was one centered

on the masters , the precursor to today’s professoriate Indeed, the

origi-nal prototype was one in which students selected the master with whom

they wished to study The master was the sole teacher a student would be exposed to during the student’s studies Originally, the term “university” actually referred to the collective body of masters and students, not to

a physical presence of a campus or buildings Because the medieval versity was centered on the masters, they had a level of autonomy Once

uni-a criticuni-al muni-ass of muni-asters uni-and students uni-accumuluni-ated, they would petition for formal recognition as a university Europe in the thirteenth century was dominated by both the church and the state Therefore, the petition might be made to the king or to the church Some universities played each of these parties off of one another; if a request seemed more likely to

be granted by one than by the other, the university pursued the alliance that was benefi cial at the moment The University of Bologna—the old-est continually operating university today—was recognized by the Holy Roman Emperor, Frederick I Barbarossa, in 1158; the University of Paris,

by King Phillip Augustus of France in 1200 (Bazan, 1998 ; Compayré,

1893 ; Wieruszowski, 1966 )

One of the benefi ts of formal recognition was that members of the university community were granted a number of quite attractive privileges (Hofstadter & Metzger, 1955 ; Kibre, 1962 ), some of which have survived

in modifi ed form to the present day These included exemption from ing taxes and from military service They included the right that many legal proceedings, should they be necessary, were handled by the univer-sity or the church and not by the local municipality which might be biased against the students or teachers One of the most curious privileges was the right to suspend classes—what might be termed in the modern day as

pay-“going on strike.” The University of Paris suspended classes in 1229 for two years over a dispute with the king These privileges were given to uni-versities to retain them Because the university was the entity of the mas-ters and students (i.e., not a physical presence), they could and did engage

in mass exodus from cities when they viewed themselves as ill-treated For example, Oxford University was the benefi ciary of multiple defections from the University of Paris Medieval universities could develop a suf-

fi cient body of students that the local economy would be harmed by such

a defection—even in the thirteenth century, the University of Paris is mated to have amassed three to four thousand students—more than 10 %

esti-of the population esti-of Paris (Ferruolo, 1985 ) A second motive in ing universities was the prestige of saying that Paris, Orleans, or Seville was home to a thriving university (Compayré, 1893 ) These benefi ts of

retain-retaining a university can be seen in the text of a letter from England’s King Henry III to the Mayor of the town of Cambridge in 1231:

You are aware that a multitude of scholars from divers parts…meets at our town of Cambridge for study, which we hold a very gratifying and desir- able thing, since no small benefi t and glory accrue there-from to our whole realm; and you, among whom these students personally live, ought espe- cially to be pleased and delighted at it….We have heard, however, that in [renting] your houses you make such heavy charges to the scholars living among you, that unless you conduct yourselves with more restraint and moderation towards them in this matter, they will be driven by your exac- tions to leave your town and, abandoning their studies, leave our country, which we by no means desire (cited in Lucas, 1994 , p. 61)

[The well-known scholar, John of Salisbury, complained of Paris in

1164 that the rents were high and the leases too long (Ferruolo, 1985 ) Interestingly, such exact same complaints can be heard today regarding US college towns which are home to large universities such as the University

of Georgia in Athens.]

The privileges accorded to universities by the church and the state occurred because both saw utility in promoting the institution of the university (Ferruolo, 1985 ) Of course, no alliance with powerful parties comes without a quid pro quo That reality faced medieval universities and continues to be a critical defi ning feature of universities in the twenty-fi rst century Therefore, another reason why both the state and the church were willing to support the universities was that the universities accepted the role of training the people needed by both benefactors The University

of Paris quickly became known for its Faculty of Theology, thereby ing the future clergy of the church The University of Bologna—known for its Faculty of Law—provided the civil servants needed by the state The standard form of a complete university came to be a Faculty of Arts and three “superior faculties” of Theology, Law, and Medicine Again, there is irony here for today’s university where “purists” assert that the arts and sciences are the long-term rightful higher status member of the university and that professional schools are quasi-academic late-comers to the institution The professional schools of the medieval university were viewed as the “superior” players and the Faculty of Arts played the role of preliminary preparation for students desiring to enter the programs of the

train-“superior faculties.”

REFERENCES

Bazan, B.  C (1998) The original idea of the university In D.  L Jeffrey &

D.  Manganiello (Eds.), Rethinking the future of the university Ottawa:

University of Ottawa Press

Collini, S (2012) What are universities for? London: Penguin Books

Compayré, G (1893) Abelard and the origin and early history of universities

New York, NY: Charles Scribner’s Sons

Davenport, T.  H., Prusak, L., & Wilson, H.  J (2003) What’s the big idea? Creating and capitalizing on the best management thinking Boston, MA:

Harvard Business School Press

Ferruolo, S. C (1985) The origins of the university: The schools of Paris and their critics, 1100–1215 Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press

Haskins, C. H (1923/1957) The rise of universities Ithaca, NY: Great Seal Books Hofstadter, R., & Metzger, W. P (1955) The development of academic freedom in the United States New York, NY: Columbia University Press

Karabell, Z (1998) What’s college for? The struggle to defi ne American higher cation New York, NY: Basic Books

Kerr, C (1963/2001) The uses of the university Cambridge, MA: Harvard

Stewart, C (1962) The place of higher education in a changing society In

N. Sanford (Ed.), The American college: A psychological and social interpretation

of the higher learning (pp. 894–939) New York, NY: John Wiley & Sons

Wieruszowski, H (1966) The medieval university: Masters, students, learning

Princeton, NJ: D. Van Nostrand Company

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2016

E.W Miles, The Past, Present, and Future of the Business School,

DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-33639-8_3

We will open this chapter with a hiring and selection quiz A business school needs a person to teach an undergraduate human resource man-agement course in Recruitment and Selection There are two possible options Candidate A is a graduate of a respected MBA program This person currently is employed by a local company as a hiring specialist and does recruitment and selection work on a daily basis Candidate B has a B.A degree and an M.A degree in French Literature, has never been employed in a business setting, and has never worked in recruitment and selection This person is currently a Ph.D student in the business school, and has taken a Ph.D seminar in human resource management Which candidate will the business school select to teach the course in Recruitment and Selection?

Seasoned academics will chastise me for wasting their time with such

an obvious question The business school will choose Candidate B. The novice or casual observer may be a bit surprised that Candidate A has almost no chance of being selected The reason Candidate B is chosen is that Candidate B is a member of the academic guild—albeit an apprentice member—while Candidate A is not a member of the academic guild Numerous observers (e.g., Bok, 1986 ; Collins, 2002 ; Haskins, 1923 /1957; Hofstadter & Metzger, 1955 ) have observed that the academic profession is sub-divided into guilds that very much resemble the crafts guilds of medieval times For example, Ph.D students are the parallel to craft guild apprentices; untenured assistant professors are the parallel to

Medieval Craft Guilds Died Out in Business, but They Are Alive and Thriving in Business

Schools

the journeymen; and tenured faculty members are the parallel to the ters In the medieval university, the craft guild term “masters” was the term used by the professoriate Indeed, it seems quite clear that some of the roots of the professoriate were intentionally based in the guild system For example, in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, medieval universities such as the University of Bologna did actually petition the authorities to

mas-be recognized as guilds (Pedersen, 1997 ) Although the requests were turned down because of a strict defi nition of craft guilds (“apprentices” in craft guilds were doing the work of the craft while “students” in universi-ties were not yet employed as doing the work of the craft), the infl uence

of craft guilds can be seen

This obvious infl uence of craft guilds on today’s universities raises a concern because historians and economists have discussed signifi cant negative infl uences of craft guilds (Epstein, 1991 ; Epstein & Prak, 2008 ; Lambert, 1891 ; Renard, 1918 ; Walford, 1888 ) In his Wealth of Nations ,

Adam Smith ( 1776 , Book I, Paragraph 72) observed that craft guilds are

“a conspiracy against the public.” He further explained that “though the law cannot hinder people of the same trade from sometimes assembling together, it ought to do nothing to facilitate such assemblies, much less

to render them necessary.” These concerns suggest that academia in the twenty-fi rst century would benefi t from reviewing the positive and nega-tive infl uences of the medieval craft guilds

The labor union movement of the 1800s and 1900s claimed a heritage

in the medieval craft guilds While there certainly is a connection, there are also monumental differences between the two (Lambert, 1891; Walford,

1888 ) A craft guild was composed of employers (masters) and employees (journeymen and apprentices); it encompassed everyone involved in the trade By comparison, trade unions are composed of the employees but not the employers; they do not encompass everyone involved in the trade While the rudimentary purpose of the union was to protect the workers in the relationship with the employers, the role of the craft guild was to protect the craft and its members collectively In this regard, the critical confl icts are different In unions, it is the confl ict between labor and management In the craft guilds, it was the confl ict between the trade and the public

In effect, each craft guild constituted a de facto monopoly The guild was able to forbid persons not members of the guild from practicing the craft within their domain Likewise, craft guilds jealously guarded their craft from potential interlopers from related crafts “No carpenter could

do the work of a joiner or shipwright; no cobbler could make shoes;

intruders from other towns were carefully excluded” (Lambert, 1891,

p.  367) However, to prevent a monopoly from exercising its potential

to abuse the public through usurious prices and poor-quality products, a monopoly has to be controlled by some means The craft guild was offi -cially recognized by the local municipality and granted its right to exclu-sive practice of its trade In return, the municipality required that the guild pay a fee for its collective privilege of exclusivity and that it

supply the needs of the public in reasonable time and at reasonable rates….if bad leather was put into the Aldermen’s boots, shaky timber used in a roof,

or unhealthy beer sold to the King’s lieges, the respective Wardens ing offi cers of the guilds] were sent for and soundly rated by the Mayor (Lambert, 1891, p. 367)

With this mechanism of control, it was in the craft guild’s interest to see its members quite carefully so that the guild did not invoke the wrath

over-of government over-offi cials A great amount over-of structure and regulation was therefore imposed upon the members for the collective benefi t of main-taining the monopoly Walford ( 1888 , p. 36) goes as far as to characterize this dimension of guilds as “a police authority” and notes that it was pres-ent in guilds in all countries where guilds existed Although this degree

of regulation insured quality control on goods reaching the public, it also constrained the freedom of guild members

The statutes which regulated [the guild] resembled feudal castles, which protected but imprisoned those whom they sheltered….In Florence in 1286

a cooper complained of being boycotted by his guild because in making his barrels he bent his staves by means of water, which was, he said, an advan- tage to all who bought them (Renard, 1918 , pp. 68–69)

Although the monopoly was controlled by the municipality, it was still a monopoly and carried the DNA of a monopoly:

An instrument of defence for those who were within the guild easily erated into one of tyranny for those who were without It was the centre

degen-of an ardent and exclusive corporate spirit It resolved all the individual egoisms of its members into a great collective ego It is only necessary to recall the quarrels with neighboring guilds, and the hostility shown towards workers who were not enrolled….[The guild] was a little self-contained city,

a diminutive commune which the members administered at will (Renard,

1918 , pp. 69–70)

As one might readily observe, many of the elements of the medieval craft guild are alive and present in the twenty-fi rst-century research university professoriate in general (Bennis & O’Toole, 2005 ; Karabell, 1998 ) and

in the business school in particular There is no way into membership except having served as an apprentice (Ph.D student) However, appren-tices are viewed as members of the guild Once an apprenticeship of an acceptable length of time has been served, the apprentice seeks a journey-man appointment in the profession (assistant professor seeking tenure) Although apprentices and journeymen do not have the status of masters, they get to participate in many of the privileges of the guild For exam-ple, both groups are paid, teach classes, and are generally provided offi ce space, travel money, and administrative support All three levels of guild members are welcome to attend and participate in the annual conferences

of the academic guilds

Just as the craft guilds, the academic guilds specialize to a greater degree

as time goes forward (Kerr, 1963 /2001; Khurana & Spender, 2012 ) The shoemakers become separate from the cobblers; the tailors and glovers evolve into separate guilds, and the shipwrights would be aghast if a car-penter believes he had the expertise to participate in building wooden ships Just as the craft guilds, if an interloper from a neighboring guild encroaches too far, academic guilds become quite defensive Faculty mem-bers in strategic management are equally aghast as the shipwrights if a member of the accounting faculty claims s/he can teach a course in stra-tegic management Members of the organizational behavior guild howl when the Department of Finance wants to teach a course in “fi nancial leadership.” The Department of Economics lodges a formal complaint

if the MBA program tries to institute a course entitled “Managing in the Global Economy” without an instructor from their department (All of these are factual examples I have observed.)

Just as the medieval craft guilds have been accused of delaying benefi cial advances (e.g., coopers having the audacity to bend barrel staves by use of water, using metal cards to card wool rather than wooden cards, as prescribed by the guild), academic guilds can be equally accused of delay-ing progress by overbearing tradition and regulation These traditions include endorsing what is considered appropriate scholarship Through its premier journals, the guild dictates the degree to which internal validity is preferable to external validity or vice versa, the degree to which descriptive studies without theory are acceptable, and the relative merits of potential research designs and statistical procedures

In academia, the apprentice level is that of the Ph.D student In ing the role of the medieval craft guild apprentice, Karabell ( 1998 , p. 57) explains:

Apprentices…were taken on and given the most menial tasks, but by ing and listening, they would in time begin to learn the skills they would need to practice the craft themselves They were ill housed, badly fed, shod- dily clad, and barely paid, but that was a reasonable price for learning skills that in time would allow them to earn a livelihood, support a family, and enjoy a place and even prestige in society

Karabell (p. 59) goes on to note that, just as apprentices, Ph.D students

“approach these professors with respect, reverence, occasional awe, often with a healthy sprinkling of resentment.” All academics who have ever

“paid their dues” as Ph.D students fi nd tremendous resonance in this analogy Many Ph.D students have bemoaned the menial work of coding empirical data or tracking down obscure literature citations The themes

of “ill-housed” and “barely paid” make many Ph.D holders believe the writer is referring precisely to current-day Ph.D students rather than fourteenth- century craft apprentices

This “sprinkling of resentment” is present in many situations, ing graduate training in the arts and sciences as well as other fi elds of professional training (e.g., the training of medical residents; Bosk, 1979 ) Occasionally, it can move from “healthy” to “unhealthy” when the mas-ter is viewed as overly capricious or as an obstacle to acceptance into the guild Violence against the master (e.g., Theodore Streleski at Stanford University in 1978) is not out of the realm of possibility

In research universities, the guild is so strong that the guild— not the

particular employing university—is the primary judge of the apprentice’s (Ph.D student) or journeyman’s (assistant professor seeking tenure) suc-cess The guild judges whether the research work of the Ph.D student or assistant professor has merit This judgment occurs through acceptances

or rejections by the appropriate journals The role of the journal editors and reviewers is to enforce the standards of the guild

For Ph.D students, the endorsement and support of their home versity faculty is necessary, but insuffi cient by itself, for success in the guild

uni-To obtain interviews to move to the journeyman level at other ties, Ph.D students must have a research record which suggests they have had initial success in the guild Once they obtain the interview, they must

universi-demonstrate that they have been indoctrinated suffi ciently into the guild

by their masters and convince the masters of the interviewing university that they will continue to endorse the values and standards of the guild Once the apprentice has obtained an appointment as an assistant profes-sor, s/he serves the journeyman appointment (usually 6 years), attempting

to publish in the appropriate journals, thereby demonstrating success at the craft of the guild Once the guild has judged the work of the assistant professor, the particular employing university will judge (i.e., decide on tenure) However, part of that process is a judgment of the guild instead

of the assistant professor: Is the guild a credible guild? Are the journals of the guild credible? As odd as it might seem to the casual observer, the pri-mary task of the assistant professor is to satisfy the guild The primary task

is not to satisfy the university, the college, the department, the students, or

the public interest at large Excellent work in serving any of these ary constituents is considered as “icing on the cake” but will not substitute for the “cake” that would satisfy the guild

One odd element of the academic guild is that while it almost sively views the domain of the guild as research concerning its respective content, the guild also believes it has the right to oversee teaching within that content as well Our opening quiz in this chapter is such an example; business school teaching assignments at the undergraduate level have very little to do with research, yet the guild only wants its members to teach within that content area This situation is the guild protecting its monop-oly from interlopers from other guilds or—worse yet—from someone who

exclu-is not a legitimate member of any academic guild

With medieval guilds, the monopoly was kept in check by the local municipality where all guild members practiced One characteristic of the academic guilds is that there is no parallel entity keeping the monopolis-tic academic guilds in check Once universities assert that guild members must satisfy the expectations of the guild in order to thrive, there is little check on the monopoly

In some respects, this lack of check by the university is benefi cial to promote objectivity If the university (or the state government, in the case

of state universities) had the authority to declare what is credible ship, there would be signifi cant ground for political opportunism In the words of Professor John Hocking, a mentor from my own graduate school apprenticeship, “One man’s trash is one man’s tenure.” Botany professors would weigh in on whether a line of research in accounting was credible

scholar-or state legislatscholar-ors who are attscholar-orneys by trade would sit in judgment of the

merits of research in comparative literature or operations management From this perspective, it does seem that the guild has a better vantage point to judge the work of the guild member than any other party has However, accountability to the guild trumps accountability to any external entity As noted in Chap 1 , Donald Hambrick ( 1994 ) has used the term “incestuous, closed loop” to describe business school research Pfeffer and Fong ( 2002 ) conclude that business school research has lit-tle impact on the practice of business In an ideal world, business school research would be conducted in such a manner that would infl uence the practice of business (Davenport, Prusak, & Wilson, 2003 ) However, the stranglehold of the guilds upon business school faculty is so strong that there is no accountability to the practice of business This disconnect comes from the nature of the guild as being a monopoly that collectively has little accountability to any superior entity

As noted by Karabell ( 1998 , pp. 54–56), the monopoly of the guilds

is compounded by another ancestor of the modern-day professoriate This ancestor is the tradition of the monastic school of the early medieval period

The modern university is the child of the medieval monastery and the eval guild, and deep within the recesses of the professoriate’s identity is the model of the monk The culture of academia, with its allegiance to an ideal

medi-of pure scholarship, formed over centuries continues to refl ect attitudes that were prevalent among the monks a thousand years ago The monk, who lived a life of austerity, meditation, in the company of other like-minded souls, solitary….It was a life marked by a deep and understandable distrust

of the world outside….The sense that the world outside the walls of the monastery was an ever-present threat to what went on inside made its way into the psyche of the modern university

Because of these two medieval infl uences on the modern-day business school, one could easily make the claim that business school faculty have more in common with botany professors than with the outside business community

If present-day business schools were interested in changing the situation decried by Hambrick and by Pfeffer and Fong, they would benefi t from considering how the medieval craft guilds came into decline (Lambert,

1891 ; Renard, 1918 ) The downfall of craft guilds came when taining their monopoly was no longer viable The industrial revolution brought large-scale manufacturing This large-scale enterprise was sup-ported by large-scale capital Eventually, mass production led to goods

main-being produced by a process in which people only needed to be skilled in

a narrow segment of the production process rather than the entire cess Goods came to be produced in national and international markets rather than in  local markets; government approval and endorsement of the monopoly in these broader markets, therefore, became impracticable

In today’s academic environment of distance learning and online courses, is academia moving toward a similar national and international market? Will 10-minute video lecturettes reduce the academic profession

to having a need for narrowly skilled workers just as mass production did

to decimate the production of goods in the guild economy? Would such changes break the stranglehold on universities currently held by academic guilds?

In short, if business schools agreed with Pfeffer and Fong ( 2002 ) that business school research has little impact on the practice of business and wanted to remedy this situation, it would require a declaration that they were no longer accepting the monopoly of the academic guilds However, advocates of such a remedy should consider the words of William Faulkner:

“The past is never dead It’s not even past.” Even 800 years later, the guild system thrives in academia It is not dead It is not even in the past

REFERENCES

Bennis, W. G., & O’Toole, J (2005, May) How business schools lost their way

Harvard Business Review , 96–104

Bok, D (1986) Higher learning Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press Bosk, C. L (1979) Forgive and remember: Managing medical failure Chicago,

IL: University of Chicago Press

Collins, R (2002) Credential infl ation and the future of universities In S. Brint (Ed.), The future of the city of intellect: the changing American university

Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press

Davenport, T.  H., Prusak, L., & Wilson, H.  J (2003) What’s the big idea? Creating and capitalizing on the best management thinking Boston, MA:

Harvard Business School Press

Epstein, S. R (1991) Wage & labor guilds in medieval Europe Chapel Hill, NC:

University of North Carolina Press

Epstein, S.  R., & Prak, M (2008) Introduction In S.  R Epstein & M.  Prak

(Eds.), Guilds, innovation, and the European economy (pp. 1400–1800) Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press

Hambrick, D.  C (1994) What if the academy actually mattered? Academy of Management Review, 19 (1), 11–16

Haskins, C. H (1923/1957) The rise of universities Ithaca, NY: Great Seal Books Hofstadter, R., & Metzger, W. P (1955) The development of academic freedom in the United States New York, NY: Columbia University Press

Karabell, Z (1998) What’s college for? The struggle to defi ne American higher cation New York, NY: Basic Books

Kerr, C (1963/2001) The uses of the university Cambridge, MA: Harvard

University Press

Khurana, R., & Spender, J. C (2012) Herbert A. Simon on what ails business

schools: More than ‘A problem in organizational design’ Journal of Management Studies, 49 (3), 619–639

Lambert, J. M (1891) Two thousand years of guild life Hull: A. Brown & Sons Pedersen, O (1997) The fi rst universities: Studium generale and the origins of university education in Europe Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

Pfeffer, J., & Fong, C. T (2002) The end of business schools? Less success than

meets the eye Academy of Management Learning and Education, 1 (1), 78–95 Renard, G (1918) Guilds in the middle ages London: G. Bell and Sons

Smith, A (1776) Wealth of nations, Book I London: Methuen & Company Walford, C (1888) Guilds: Their origin, constitution, objects, and later history

London: George Redway

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2016

E.W Miles, The Past, Present, and Future of the Business School,

DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-33639-8_4

In the history of the university and the university-situated business school, there have been four critical junctures Three of these have been critical junctures for the university overall, while having specifi c implications for the business school One has been specifi c to the business school The fi rst one—the pseudo-Humboldtian infl uence—is a critical juncture for the university Since the rise of the medieval university in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, a primary focus of the university has been on establishing and discussing truth and knowledge However, interestingly, the inter-pretations of what is meant by “truth” and “knowledge” have changed dramatically In the medieval era, the Catholic Church was the central institution in Europe Religion and the church were central to every-day life Therefore, “truth” was found in the Bible; to be accepted as legitimate, all ancillary “knowledge” had to be reconciled with this truth (Hofstadter & Metzger, 1955 ; McLaughlin, 1952 /1977; Powicke, 1926 ; Wittrock, 1993 ) For example, this requisite connection between truth and knowledge is the reason Galileo ran afoul of the Catholic Church for promoting his espoused knowledge that the earth was not the center of the universe Actually, this phenomenon was not isolated to the Catholic Church After the Protestant Reformation, Kepler had similar problems with the Lutheran Church for espousing astronomical knowledge that could not be reconciled with religious views of the time

Because universities had become successful at extracting privileges from the popes and kings, these privileges provided for university faculty a degree

Critical Juncture I: The  Pseudo- Humboldtian Infl uence