Paul Danos, Dean Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth.
I had the opportunity to be on a panel at the Academy of Management conference in Hawaii last August where much of the discussion revolved around the value of academic research in a management program. Here are some of the thoughts I tried to express in that session:
When I look at the central question of value of research in a business school setting, my belief is that the understanding of business processes, best practices, theories, and methods will all grow in importance. In general, business professors who are leading researchers know, as well as anyone, best practices, and the efficacy of those practices. They have the advantage of studying a cross-section of companies and therefore they can generalize their findings beyond the single company or industry; and their research success depends on rigorous review of their work.
In the debate about the value of academic business research, one central question must be considered: What process is best at developing and teaching knowledge of business to our students? I believe that the research process, as practiced in top business schools, offers the best approach to giving students a forward looking and relatively accurate picture of the world in which they will work.
Some people criticize professors for a lack of understanding of general management processes and here the appeal is usually to a lack of “real business” experience for faculty and for students. I agree that some of what is important to an MBA student can be best taught experientially. For instance, areas like teamwork, leadership, ethics, and negotiations require some hands-on work, but even in those cases, research can and should inform the coverage.
Most of the material in the elective courses taught at Tuck is based on our faculty's expertise derived from their research, and I know the same is true for many other schools. These electives are very highly rated by students for relevance and effectiveness.
On balance, I believe in rigorous research as a way of unfolding knowledge of important business processes. I understand that different fields have different challenges in making progress and therefore are at different points in their development. Top researchers in business schools know a great deal about what can and cannot be legitimately said about those processes, and for the most part they work on important topics and are quite honest about what they know.
In general, there is much to admire in the schools with good MBA programs-innovation and response to markets, coverage of leadership, ethics, teamwork, entrepreneurship, technology, community action, communications, teaching quality, career development, and alumni services. In addition, business schools have found ways to support good research and professors have found ways to have that research become part of the learning process. In general, I know of no professional programs that have done more.
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