Management Education in the UK: The Roles of the British Academy of Management and the Association of Business Schools
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8551.2011.00764.x |
| Date | 01 September 2011 |
| Published date | 01 September 2011 |
| Author | Swapnesh Masrani,Allan P. O. Williams,Peter McKiernan |
Management Education in the UK: The
Roles of the British Academy of
Management and the Association of
Business Schools
Swapnesh Masrani, Allan P. O. Williams
1
and Peter McKiernan
2
School of Management, University of Stirling, Stirling FK9 4LA, UK,
1
Cass Business School, City University,
106 Bunhill Row, London EC1Y 8TZ, UK, and
2
Strathclyde Business School, University of Strathclyde,
Glasgow G1 1XQ, UK
Corresponding author email: swapnesh.masrani@stir.ac.uk
This paper uses institutional theory to analyse the role of the British Academy of
Management (BAM) and the Association of Business Schools (ABS) in gaining
legitimacy for management education in the UK. By the 1980s, serious issues
surrounding rigour and relevance were being asked about UK business schools that
raised concerns about the legitimacy of management as a discipline. A major
consequence was that management received relatively low research funding compared
with other social science disciplines from key funding bodies, e.g. the Economic and
Social Science Research Council. Using archival and interview data, we examine how
BAM and ABS, as professional bodies, applied multiple approaches aimed at improving
the quality of management research and teaching to gain legitimacy from influential
external agencies. An unintended consequence of these actions has been an increasing
isomorphism in management research and education in the UK. Although some of the
original concerns still remain with regard to management education, both organizations
have been successful in increasing the external perception of legitimacy.
Introduction
Europe has a deep legacy in formal management
education. This stems from the first business
school in Lisbon (Portugal) in 1759, through the
Ecole Superieure de Commerce de Paris (France)
in 1819 and the German Betriebswirtschaftslehre
in the late 19th century to the Catholic-influenced
institutions in France, Portugal, Spain and Italy
at the turn of that century. Prussian administra-
tion influenced the founding of Wharton in 1881,
although US business schools began earlier at
Louisiana and Wisconsin in 1851 and 1852
respectively (Spender, 2008). In the UK, if we
recognize the Staff College at Hayleybury (train-
ing centre for administrators of the British East
India Company) as equivalent to these institu-
tions, then its establishment in 1805 pre-dates all
but Lisbon (Witzel, 2009).
In the UK, technical-based professional insti-
tutions, such as the Institution of Mechanical
Engineers (1847), the Institute of Chartered
Accountants (1880) and the Chartered Institute
of Secretaries (1902), led the way in education
and training during the growth of the Empire.
Institutions more closely associated with ‘man-
agement’ gradually emerged as the need arose for
specialized managerial skills to confront the new
challenges of competition, knowledge growth and
complex organizational forms, e.g. the Sales
Managers’ Association in 1911 (now the
Chartered Institute of Marketing); the Welfare
British Journal of Management, Vol. 22, 382–400 (2011)
DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-8551.2011.00764.x
r2011 The Author(s)
British Journal of Management r2011 British Academy of Management. Published by Blackwell Publishing Ltd,
9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA, 02148, USA.
Workers’ Association in 1913 (now the Chartered
Institute of Personnel and Development); and the
Institute of Industrial Administration in 1920
(now the Chartered Management Institute).
These developments were founded on strong
leadership, such as Urwick (Brech, Thomson
and Wilson, 2010), Rowntree (Wilson and
Thomson, 2006) and Elbourne (Elbourne, 1934).
Academia was slow to engage with manage-
ment education, despite the setting up of the
Faculties of Commerce at the London School of
Economics (1895) and the Universities of Bir-
mingham (1902) and Manchester (1904), because
it was seen as too practical and insufficiently
academic. Moreover, in the 19th and first half of
the 20th centuries, the dominant attitude of
management was that leaders were ‘born and
not made’. All this meant that UK technical
colleges, with their closer associations with the
professional institutions, were ahead of UK
universities in regarding management education
as a legitimate area of study (Thomas, 2008).
The first business schools in the UK to be part
of the higher education sector were the London
and Manchester Schools, which were created on
the recommendation of the Franks Report
(Franks, 1963), with the support of the Founda-
tion for Management Education (FME)
1
(Nind,
1985) and the government-established National
Economic Development Council (Rose, 1970).
However, a significant marker was reached when
Urwick’s report on Education for Management
proposed that a Diploma in Management be
introduced in technical and commercial colleges
(Urwick, 1947). This meant that by the time the
London and Manchester Business Schools
recruited their first cohorts of Master of Science
students, some technical colleges, polytechnics
and colleges of advanced technology had grad-
uated several cohorts of Diploma in Management
Studies. This stream of students continued to
grow when the Council for National Academic
Awards (CNAA) was created in 1964, to approve
qualifications in non-university institutions.
Meanwhile, the university sector embraced the
subject with increasing vigour from the early
1970s to the mid 1980s, with many management
initiatives beginning in departments or schools of
economics that provided an intellectual ‘impri-
matur’. In parallel, the success of the Academy of
Management in the USA provided leading UK
academics with the inspiration to form the British
Academy of Management
2
(BAM) in 1986, with
its first conference at Warwick Business School in
1987. This was followed closely by the formation
of the Association of Business Schools (ABS) in
1992, to represent the voice of UK business
school deans.
These humble and hesitant origins of UK
management education made it impossible to
predict its rapid growth over the next 50 years. In
2009, almost one in seven of all students in UK
universities was studying business and manage-
ment. This achievement was all the more
impressive when one considers the challenges
facing business schools during the 1970s and
1980s, many of which persist today. They can be
categorized as follows.
Research and funding
1. Many business schools were being used as
‘cash cows’ by their parent university.
2. Colleagues in established academic disciplines
questioned the academic credibility of those in
management, particularly when all were com-
peting for resources from the same financial
pool.
3. Insufficient recognition was being given to
business schools for their potential contribu-
tion to the national economy, and therefore
for their involvement in the development of
policies relating to economic and social affairs.
4. Employers felt that the emerging business
schools were failing to meet their needs.
1
The FME was formed in 1960 by a group of influential
business men who saw a link between superior American
productivity and US business schools.
2
BAM’s original aims were (a) to encourage the sharing
and development of a research knowledge base for all
management disciplines; (b) to act as a forum for the
various disciplines in management and to encourage the
development of an integrated body of knowledge
commensurate with management as a profession; (c) to
encourage and promote disciplinary research and
collaboration amongst the various management disci-
plines; (d) to further the development of management
education in the UK.
Management Education in the UK 383
r2011 The Author(s)
British Journal of Management r2011 British Academy of Management.
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