Opening the Governance of Business Schools: A Multi-Stakeholder View of Performance

Business Schools, while ubiquitous in institutions of higher education, educating a significant proportion of graduates, face an unprecedented challenge to their legitimacy and suffer from the fragmentation of performance measures. Many measures are conferred by stakeholders disconnected from governments and policy makers responsible for funding higher education. This has a profound influence on both the management of business schools and the capacity of scholars to conduct rigorous, evidence-based research on performance in ways relevant to a wider spectrum of stakeholders. To confront this challenge, a multi-stakeholder working group (MSWG) was established to facilitate collaborative inter-institutional research focused at studying the management and practice of business schools. The MSWG defined a multi-phase, multi-year integrated research plan. The first phase, and the focus of this paper, identifies the most relevant outcome measures of business schools. The work began with extant assessments and id...