“A mass of publications that are read by few and have little influence… an exaggerated focus on methodology and intellectual appearance.”
These are just some of the criticisms Anthony Hopwood levels at the academic research coming out of business schools in a column in today’s FT. Prof Hopwood is a former dean of Oxford’s Saïd Business School. He says business academics are too concerned with publishing arcane articles for their peers instead of writing for working managers.
In the column he also takes a pop at the highly-regarded London Business School, as well as criticising the FT. Prof Hopwood claims our business school rankings – which reward institutions for research output, among many other things – contribute to the obsession with getting “hits” in esoteric journals rather than creating ideas of value.
Is Prof Hopwood right to criticise business academics? Readers might also want to take a look at the column written last week by Charles Baden-Fuller of London’s Cass Business School; it claims that US supremacy in business school research will end.
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