From ‘Teaching’ Schools to ‘Knowledge’ Schools: The peculiar dilemma of Business Schools in emerging Economies

The reason for the existence of business schools has been a debated one. Many fingers too have been pointed to the problems that ail business schools. In fact, business schools have been accused of turning into academic institutions far disconnected from business reality. There are also those who claim that the study of management has been turned into an academic discipline, thus shifting away from what they were set up in the first place for, which is improving management competence (Griffiths & Murray, 1985) (Brown, McCartney, & Clowes, 1996). Moreover in the developed world it has been seen that there is a gap between what gets espoused as business theory and what gets practiced in the world of business. This particular imbalance isn’t restricted to business teaching but also extends to business research. Business schools have thus been prompted to consider escaping the confines of their ivory towers (Crainer & Dearlove, 1998) without in any way taking away from what is standard academic rigor as practiced in other professional schools. There has been a general agreement that business school research operates in a sphere of isolation that reduces its industrial relevance. There have been many prescriptions on how this anomaly can be addressed including, regaining management as a profession (Bennis & O'Toole, 2005) (Khurana, 2007), developing a critical lens for conceptualizing managerial problems (Grey, 2004), and recommending evidence based approaches (Pfeffer & Sutton, 2006b) (Rousseau & McCarthy, 2007) (Rousseau, D. M., 2006). As much as there have been studies on what ails business education in developed economies, there have almost been none in the developing world. The developing world is where businesses and industries are on the growth path. The proliferation of commercial business concerns has been matched pace for pace by Business Schools. Yet this parallel proliferation has brought with it peculiar problems that are also unique. Business Schools, having adopted the ‘outside-in’ approach have been forced to toe the ‘skill-requirement’ line from industrial firms. In terms of immediacy, addressing this ‘skill- gap’ has found paramount importance among business schools. This is in effect have turned them into teaching schools that spend all their resources and energies on placement readiness. It is well known that Business Schools in developing economies have turned into teaching schools that spend all their resources and energies on placement readiness. This research paper focuses on understanding this peculiar phenomenon and proposes on how the dilemma of having to produce industry ready graduates can be managed, so business schools can turn in business ready research high in their potential for industrial application.