BizEd

MayJune2002

Issue link: http://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/63444

Contents of this Issue

Navigation

Page 50 of 67

themselves in a global market as well. According to Financial Times, among the top 50 schools, 30.8 percent of faculty is international. This globalization of the market for faculty is feeding another major crisis facing traditional business schools today—Ph.D. shortages. When good researchers and teachers have job options anywhere in the world, the pressure to recruit top faculty becomes even more intense. Not surprisingly, Ph.D. holders who want to teach find The No. 1 Problem In fact, the challenge that surmounts all others in this field is the shortage of doctoral faculty, what the METF's report calls "the choke point in realizing the future vision for busi- ness schools." Not only has the production of doctoral can- didates in the U.S. dropped by 19.3 percent in recent years, fewer new doctorates are expressing an interest in entering academia. Yet as the current faculty ages and retires, and schools worldwide expand their enrollments and staffs, there is a greater need for doctorally qualified faculty. The Management Education Task Force suggests several Leading the Charge for Change Judy Olian is chair of the Management Education Task Force, which is charged with analyzing the current state of the management educa- tion field—and coming up with suggested solutions. Olian, who is dean of the Smeal College of Business Administration at Pennsylvania State University in Univer sity Park, discussed challenges facing management edu- cation and the METF's strongly worded recom- mendations in its recently issued report. solutions for dealing with the shortage. Business schools can consider Ph.D. graduates from other disciplines; they can join with other schools and take advantage of advanced tech- nology to offer virtual seminars to doctoral candidates; they can work to make academic careers more attractive to mid- career businesspeople by focusing on hot-topic areas such as entrepreneurship and e-business; and they can expand exec- utive Ph.D. programs to channel academically qualified indi- viduals into teaching. More radically, the report advises schools to take a long, hard look at some of their own traditions of giving promo- tions and granting tenure, as well as their treatment of non- traditional faculty members. "These traditions do not reward clinically experienced faculty and are impervious to market shortages for doctorally qualified business faculty," notes the report. "The question for AACSB members is the extent to which business schools can alleviate what ulti- mately may be self-inflicted Ph.D. shortages, while continu- ing to preserve the research and inquiry values at the core of university traditions." Can you create a context for the changes that are affecting business education today? Traditional business schools are facing an incredibly competitive landscape in a continually chang- more business students traveling between the U.S. and abroad, in both directions. Students today look at the world of business schools as a truly global set of BizEd MAY/JUNE 2002 ter of them are two-year, full-time MBA students. Third, we're seeing more and tion where a majority of MBA stu- dents are full-time traditional stu- dents taking classes during the day, to a situation where only one-quar- to decline as many more non- accredited schools award degrees. Second, we've gone from a situa- ing environment. First, the per- centage of total degrees awarded by traditional schools continues 49

Articles in this issue

Archives of this issue

view archives of BizEd - MayJune2002