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MayJune2014

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20 May/June 2014 BizEd but the same forces will soon affect the rest of higher education. As other schools on campus search for ways to retain relevance, more of them are moving into spaces that business schools have owned for a long time, such as entrepreneurship and innovation. Engineering schools are develop- ing entrepreneurship centers; social sciences schools are setting up programs that for all practical pur- poses are the equivalent of MBAs. How should business schools respond? We could say, "This is our territory and we're going to fight for it." Or we could partner with those other schools to turn out professional students who are ready to work. We could share what we know, which makes our programs even more relevant. When we take the latter course, we have the chance to work with faculty in a wide range of other disciplines, including social psy- chology, economics, engineering, health sciences, and the arts and humanities. And when we work with other faculty, we open up new opportunities for collaborative, interdisciplinary research. Today many governmental funding agencies—such as the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, and the Department of Defense—do support basic scholarship, but they also specify more than ever that it must have a translational element. These funding agencies want to know how the work ultimately will be applied. Translating research to the real world requires entrepre- neurship skills and the ability to bring discoveries to market, and that's knowledge the business school can supply. Therefore, especially at research- oriented universities, I predict that an increasing number of faculty from other departments will part- ner with business faculty to con- duct research and apply for grants and contracts. And as business professors work with faculty from engineering and environmental and psychology departments, they will change not only what kind of research they conduct, but also where they publish it. Let me give some examples from my own institution, the Rady School of Management at the Uni- versity of California San Diego. Along with UCLA and UC Irvine, we are competing for a piece of a US$150 million grant in the area of stem cell research. To win the grant, faculty need a very solid section that deals with how to translate the research to the real world, how to take the discovery to market, and how to conduct clinical trials. Business faculty can supply that information. Mean- while, faculty at the Rady School recently conducted research about what occurs in emergency rooms. Looking at the ER as a job shop, they studied issues such as how the staff deals with patients and what level of satisfaction the patients feel. The resulting data was pub- lished in a journal about improving emergency room medicine. Like the Rady faculty, business professors could soon be publishing in journals they've never considered before—if they embrace the rest of the campus and work across disciplines. Five years ago, we wouldn't have expected business faculty to publish in Sci- ence or Nature. Today, we wouldn't find it unusual. In the past, business school faculty might not have been inter- ested in publishing in nonbusiness journals because such scholar- ship might not have helped them get tenure or promotions. But today, because the new standards emphasize impact, research will be accepted even when it appears in other professional journals— though to be clear, many of those publications are also peer-reviewed. Today's business research still needs to demonstrate impact, it just doesn't have to be an impact on business. This latitude on where research is published inevitably gives faculty more liberty to pursue research in other areas of interest. Next Steps It might take a little time before we fully realize how much the new standards could affect the way business professors conduct research. And it might take time before business schools and other departments on campus develop fruitful partnerships. But the truth is, the nature of business education is changing. It's being delivered in different formats, it's reaching different students, and it's being paired with many other disciplines. And as education changes, research must change as well. Robert S. Sullivan is dean of the Rady School of Management at the University of California, San Diego, and chair of the board of directors for AACSB International. ETS® Proficiency Profile • iSkills™ Assessment • ETS® Major Field Tests Copyright © 2014 by Educational Testing Service. All rights reserved. ETS, the ETS logo and LISTENING. LEARNING. LEADING. are registered trademarks of Educational Testing Service (ETS). ISKILLS is a trademark of ETS. 25895 NEWS! ETS is leading the way to help business programs achieve the program-specific information necessary to support accreditation and accountability requirements for programs in the United States, Europe, Asia and other regions, as well as combined programs. The ETS® Major Field Test for Bachelor's Degree in Business is now available for use around the world. ETS Major Field Tests have a successful track record of helping institutions in the United States show that students are mastering their major. Now, you can use Major Field Tests to measure student learning outcomes of bachelor's degree business programs outside the United States for accreditation and accountability initiatives, curriculum improvements and to demonstrate the effectiveness of your business program. And ETS Major Field Tests include national comparative data on business-specific titles from nearly 1,000 U.S. programs and hundreds of thousands of students. Learn more about ETS Major Field Tests at www.ets.org/learning_outcomes ETS Introduces … Measuring Outcomes in Bachelor's Degree Business Programs — Around the World must have a translational element. These funding agencies want to know how the work ultimately will be applied. Translating research to the real world requires entrepre- neurship skills and the ability to bring discoveries to market, and that's knowledge the business professors could soon be publishing in journals they've never considered before—if they if they if paired with many other disciplines. And as education changes, research must change as well. Robert S. Sullivan is dean of the Rady School of Management at the University of California, San Diego, and chair of the board of directors for AACSB International.

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