The chapter elaborates on how the practice of teaching seems to be changing towards more seminar-type discussions of key dilemmas, with students coming from diverse backgrounds, that they would draw on. This means a new role for the professor (now a catalyst, discussion leader, synthesizer), and with the classroom simply being an ordinary flat-floored room with round tables. The physical space, in general would be open, to facilitate discussions and reflective learning

This chapter falls into these related parts. The first deals with research: why it is different today than before, why a library is no longer essential, as well as the training of faculty members to become good researchers. Strong, relevant research is a key driver for marketing, and the Dean/President typically would play a key role here, above all by communicating effectively key research findings. The Dean/President is typically also critical in finding a reasonable balance when it comes to how much resources that is spent on research verses on marketing.

The chapter starts with the changing roles of the faculty as well as the Dean/President in a fast, flexible, networked setting, with outsourcing and a slimmer core. This network reality is seen as key to cope effectively with contextual macro shifts, especially when it comes to implementing key curricular change. The Dean/President is seen as critical here, in the sense that he/she represents a “top-down” dimension, which might not only be key when it comes to driving key changes, but also for effective faculty mentoring and for quality assurance. This top-down orchestrator role is likely to become even more central in the business schools of the future. The choice of new Dean/President is thus becoming even more critical, discussed at the end of the chapter.

This chapter discusses in detail what might be key features of a so-called network-organized business school verse a more traditionally organized one. These particularly key features of the networked school are discussed in detail: the critical importance of trust among members of a network, that cooperate and compete among network members typically might be the norm, and that creativity tends to flourish in such network-orientated groups. These examples of such network-orientated educational institutions are then discussed in terms of approaches, experiences (pluses and minuses), as well as outlooks: the Lorange Institute of Business, SHARE, and the Lorange Network.

The final text chapter of the book starts out delineating five key factors likely to shape the future of business schools in general. It then makes the point that various forms of blended learning are likely to become more and more prevailing, and the ways in which good business schools might be managed might become more ambiguous. To measure progress shall thus become more and more key. An emerging new business school context shall thus have to take into account the need to be cost-effective, make space for changing study preferences, and allow for more tailoring of the curriculum, all within school network settings, discussed in the previous chapter.

This chapter discusses eight key dilemmas that typically tend to be faced by leading business schools. Each of these call for carful trade-offs and balancing. These dilemmas might include:

1. - Research and teaching practice

2. - Growing and being profitable

3. - Innovation and status quo

4. - Degree programs an in-company programs

This chapter provides a main argument for why business schools may be facing needs to fundamentally change perhaps more today than before. “New” pedagogy is available to make effective change happen, above all, so-called blended learning. But indeed several factors seem to slow down business schools’ capabilities and willingness to change, including a typically too strong focus on achieving favorable so-called ranking. It is the changing need of business itself, the key “customer”, that provides the main inputs for change, and the chapter concludes with a discussion of 10 such factors.

This chapter gives eight cases that illustrate how modern technology might be changing the nature of various learning programs, how multiple locations might yield positive results but also pin-point some of the challenges of a multi-campus approach, how given specific courses might impact the evolution of entire academic institutions, and how multi-dimensional, boundaryless approaches might lend to more innovative approaches. Each of the eight examples are chosen as pointing towards what might become more or less standard in the future.

This chapter picks up where the previous chapter ended, mainly to discuss how emerging competition impacts the evolution of the modern business school. Several key challenged are identified as potentially slowing down evolution, among which conservatism among key faculty members and the culture in a business school that these create might be paramount. The chapter then discusses how emerging pedagogical innovations seem to further accentuate the need for change. The emerging computer-based technology combined with practical “learning on the job” seem particularly key here. The chapter concludes by discussing what might be some of the key shortcomings that business schools now might face to cope with the challenge to evolve. A fragmented, silo-orientated, organizational structure often seems to represent a particular challenge here.

This chapter deals with the critical issue of developing an effective culture, to more readily allow for innovations, say in research or in pedagogy. Partly such a change-prone culture might be impacted from the Dean/President at the top. Partly also there must be a bottom-up focus at work. And, it is this positive tension between top-down and bottom-up that might lead to an effective change culture. Ethics are of course key here, to inspire “good can become even better”.