INTRODUCTION

Never before has management education been the subject of such intense scrutiny and critical onslaught. Academics, the business press and the media all point out that business schools have failed to prepare students adequately in terms of the appropriate skills, and specifically in instilling ethical and leadership qualities (Cheit, 1985; Hayes and Abernathy, 1980). For example, Bennis and O'Toole (2005) ask why ‘business schools have embraced the scientific model of physicists and economists rather than the professional model of doctors and lawyers’. They suggest that management professors favour the disciplinary prestige of high-ranking academic journals but note that few actually practise management, unlike professional counterparts such as surgeons in medical schools, who may still perform surgical operations. It is typically the case in business schools that tensions often exist between the pursuit of rigour and relevance in research and the need to focus on both academic and professional practice (Grey, 2002; Zell, 2005).

This re-evaluation of business schools has been prompted not only by their success but also by questions about the legitimacy of business and management as academic disciplines. Business schools have clearly been one of the major success stories and one of the fastest-growing areas in university education (Pfeffer and Fong, 2002). However, their image, identity and status, as both academic and professional schools, have come under critical scrutiny in recent years, particularly during the current financial crisis and in the context of prior corporate scandals, such as Enron in the United States and Parmalat in Europe.