Why is theology better funded than business and management?

Despite being the second largest REF submitter, business ranks 30th of 34 disciplines on research income per FTE, says Robert MacIntosh

Published on
July 4, 2022
Last updated
July 6, 2022
Robert MacIntosh
A businessman in three-piece suit holds an English bowler hat, and umbrella in front of the London Stock Exchange. To illustrate that business and management studies should be better funded
Source: Getty (edited)
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Reader's comments (7)

#1 Submitted by timothy... on July 4, 2022 - 6:54am
What this does not also say is that business schools are uniformly pillaged by their institutions. According to your own article (https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/business-schools-squeezed-more-cash-despite-enrolment-woes) business schools pay 62% of their income to their parent institution. Think of it this way ... more money from a business student's tuition goes to subsidise other students' education. Over 60% of foreign students study business (with the vast majority in MSc programmes) simply because that is the fastest and biggest way to keep the beast alive (and hence one reason I have argued for breaking up universities -- https://www.timeshighereducation.com/opinion/universities-must-be-forced-compete-alternative-models). This invariably also leads to spillover effects of higher teaching load -- business schools have higher average teaching workload in terms of the number of courses and the number of students taught -- and hence less time to generate quality scholarship and other activities. Business schools are the university equivalent of teh coal stokers in the Titanic. There is also the belief that business schools are not as intellectually 'solid'. However, the vast majority of Nobel Prize winners in Economics are associated with business schools (and ironically far less often with economics departments). It is also one reason universities in the UK keep a stranglehold on business school operations (via the use of pliant deans) because they know that the golden goose needs to be tended by someone loyal.
#2 Submitted by craig.... on July 4, 2022 - 1:38pm
I agree, but feel compelled to point out that there is no such thing as a Nobel Prize in Economics.
#3 Submitted by timothy... on July 5, 2022 - 10:08am
Indeed! I actually thought about that when I wrote it!
#4 Submitted by craig.... on July 4, 2022 - 1:45pm
Whether intended as such or not, the ranking of journals in the ABS's "guide" is widely used at business schools for the purposes of recruitment, tenure, promotion, and financial remuneration. The sooner that ABS stops producing it, the sooner these unsavoury practices will stop.
#5 Submitted by acerpacer on July 5, 2022 - 7:22pm
To be replaced by what? Whims and fancies of some head of the department or the Dean? This will only create plenty of opprtunites for people to de discriminated against, encourage sycophancy, breed more yes people. Unless there is a clear and transparent system for progression and promotion, where decisions are made by a committe that can think for itself, the ABS list is pretty much the only transparent thing there is. The ABS publishes exactly how they come up with the rankings, the panel etc. will the system that replaces it be as trasparent? The unsavory practices are not the result of the ABS list it is the result of unethical, biased management who care nothing about the careers of the people they manage whose attitude is take it or leave it.
#6 Submitted by graff.... on July 4, 2022 - 7:11pm
Come on! Dig your heads out of the sand! Business schools are financed by contract research business corporations and organizations. And by successful alumni. This is to whom they in turn contribute. "Research" and "researcher" have different meanings in Colleges or Schools of Business. You also need to control if Economics is located in Business of Social Sciences. These authors need a course or more in research....
#7 Submitted by timothy... on July 5, 2022 - 10:08am
Actually business schools in the UK have very little alumni donations and do hardly any contract research (far less than in Engineering or Computer Science). Think of it this way, you would have to be an idiot to give money to an institution that is faced with a 62% tax rate on revenues (cash flow is fungible). If you look at major US business schools, they actually lose money on their teaching operations because teaching revenue is taxed (at about 25% in the US) while endowment income is not taxed (so schools have an incentive to raise money and not teach too many students). This is why you have so many endowed professorships as the part of the professor's income that comes from endowment is 'tax free'.

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