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2. THE EVOLUTIONARY OF
MANAGEMENT AND BUSINESS EDUCATION
A broad concept of business education existed during the late 18th and early 19th centuries in the
United States. The education mainly delivered in the form apprenticeships, private or proprietary
business colleges and trade school. During this time, business education focused on vocational
content emphasized on arithmetic, bookkeeping and commercial law competencies with little
respect for managerial or administrative aspects of business operations Risi 2005.
2.1. Social Legitimacy
The history of collegiate management and business education began in the late 19
th
centuries when a wealthy businessman from Pennsylvania, United
States, Joseph Wharton, initiated the first business school institution. Wharton identified a need for
more formalized education for businessmen that would serve courses related to knowledge and
skills required by business communities Risi 2005. In 1881, Wharton funded the establishment
of a new business school in the University of Pennsylvania. The new business school is currently
known as The Wharton School of Finance and
Economy. The School’s purpose was to educate future business leaders who were responsive to a
rapidly changing on business. Initially, the courses were focused on accountancy and commerce, and
then gradually incorporated with the newly developed social sciences such as, marketing,
finance, accounting, business law, and industrial management.
From 1900 to early of the Second World War, the number of management and business education
institutions at higher education level rose significantly Starkey Tiratsoo 2007. The new
institutions mainly offered vocational competencies on the undergraduate level. Their main aim was to
train future generations in management techniques and practices related to business changes Crainer
Dearlove 1998. Yet, during this period, management and business education reached
graduate level when The Dartmouth College’s Amos Tuck School was established as the first
graduate business education offered Master of Commercial
Science degree.
The learning
processes were supported by hiring working or retired corporate managers who focused primarily
on the sharing of lessons learned in the workplace. Unfortunately, the Dartmouth College’s Amos
Tuck School had been criticized since its paradigm not much different with undergraduate program
which was very functional and practical curriculum Friga, Bettis Sullivan 2003. In the same period,
in 1908, the Harvard University introduced the Harvard Business School HBS that offered the
first Master of Business Administration MBA degree. The curriculum was designed to develop
administrative competencies in business rather than narrowly technical business matters. The HBS was
organized into functional departments including accounting, finance, marketing, and management.
The HBS spearheaded a new concept of teaching by using case studies which then recognized as a
powerful interactive learning process for Master degree. The HBS aims to bring the complex and
dynamic realities of business analysis and decision making into the classroom
http:www.hbs.edu .
However, management and business education institutions during this period were filled with
efforts to gain society’s acknowledgment Khurana 2007. The fact was that placing management and
business education within a higher education was not as simply as opening other professional fields
such as, law or medicine. Scepticisms came from
public’s perception that placing business, which was identical to money orientation, in higher
education institutions will decrease a university’s dignity Daniel 1998.
College were for learning, not earning; colleges were to teach how to think not how to
do; college were sanctuaries of peace and tranquillity, not centres for commercial bustle
and turmoil; colleges were guardians of the accumulated wisdom of centuries, not training
grounds for new skills Daniel 1998, p.28
Consequently, during this period, the emerging management and business education struggled to
establish their institutions as bona fide professional schools, and turn management itself into a
legitimate profession like other profession such as law and medicine Khurana 2007; Risi 2005. The
quest of social legitimacy was fortified by the creation of a status hierarchy among the
institutions. In 1916, 17 business schools’ deans established the American Association of Collegiate
Schools of Business AACSB to increase public acceptability
to management
and business
education as well as to address several issues, such as curriculum, learning quality, and academic
excellence Risi 2005 . AACSB mission was “to
transform management and business education at higher education level into genuine professional
schools and a genuine profession” Khurana, 2007: 145. The association is now referred to as the
Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business AACSB.
Briefly, in the early development of management and business education, the aim mostly was to
prepare students for office positions then it
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gradually moved to build skilled workers who technical mastery of business and to instil future
managers a strong sense of their responsibilities as businesspeople.
2.2. Academic Legitimacy
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