Business schools operate in highly dynamic internal and external environments. This chapter approaches schools of business management systems as integrated networks that emerge as responses to the demands poised by diverse constituencies. Integrated networks operate efficiently when considerations such as business cycle patterns, information exchange and cooperation, critical processes, and organizational designs are believed to be about the influence of internal and external factors. It is concluded that integrated networks help to explain the ways in which schools of business may achieve their mandate of providing quality educational results while managing the increasing environmental pressures bestowed upon them by internal and external educational environment. It is also concluded that since there is no one best management model for academic institutions, to adopt a continuous screening of the business school environment becomes a central element behind its ability to thrive in a competitive environment.
TopIntroduction
As of 1977 when describing the fundamental nature of learning systems Doherty (1977) wrote: “Management´s function in learning systems is superior to all others (Performance architecture, programed instruction, costs, and economics) because management organizes all these other functions in such way as to produce a profit or a cost benefit” p. 247. The former sentence can be applied to business schools that are results driven. They are organized and assessed according to outcomes previously defined. The management of a school of business is affected by both internal and external factors. Management practice in different economic activities has evolved from a closed-system, internal-environment orientation; into an open-system, external-environment perspectives. A core outcome in the school of business is the theory of management. Nonetheless, its practice is also a major element in their performance and a direct influence in the fulfillment of its role and social responsibility. So it can be argued that universities as a whole and by extension schools of businesses can be approached as economic entities that are not devoid of this trend. Moreover, within the school of business management team and leader efforts are now devoted to manage relations to external parties such as governmental agencies, professional associations, and financial institutions as much as they are related to the management of faculties, facilities, students, and academic communities.
The Dean of a modern school of business spends a considerable amount of time and energy managing external relations to a point in which in many instances, internal operations are delegated to a cadre of associates that manage faculty, program, and operations matters. Demands of an ever challenging environment are shaping the role in directions akin to that of CEOs of Companies (Kring & Kaplan, 2011). Schools of business operate with standards and procedures aimed to cater to the demands of internal and external stakeholders. Nonetheless, once internal, process-type matters are streamlined into routine activities, the emphasis moves to adapting the strategy and the managerial efforts to cater to the demands of an ever-changing external environment. This emphasis on the external environment by the top management is not recent or new. Nonetheless, the current set of economic, social, and technological conditions possess challenges that are reshaping the universities and schools: The role that technology, globalization and the economic condition fostered by it, and the new realities of jobs and organizational markets are fueling these changes (Friga, 2003).