Study Suggests Rankings Could Turn Business Schools' Reputations Into Soundbites

Study Suggests Rankings Could Turn Business Schools' Reputations Into Soundbites

Published rankings of business school programs, originally an attempt to quantify academic performance, could be having unintended consequences as the single ranking number becomes the dominant component of a school's reputation.

That's one of the findings from a recent study assessing the effects of business school rankings on the conduct of business education co-authored by two researchers in Penn State's Smeal College of Business Administration.

The study, "The Rankings Game: Managing Business School Reputation," is based on interviews with leaders from the nation's top 50 business schools as ranked by BusinessWeek and U.S. News & World Report . The study is co-authored by Dennis Gioia [stet], professor of organizational behavior, and Kevin Corley, a doctoral candidate in the Department of Management and Organization, and appears in the latest issue of Corporate Reputation Review .

"In little more than a decade, the rankings by various magazines have come to dominate the strategic thought and action of many business schools and, perhaps most notably, their increasing focus on the concept of reputation management," says Gioia. Although reputation has long been a concern of universities and colleges, Gioia notes that until the advent of the rankings, academic reputation had been composed of a set of educational qualities that differentiated one school from another.

"In light of the prominence of the rankings in the industry's and public's consciousness, however, the rankings have usurped any other, more comprehensive view of reputation and transformed it into a soundbite surrogate-the rankings number itself," says Corley.

Multiple rankings of business schools exist, including rankings published in BusinessWeek, U.S. News & World Report, The Financial Times; Working Woman, Computer World and Forbes . The study focused primarily on BusinessWeek and U.S. News & World Report because of their prominence, though as Gioia and Corley point out, each ranking uses different criteria, which means that business schools are pulled in many different directions at once.

"Business schools today actively compete for the top students from around the world, for resources from external funding sources, as well as for recruiting attention from the top global companies," says Gioia. "As indicators of competitiveness, the rankings are widely perceived to be the single most useful gauge of a school's ability or inability to compete in this marketplace."

The good news is that this increased focus on competition has resulted not only in improved MBA programs but also more effective recruiting of students, higher student satisfaction, and better job placement. The bad news is that schools often find themselves facing tough choices about whether to use their scarce resources to satisfy the various rankings criteria or to satisfy educational objectives.

Gioia and Corley point out that business schools now find themselves pressured to enact image management practices in response to the widespread influence the rankings have achieved within society-at-large. They note that this forced reliance on image management tactics raises some important questions: Is image management a desirable activity for business schools? Can modern business schools even survive without image management? Can image management be taken too far?

"The rankings have taken on a life of their own, so schools must not only track them, but actively try to conform to their requirements, as well as try to change them, all the while attempting to maintain the integrity of business education," says Corley.

The researchers believe their findings suggest a cautionary concern that academia, improperly managed, could be in the process of transforming itself into something of an illusory industry. That's a possible outcome if the single ranking number becomes the dominant component, or worse, a single soundbite index of a school's reputation for prospective students, corporate recruiters, funding agencies, and other stakeholders.

"Academia has always had the problem of few 'objective, bottom line' measures of performance or effectiveness, so subjective perceptions of performance historically have reigned," says Gioia. "The introduction of the rankings as an attempt to quantify, and therefore objectify, academic performance arguably has had an unwitting, opposite effect. The rankings have forced schools to play what amounts to a game of illusion with very tangible consequences."

"Perhaps predictably, playing that dangerous game has produced an environment where substance is no longer seen as sufficient, merely necessary, and image has become increasingly important."

Although the game has progressed steadily over the last decade, Gioia and Corley note that their findings do point to things that can be done to help protect the integrity of business education.

"One example is to have ranking data audited by an independent organization and made publicly available. This would ensure a measure of integrity to business school rankings themselves and help the students and corporations that rely on them have more confidence in the process," explains Corley.

Corley and Gioia note that their research has implications not only for gaining insights into the management of reputation in academia, but also for understanding relationships among image and substance in a world increasingly dominated by the media.