Latour and Woolgar’s ‘cycle of scientific credibility’ as a basis for conceptualizing business school strategy

Chris Ivory () and Helen Shipton ()
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Chris Ivory: Anglia Ruskin University
Helen Shipton: Nottingham Trent University

Review of Managerial Science, 2020, vol. 14, issue 2, No 4, 379-391

Abstract: Abstract Drawing on contemporary and historical discourse around UK business schools and insights from the sociology of scientific knowledge, we argue that business schools should be understood and judged, not as they typically have been, as engines of knowledge production, but as engines of credibility production. Credibility, we argue, is central to the attractiveness of business schools to students and other key stakeholders and therefore credibility, and the mechanisms through which credibility are maintained, should be at the center of strategic thinking within business schools. We argue that over-reliance on funding from corporate sources can have profound consequences for the ability of schools to continue to produce credibility. This article focuses primarily on the experiences of business schools in the UK.

Keywords: Third-party funding; Reputation; Credibility; Knowledge production; Business schools (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I22 I23 I28 M10 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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DOI: 10.1007/s11846-019-00363-2

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