REPUTATION MANAGEMENT AT HIGHLY RANKED BUSINESS SCHOOLS IN THE UNITED STATES

A business school’s reputation is a valuable intangible asset. Reputations have been found to influence human behavior related to applications, enrollments, faculty hiring, donor giving, and graduate employment. Despite these findings, there remains room for more research into the defining characteristics of business school reputations. Likewise, reputation management practices at business schools remain largely undocumented. This qualitative study was based on interviews with twenty senior leaders at three highly ranked business schools in the United States. Through thematic analysis, this research captured how the reputations of the business schools were defined and articulated. Five primary drivers of reputation were identified, namely 1) faculty research output, 2) graduate career outcomes, 3) performance in rankings, 4) curriculum design and content, and 5) the dean, along with three important antecedents, summarized as 1) time, 2) quality people, and 3) financial resources. Interestingly, teaching quality and learning outcomes were not found to be drivers of reputation. Findings regarding the durability, evolution, and spread of reputations were also identified. The three business schools took different approaches to managing their reputations, with none judged to be superior to the others. Participation in rankings was deemed an imperative for reputational reasons at all three business schools, but only one of the three made reputation management decisions that were deliberately influenced by ranking methodologies.A new definition of reputation is proposed which acknowledges: the coexistence of multiple reputations held at the individual level; that reputations manifest emotively as well as cognitively and communicatively; that reputations impart intangible value in the form of pride, motivation, prestige, and in other ways; and that reputations are not only based on what a business school does, but also what it says and what others say about it, such as how a business school is represented in popular culture. These results provide new anchor points for further research into how reputations are conceived of and managed at business schools and other types of higher education institutions, and in contexts beyond higher education. For practitioners, this study provides instructive information for the development of reputation management strategies.

Author dc:creator

• Dalik, Andrew

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Eynon, Diane, E

• Education
• Management Sciences

Language dc:language.iso

en

Repository record dc:identifier.uri

https://repository.upenn.edu/handle/20.500.14332/60530

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:repository.upenn.edu:20.500.14332/60530