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Emma Bell believes traditional textbooks have a powerful but under-appreciated value as a way for academics to communicate their insights to a wide range of managers.
“Unlike published research papers, which are only read and used by a small number of people and often use language that is difficult for business professionals to understand, textbooks are used by thousands of students around the world. “It’s been read and used by many people,” says Professor Bell. The organization and leadership of the Open University.
However, such efforts typically remain poorly recognized within academia. She argues that textbook authors “can be seen by their colleagues as doing less important and prestigious work than academics who receive large grants and publish in ‘top’ journals.” .
“It is important that we challenge these hierarchies of knowledge production and celebrate the value of all academic research that brings about positive change in the way people think and behave around the world,” Bell added.
she is not alone. Professor Yves Pigneur of the University of Lausanne, along with co-author Alexander Osterwalder, said: “If we want to have a real impact on practitioners (entrepreneurs, innovators, etc.), we have to turn our ideas into reality. It has not been previously published in articles or books.
Both scholars are on the list of principal authors of texts assigned to students in business and management courses at universities around the world.
Data for this list comes from an organization that collected 21 million publicly available English syllabuses from approximately 7,500 universities in more than 120 countries in an effort to share educational resources, including 2.5 million business, accounting, and finance syllabi. This is what I got from an Open Syllabus. Ms. Bell is one of the most widely referenced female academics, thanks to a textbook she co-authored with Alan Bryman and Bill Hurley titled Business Research Methods, but she is also a cited author. The list as a whole is heavily biased towards male authors.
open syllabus approach
Open Syllabus is a nonprofit organization supported by philanthropy that aims to promote innovative curricula, foster lifelong learning, and facilitate potential student transfer between institutions.
The analysis shows which books (and some articles) teachers rate the most and recommend on their reading lists. Many are derived from business and management courses and provide a useful indicator of the dissemination of scholars’ ideas.
“Universities do two things: teach and research,” says Joe Karaganis, director of the platform. “Research leaves a public record, but education was a black box.”
This analysis cannot measure the full impact on learning because there is no data on class size, let alone whether students read the assigned text. However, it does provide valuable insights, such as the range of important topics and the gender of lecturers and cited authors (the former is becoming more parity in recent years, while the latter is still heavily biased towards men).
The group also excludes public datasets from the syllabus in some countries where there is interference with academic freedom and transparency could threaten courses or instructors.
Pigneur and Osterwalder’s book Business Model Generation: A Handbook for Visionaries, Game Changers and Challengers ranks 8th overall. However, the most widely cited author is Philip Kotler, whose books include Marketing Management and Principles of Marketing. His influence has propelled Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management (where he is now Professor Emeritus of Marketing) to a top position among business schools in supporting educational resources.
The open syllabus list has limitations. We can only collect publicly available course information, and coverage varies by institution and country. FT’s data analysis to identify leading business schools with widely cited academic books is also complicated by multiple editions and often an increasing number of authors. And how to attribute that affiliation when moving between different institutions.
However, this is a start in tracking and recognizing those who see value in disseminating their insights to a broader audience, despite traditional inhibitors within academia. “The incentive comes from the desire of academics to have this influence, and barriers can sometimes come from deans and colleagues who are obsessed with rankings,” Pigneur says.
“If business schools want to impact society in the way they advocate, good ideas emerging from research must take a more unconventional path than a more or less esoteric journal article. It has to be embraced and even encouraged, and this book illustrates this very well.”
