The Academy of Management conference each summer brings together large numbers of faculty from business schools, mostly from the United States but also from other countries. Amongst the sessions on strategy at this year’s event in Philadelphia, discussions expressed disquiet about the state of the subject and its status in departments and teaching in business school. Observations and feelings reported include:
- ratings for strategy courses are falling, and students are dropping strategy classes
- other subjects [Economics, Marketing, OB, Operations, Entrepreneurship] are stealing segments of what used to be strategy courses
- young Faculty can’t be found to teach strategy because it needs real-world experience which they don’t have, and the frameworks available for them to teach with are weak and not especially relevant to real-world challenges
- top recruiters, especially the strategy consulting firms complaining MBAs don’t know anything useful about strategy
There was a general call for something that consolidates strategy’s key role, to provide integration amongst the other subjects of the curriculum.
Is this your experience, whether as a teacher, student, or recruiter?