Business schools are facing criticism for favoring research while failing to emphasize teaching. Does it really have to be a tradeoff?
Today, we present two articles that turn a provocative page in this debate. Roy J. Lewicki, the Irving Abramowitz Memorial Professor at the Ohio State University Fisher College of Business, published “The Administrator as Superhero: A Commentary on Balkin and Mello’s ‘Facilitating and Creating Synergies Between Teaching and Research: The Role of the Academic Administrator’” on May 21, 2012 in the Journal of Management Education (JME).
The original article argued that academic administrators in business schools need to play a “critical leadership role” in increasing the linkage between research and teaching, even serving as role models for faculty. Read the article, co-authored by David B. Balkin of the University of Colorado at Boulder and Jeffrey A. Mello of Siena College, in JME by clicking here.
Dr. Lewicki explains in his abstract:
As a way to achieve better alignment of the ongoing teaching–research activity gap in business schools, David Balkin and Jeff Mello suggest that schools need to hire academic administrators with significantly developed management skills. The author responds to this recommendation with two concerns. First, many of the causes of the research–teaching gap are deeply embedded in the structure of the academic reward system and beyond the control of the academic administrator. Second, if academic administrators are to achieve what they propose, we need far better selection and training of these administrators.
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