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This paper aims to explore the early days of business education with the aim of understanding how the Harvard Business School (HBS) contributed to the constitution of “management” as a science-based profession. The research focuses on HBS signature pedagogy, the case method and its role in the institutionalization of managerial knowledge.

The research is based on a qualitative content analysis of HBS Annals published between 1908 and 1930. Through a manual coding of the Annals, the paper traces the diffusion of the case method in the curriculum and connects it with the institutional transformations that took place between 1908 and 1930.

The data show how HBS curriculum transitioned from lectures to case teaching in the aftermath of First World War. This pedagogy allowed HBS to demonstrate the possibility of systematically investigate management problems and to deliver business education at scale. The discussion argues that the case method, acting as a boundary object between business praxis and management theories, constituted management as a science-based profession.

Recent debates have emerged about case method’s ability to critically question socio-economic structures within which business is conducted. This paper contributes to the debate arguing that the historical and institutional factors leading to the affirmation of this pedagogical approach had a substantive role in the type of knowledge produced through its application. The findings challenge the idea that the affirmation of the case method is attributable to its epistemological primacy in investigating business problems.

This issue is a selected bibliography covering the subject of leadership.

The Harvard Advanced Management Programme (AMP) is the oldest, largest and most elite of the university executive development programmes. It grew out of the need to re‐train large numbers of executives as the economy shifted from a peace‐ to a war‐time footing in the early 1940s. The programme became so popular that it spawned over 30 other executive development courses at other top business schools, as well as countless specialised short university courses for executives. After the war, the AMP helped executives regain a peace‐time perspective. The AMP has been going strong since then and at present counts thousands among its alumni. The current fee is above $17,000 for the 13‐week session, space is limited and admission is competitive.

This paper provides a profile of the 1,454 business chair professorships in the United States in 1997. The five disciplines covered are accounting, economics, finance, management, and marketing. The University of Pennsylvania had the largest number of chairholders in business in 1997. Three other schools that had more than 40 chairholders each were Harvard, Northwestern and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Harvard produced the highest number of graduates serving as chairholders followed by Chicago, MIT, Texas at Austin, Illinois, and Stanford. Most of the schools that produced large numbers of chairholders are listed among the best business schools in the United States.

Keio University has been in the vanguard of adult business education since 1956 when it introduced American management techniques into Japan by initiating the annual one‐week “Keio‐Harvard advanced management programme” for top businessmen in Japan. But it was not until 1978 that Keio Business School (KBS) began to offer the MBA programme, a two year full‐time course heavily influenced by the style of business education at Harvard. It remained the only educational institution in Japan to offer an accredited postgraduate business education qualification until the late 1980s. With a recent government reform in postgraduate education, however, it faces competition from both emerging part‐time and one‐year full‐time MBA courses at other universities in Japan, as well as from overseas MBA programmes. Reports on the results of two surveys carried out among its alumni which show that, while the graduates’ support for the existing programme is overwhelming, they also point out the danger of complacency and rigidity which the School needs to overcome in adapting to the changing needs of the business community.

Aim of the present monograph is the economic analysis of the role of MNEs regarding globalisation and digital economy and in parallel there is a reference and examination of some legal aspects concerning MNEs, cyberspace and e‐commerce as the means of expression of the digital economy. The whole effort of the author is focused on the examination of various aspects of MNEs and their impact upon globalisation and vice versa and how and if we are moving towards a global digital economy.

The purpose of this paper is to document contributions to the early study and teaching of marketing at one of the first universities in Britain to do so and, in that way, to contribute to the literature about the history of marketing thought. Given that the first university business program in Britain was started in 1902, at about the same time as the earliest business programs in America, the more specific purpose of this paper was to explore whether or not the same influences were shared by pioneer marketing educators on both sides of the Atlantic.

An historical method is used including a biographical approach. Primary source materials included unpublished correspondence (letterbooks), lecture notes, seminar minute-books, course syllabi and exams, minutes of senate and faculty meetings, university calendars and other unpublished documents in the William James Ashley Papers at the University of Birmingham.

The contributions of William James Ashley and the Commerce Program at the University of Birmingham to the early twentieth-century study and teaching of marketing are documented. Drawing from influences similar to those on pioneer American marketing scholars, Ashley used an historical, inductive, descriptive approach to study and teach marketing as part of what he called “business economics”. Beginning in 1902, Ashley taught his students about a relatively wide range of marketing strategy decisions focusing mostly on channels of distribution and the functions performed by channel intermediaries. His teaching and the research of his students share much with the early twentieth-century commodity, institutional and functional approaches that dominated American marketing thought.

William James Ashley was only one scholar and the Commerce Program at the University of Birmingham was only one, although widely acknowledged as the first, of a few early twentieth-century British university programs in business. This justifies future research into the possible contributions to marketing knowledge made by other programs such as those at the University of Manchester (1903), University of Liverpool (1910) and University of London (1919).

This paper adds an important chapter to the history of marketing thought which has been dominated by American pioneer scholars, courses, literature and ideas.

Posits that every enterprise must institutionalize its workplace learning systems and opportunities in such a way that it radiates what it has already achieved and from this moves on to realize its full potential – in short, the enterprise itself is the key. Examines in successive chapters: the individual manager and questioning insights (Q); the major systems which the enterprise uses to capture and structure its learning; a SWOT analysis of the enterprise′s total learning; action learning, its contribution to the achievement of enterprise growth, and the role of programmed knowledge (P); the Enterprise School of Management (ESM) as a phoenix of enlightenment and effectiveness rising from the ashes of traditional, less effective management training initiatives; and, finally, the practical realization of the action learning dream, as evidenced by emerging examples of successful and profitable implementation worldwide. Concludes with a selection of pertinent abstracts.

This piece is a republished autobiography of Alfred D. Chandler, Jr.

Chandler reflects on his life and career as a management historian.

Chandler reflects on his life and career, in particular how he came to write Strategy and Structure and its impact on him as a historian. He also discusses his life at Harvard Business School, the editing of the Roosevelt letters, and the writing of The Visible Hand.

This is excellent background material for the other papers in the issue, as well as a valuable personal insight into Chandler's own thinking.

This paper aims to review the evolution of management education primarily over the last 50 years and seeks to identify the challenges and lessons learned in management education and to assess the potential for change. To gain insight into these issues the authors draw on the perspectives of around 40 key individuals from academia, professional bodies, media, business and students.

The content of the paper is based upon a qualitative analysis of around 40 two‐to‐three hour interviews of key global players in the management education field.

The key stakeholders in management education are identified as students, business and employers respectively. But in terms of relative stakeholder influence faculty, business and students are the top three influencers. Faculty represent the supply‐side whereas business and students represent the demand side of management education. There is evidence that higher tuition fees may increase the power of students and business relative to faculty. The individuals who have had the greatest influence on management education are academics such as Mintzberg and Drucker rather than business school deans or administrators. Institutions such as INSEAD, IMD and Harvard have had the greatest influence. The main issues and challenges identified in Management Education include information technology, globalisation, the role of faculty, competition and business model performance. Few game changing innovations in curricula have occurred in management education raising the question of how change will occur in the future.

There are few in‐depth, open‐ended interview studies of key participants in the field of management education. It adds insights to a range of more reflective literature studies from writers such as Khurana, Mintzberg and Pfeffer.