Driehaus College of Business faculty members are among the world’s most prolific scholars of research about business education, according to two new studies.
DePaul business professors ranked No. 2 for producing research about marketing education and No. 6 overall for generating business and management education (BME) research among approximately 1,900 institutions surveyed internationally.
Management Professors Robert S. Rubin and Dan Koys, Associate Professor of Management Erich Dierdorff, Marketing Chair Stephen Koernig (MBA ’94), Associate Professor of Marketing Joel Whalen and Associate Professor of Accountancy Cindy Durtschi were among DePaul faculty members whose research was noted in the survey.
“These studies highlight the growing recognition of business and management education research as a critical business discipline in its own right,” says Rubin, an associate editor for the premier management education journal Academy of Management Learning & Education.
“That Driehaus faculty are so prominently represented among this scholarly community is evidence of the overall commitment that the college of business makes not only to good teaching, but also to engaged, evidence-based teaching practice.”
Rubin, whose research focuses on MBA curriculum and quality, noted that “it’s not enough to experiment with new teaching methods; we have a professional obligation to examine the effectiveness of such methods.”
One of the study authors, Ben Arbaugh, management and human resources chair at the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh, said the purpose of the survey was to identify and cultivate a cross-disciplinary community of scholars who share best practices for business school teaching and program management.
“Our hope is that scholars increasingly will engage in BME research, that business schools increasingly use such work to inform their educational practices, and that BME-active schools will articulate to their external stakeholders how such research informs and improves their educational practices,” he says, “thereby presenting highly compelling cases for why parents, employers and other stakeholders will want to send prospective students to these schools.”
The findings were presented at the Academy of Management’s annual meeting in August and will be detailed in forthcoming journal publications. Arbaugh co-authored the studies with Charles Fornaciari, Alvin Hwang, Regina Bento, Carlos Asarta and Kathy Lund Dean.
By Robin Florzak
