Research in French Business Schools: Too much or not enough?

Research for French business schools is now in my opinion at a crossroad: most of them have reached a level of investment which is threatening their budget while continuously being under pressure to do more. Let’s give some historical background.

Until the 90’s, most of the research in management was done at universities in France and in management, it was not really fantastic in terms of international influence (we had research of international caliber in economy, econometrics, financial mathematics or sociology which was very close to management but no French researcher was really known internationally in “pure” management research). And in business schools, it was close to nothing with lots of the academics without a PhD, and many practitioners.

Then came the “international accreditation game” where most of the French business schools in the top 10 entered into an in-country competition to get accredited by AMBA, EQUIS and AACSB.