Building on the notions of organisational typologies
and taxonomies, this study aims to explain the diversity within the business
school field through multidimensional approaches. Based on our empirical
analysis of the business school field in London, specifically 46 business
schools, the study constructs five non-exclusive configurations of business
schools: formidable science-based (élites, e.g. Imperial, UCL), familiar (respected
brands: Cass, London Business School, LSE), factory (metropolitan undergraduate
institutions such as Westminster Business School), foreign (non-traditional,
alternative and national and overseas branch campuses, e.g. ifs, BPP, Coventry
University London, Chicago Booth), and fraudulent (Rayat London College). These
include Simon’s vision of excellence both in academic performance and engagement
with business practice, as well as variations in high, low and medium
performance on multiple dimensions. The objective of this study is to develop
concepts and methods for categorising business schools. Our research questions
are: Why are business schools different and how different are they?