As an educational hotspot, London is a forerunner laboratory of
simultaneous neoliberal policies, deregulation, and powerful
governmental interventions in Western Europe. The
UK’s crowded capital hosts around 40 university-based, degree-awarding
business
schools. In addition, an eclectic mix of 200
various kinds of operators offer business and management degrees,
including a
large number of so-called ‘alternative providers’
(APs). Despite a unifying ‘London factor’, we assert that there is no
single
business school business within this stratified and
heterogeneous educational hub. More specifically we ask, what types of
business schools exist in London, and how have they
emerged? Based on empirical analysis, we present a typology of five
kinds
of business schools: Physics Envy, Pluralist,
Production Line, Pragmatist, and Phony. We argue that our typology helps
to
understand both historical diversity and recent
emerging models. More importantly, the typology helps to anticipate the
potential
impacts of higher education policies and thus makes
it possible to describe, explain, and predict new forms of business and
management education.