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Public relations scholarship has drawn on organisational legitimacy theory to show how organisations appeal to stakeholders’ acceptance of their existence and importance in society. Studies have shown how different types of organisations utilise communication strategies in social media to gain legitimacy. This chapter contributes to public relations research by examining how a sample of business schools implemented legitimation strategies in their social media posts when their legitimacy was threatened. The findings show that when ten world-class European business schools faced declining institutional rankings between 2016 and 2019, they made use of four legitimation strategies—authorisation, rationalisation, moralisation and mythopoesis—in their Facebook posts as they sought to regain their legitimacy. peerReviewed

PurposeThis paper critically examines how female students at a Finnish business school understand gender in management.Design/methodology/approachThe analysis is based on female students' learning diaries from a basic management course.FindingsThe findings show how students respond to the topic of gender inequality through a neoliberal postfeminist discourse. The students' discourse is structured around three discursive moves: (1) rejecting “excessive” feminism, (2) articulating self-reliant professional futures and (3) producing idealized role models through successfully integrating masculinity and femininity.Originality/valueThis article contributes to current understanding of the role of postfeminist sensibilities in shaping student participation in the management profession. Awareness of students' responses to gender-equality initiatives offers management educators insight into the inclusion of equality topics in teaching in ways that support equal gender socialization in the management profession.

Responsible management education (RME) has become a common initiative in the educational discourse of business schools worldwide. However, little is known about how (non-)engagement with RME in the past influenced the way RME is organised today. We examine this in one of the pioneering countries of RME, Finland, using extensive qualitative research materials. Our results suggest that RME has been embedded with authenticity-driven change (local context and research) since the 1990s. In the late 2000s after the legal educational reforms implemented in Finland, the prestige-driven change (accreditations) began to shape the embedding of RME. In the 2020s, both the authenticity- and prestige-driven changes with vertical and horizontal RME, respectively, often appear as hybrids. This article discusses both the weaknesses and strengths of these approaches in embedding RME. peerReviewed

Modern business schools exist in a complex world of rankings, ratings, and credentials. Some argue that in increasingly competitive global higher education markets, signaling status and quality has actually become more important than having them (Gioia & Corley, 2002; Trank & Rynes, 2003). For many contemporary business schools, international accreditations have become key means and first steps in pursuing legitimacy and global status. In this essay, we elaborate in detail on a business school’s international accreditation process, including its motivations and outcomes. We conclude that while accreditation processes are, at best, fruitful quality improvement exercises, the inherent motivations stemming from the urge for organizational legitimacy, status, and reputation should not be overlooked by either the accrediting agencies or business schools themselves. Ironically, while accreditation agencies (AACSB and EQUIS are those focused on here) rarely explicitly encourage competition, their exclusivity seems to generate it between schools that aspire to belong to “the club.” For schools that gain access to the process, this means that on the flip side of the happy and collaborative jump in quality there is a much more serious demarcation and revealing redefinition of the accredited entity’s future supporters, collaborators, partners, and competitors. peerReviewed

Purpose This study reviews the literature on business-school (b-school) competition and competitiveness to extend our understanding of b-schools’ competitive strategies. Design/methodology/approach Both content and network analysis were used in the examination of the scholarly discourse. Findings The analyses distinguish three literature streams. The first concentrates on resources, capabilities and competencies; the second focuses on measures of competitiveness; and the third includes competitive dynamics and strategy discourse. The analysis shows that the conceptions of competitiveness are quite coherent concerning resources, capabilities and competencies. However, in the “measures of competitiveness” and “industry dynamics and strategy,” discourses were more diverse, indicating greater ambiguity in how the core competencies, capabilities and resources are portrayed as competitiveness outside the institutions. The literature suggests that the measures and indicators of competitiveness are ambiguous to external stakeholders and, furthermore, reflect institutional goal ambiguity. Originality/value The question of how, and to what extent, increasing competition in management education and research catalyzes unwelcome changes in the industry has been of great concern to management educators and scholars. This has given rise to a considerable body of literature referring to b-school competition. Despite its topicality, this discourse has remained theoretically fragmented and separate from the mainstream strategy literature. Therefore, this study provides a review and critical discussion of the current state of research on b-school competition, as well as proposes avenues for future research and tools for strategic management of b-schools. peerReviewed

In business school contexts, the relationships between the learning approach, wellbeing, study success, and employment expectations have not been widely studied. In this paper, we analyze learning approaches and student wellbeing in a Finnish business school. We found a significant relation between them and success in business school studies and employment expectations. Major-subject related differences in approaches to learning were observed. For example, social relations were particularly emphasized by students of marketing. More specifically, we found seven learning approaches: 1) Independent learners, 2) Teacher-centered learners, 3) Social learners, 4) Fumbling learners, 5) Theoretical learners, 6) Integrating learners and 7) Practical learners. All in all, the learning approach is a combined result of several issues and several learning approaches can be adopted by business school students, but ultimately independent and integrated approaches to learning lead to the best academic results especially in the major subject studies. peerReviewed

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