“Never Let a Good Crisis Go to Waste”: How Consulting Firms Are Using COVID-19 as a Pretext to Transform Universities and Business School Education
- Publisher:
- Academy of Management
- Publication Type:
- Journal Article
- Citation:
- Academy of Management Learning and Education, 2023, 22, (3), pp. 425-438
- Issue Date:
- 2023
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During the first two years of the COVID-19 pandemic, major management consulting firms published numerous reports calling for “revolutionary” change in universities, including business schools. Leaders should use the crisis as an opportunity to transform their institutions into digital platform businesses, resembling Spotify or YouTube. By critically analyzing these reports this essay seeks to make three contributions. First, at the university level, I conceptualize these recommendations as an expression of extreme neoliberalism, consisting of “crisis opportunism” and “libertarian utopianism.” Second, moving to the business school level, I argue that the influence of management consultants provokes a professional paradox, especially among management educators. This has significant implications for the legitimacy of business school academics. And thirdly, I propose that the business school community is uniquely positioned (vis à vis other schools in the university) to challenge extreme neoliberalism. Three avenues of resistance are posited, focusing not only on consulting firms but their clients too - senior university executives.
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