A Multiple-constituency, Status-based Approach to Interorganizational Mobility of Faculty and Input-output Competition among Top Business Schools

A study of inputs (students and new faculty) and outputs (MBA and Ph.D. graduates) of 20 business schools found that status perceived by certain stakeholder groups (constituencies) affects the mobility of individuals between schools and limits the competition among schools for student inputs and for output placement. The study examined schools that differed in status perceived by three constituencies: the national business community, the academic community, and MBA students. The results indicate that, depending on their status in the opinion of different constituencies, the schools engaged in different degrees of student input creaming, scrambling for inputs, input targeting, input avoidance, and output streaming (all terms developed as part of the model proposed herein). The results suggest that in Ph.D. markets, status hierarchies tend to make groups of schools a closed system, leading to homosocial reproduction of senior faculties and social isolation and immobility for certain Ph.D. graduates. Barriers appear to be created between the subsystems of schools. One major theoretical implication of the study findings is that status hierarchies define patterns of social ecology of business schools and limit competition for resources. One practical implication of the study findings is that schools are at a disadvantage in competing for student inputs and placing MBA and Ph.D. graduates if they lack status in the national business community. High status in the opinion of students and academics is not associated with all of the advantages afforded by status in the national business community. Hence, teaching and research strategies designed to achieve status among students or academics alone may not be as successful as those that have relevance to the broader “real world.”