Professional School Obsession: An Enduring Yet Shifting Rhetoric by U.S. Business Schools
本文追溯美国商学院自称专业学院的百年修辞演变，揭示其反复参照医学、法学等已获认可学院的模式，并指出回归理想化过去的建议徒劳，未来应聚焦目的与权力。
Over the past two decades, prompted in part by a series of corporate scandals, different views have been voiced about whyU.S. business schools have purportedly lost their originalambitiontobecomeprofessional schoolsand, thus, tomakemanagementa"true" profession, and how this ambition could be restored. This paper puts these debates into a longer-termperspectivebyshowingthatsuchclaimshavebeenpresentformorethanacentury. Thepaperexaminestheevolvingrhetoricoftheprotagonistsandtheircriticsoverfive periods, eachmarkedbydifferentcontexts,whichshapedtheambitions of schools ofbusiness to be recognized as professional schools. These claims, the paper shows, had a common thread for over 100 years, which was the recurring reference to other professional schools-namely those ofmedicine and law, and at times engineering,which had already achieved the coveted status when U.S. business schools first originated. We ultimately argue that, given the rhetorical nature of these claims, suggestions that business schools lost theirwayoroughttoreturntosomeidealizedpastarelargelyfutile.Futurediscussions should therefore focus on purpose and power rather than profession.