Being Good Versus Looking Good; Business School Rankings and the Circean Transformation From Substance to Image

We have no doubt that AMLE over the coming years will be an excellent forum for theory and research relevant to teaching, learning, and education more broadly. Our purpose in this inaugural issue, however, is to call attention to some metaforces that have dramatically affected the character of management education in the United States and now are spreading internationally. Sometimes the things that most affect education occur outside of education. Sometimes (hose things are of education's own making. Most times, however, they are a combination of external forces and internal willingness to be co-opted by those forces. The forces of greatest moment in the management education domain are the media rankings of business schools. We argue that the rankings are producing an accelerating, Circe-like transformation of business schools from substance to image, a phenomenon that deserves our understanding and proactive engagement.(1)