The ‘industry’ side of the academic job of business educators

The nature of the business school’s products

The ‘company’ (business school) I work for, among other business schools, produces and sells a semi-luxury type of service that is highly valuable to potential business professionals, namely, the BBA, MBA and PhD degrees in various business fields. Liking our products and having enough money to pay for them are not sufficient conditions for potential customers to purchase them. Customers must formally apply to us and pass stringent examinations, and often need to submit strong letters of recommendation documenting their suitability and worthiness for buying and using our products.

The contract terms for our products are typically for several years and, if buyers decide to end their contracts with us ahead of contract completion (graduation) schedule, their prior investments often have limited value outside their relationship with us. To obtain maximum benefit from our products, the buyers must devote hours, days and months, often full-time and forgoing salary-earning pursuits, to process and digest the materials we provide them with, and they must complete many assignments and pass numerous tests beyond the required entrance examinations. On rare occasions, if the company we work for as educators duly determines that a buyer is not sufficiently hard-working in using our products to benefit fully from their consumption experiences with us, the buyer might be placed on probation or even be disqualified from receiving the company’s service, despite their continued willingness to pay.

My routine tasks as an educator

In my work, I actively participate in new product development (developing new courses, degrees and specialty majors), conduct ongoing research on customer needs and experiences, get involved in strategic planning and decision-making (at business school and departmental levels) and directly produce and deliver the core company service to the customers (by teaching various courses). I also attend industry (academic) conferences regularly to keep aware of the latest trends in our industry (business education and research) and share my perspectives on pertinent industry topics. As a front-line employee, I further directly interact and work with customers on a regular basis and always represent the company’s (the university’s) brand image in doing so. I also assume the function of a marketing researcher in interacting with customers by collecting feedback on their core service experiences with me – assessing, documenting and reporting them – and hear and help to address any grievances they may have with me (on such issues as grading or the amount of learning in my course) or my company. I also get involved in helping to ‘sell’ the professional service of our educated customers to potential companies (the recruiting employers) who may benefit from it. I further receive training and support from my company in what I do, participate in new employee recruitment efforts, engage in cross-team (interdepartmental) collaboration and get involved in company (business school or department) management as a professor. As a business school professor, I further devote extensive time and effort to studying the successes and failures of various businesses to draw lessons from them to inform my daily work (teaching and research).

The industry I work for is also one of the most competitive among all US industries, exporting billions of dollars of (business education) services to numerous paying customers from other countries, aside from producing major economic and social impacts within the United States. It also supports a vibrant ecosystem of related industries, such as the Graduate Management Admission Test (GMAT) and the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) preparation services, and admissions facilitation services. As a long-standing member of this industry, I might say that I have a reasonable understanding of the core competences and unique value propositions of various brands and business models, and am knowledgeable about evolving customer needs, innovation and new product development trends, behind-the-door company operations and international market entry strategies.

My field of work in the company (university)

My specific type of work in the company (the academic area of Marketing) has to do with market studies, competitive analysis, market segmentation, customer value design, positioning, the development of integrated marketing strategies, customer identification, customer acquisition, customer service, customer maintenance, customer development, management of customer relations and customer experiences. Every day, I spend time studying and devising ways of better performing these essential tasks vital for any company or organization. Samples of my most frequently considered issues include how the downfalls of Blockbuster and Sports Authority could have been avoided, why the high-tech showering products by Aqualisa could not sell smoothly at their initial launch, how the law firm of Hale and Dorr could expand its sales and what has made Uber and Salesforce particularly successful. And one of my favoured research projects is how companies and brands can successfully enter and penetrate international markets.

While the above summary focuses on specific duties of Marketing educators, all business school educators share similar responsibilities in new product development, service operations and customer experience management in relation to the core customers of business education, our students.

I therefore invite the readers to help evaluate the industry nature of our academic job as business educators. Are the above knowledge sets and experiences not practical enough? Are they not ‘industry’ enough? What else could we add to our résumés to enhance our standing as professionals with ‘industry’ experiences.

Final reflections

A better understanding of the true practical nature of the academic job could benefit both academia and practice in at least three ways. First, it could motivate more practitioners to call on business educators to help analyse, formulate strategies for and solve some of their pressing business challenges, benefitting from the educators’ particular operational, strategic and theoretical skill sets and vantage points. Second, a better practitioner–academic connection could help to align business school curricula with current industry trends and advances. Third, it would allow more business educators and, indeed, their non-business colleagues, to view themselves as customer-facing and multi-purposed business professionals so they could develop stronger customer orientations and business acumen in serving the fundamental educational needs of the students, regardless of the major, who will join the industry workforce after graduating.