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# Evolution of academic research in French business schools (2008-2018): isomorphism and heterogeneity

Patricia Laurens, Christian Le Bas, Linh-Chi Vo

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Patricia Laurens, Christian Le Bas, Linh-Chi Vo. Evolution of academic research in French business schools (2008-2018): isomorphism and heterogeneity. International Journal of Teaching and Case Studies, 2024, 14 (4), pp.361-383. 10.1504/ijtcs.2024.10064663. hal-04666299

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Submitted on 1 Aug 2024

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# Evolution of academic research in French business schools (2008–2018): isomorphism and heterogeneity

## Patricia Laurens

Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS),
Université Gustave Eiffel,
5 Bd Descartes, 77420 Champs-sur-Marne, France
Email: patricia.laurens@esiee.fr

## Christian Le Bas and Linh-Chi Vo*

ESDES,
Lyon Catholic University (UCLy),
Lyon, France
and
UR CONFLUENCE: Sciences et Humanités (EA1598),
Lyon Catholic University (UCLy),
Lyon, France
Email: clebas@univ-catholyon.fr
Email: lcvo@univ-catholyon.fr
*Corresponding author

**Abstract:** In the perspective of institutional theory, business education is an institutional field, in which two major institutional forces are accreditations and rankings. In this context, French business schools (BS) have adopted an isomorphic response by starting to engage in research and publishing in academic journals. Studies have discussed their research as a new institutional trajectory. However, what remains unknown is how they differ from each other in such research dynamics. To bring new insights to the discussion, this quantitative study examines, over the period of 2008–2018, the evolution of research of French BS by systematically comparing the ‘best’ schools with other schools in all analyses. The results indicate a strong isomorphism in terms of publication quantity and productivity, scale of research collaboration and the internationalisation of research. However, these schools are heterogeneous in terms research quality and scale of international research collaboration, reflecting the diversity in their research strategy.

**Keywords:** business schools; academic research; isomorphism; institutional theory; France.

**Reference** to this paper should be made as follows: Laurens, P., Le Bas, C. and Vo, L-C. (xxxx) ‘Evolution of academic research in French business schools (2008–2018): isomorphism and heterogeneity’, *Int. J. Teaching and Case Studies*, Vol. X, No. Y, pp. xxx–xxx.

**Biographical notes:** Patricia Laurens is a researcher in the CNRS. She holds a PhD in Chemistry and conducted research in laser-matter interaction for 15 years. Then, she was interested in bibliometrics and indicators of science and innovation. She spent six years at the French Observatoire of Science and
Technologies (OST) as the Project Manager conducting studies using indicators for charactering thematic fields of S&T, national research systems or EU FP programmes. Since 2010, she has joined the IFRIS/LISIS at University Gustave Eiffel, an institute dedicated to science and technology studies. She currently works on the corporate innovative activities and participates to RISIS, an infrastructure project funded by EU to build a distributed infrastructure on data relevant for research and innovation dynamics and policies.

Christian Le Bas was a Full Professor of Economics and Management of Innovation at the ESDES until September 2022 (Catholic University of Lyon). After this date, he is an Honorary Professor of Economics (Catholic University of Lyon) and associated researcher in Institute of Sustainable Business and Organization (ESDES). His previous research programmes include multinational corporation internationalisation of R-D, the scale and drivers of environmental innovation (in green energy technologies particularly), the innovation behaviour in relation to CSR, the study of recent types of innovation (sustainable, frugal and ‘below the radar innovation’). His very recent research topics are the economic analysis of the recent paradigm of technological frugality, frugal innovation and economic dynamics in developing economies, the determinants of innovation and innovation policy in low-income economies, intelligence artificial and frugal innovation in LDCs.

Linh-Chi Vo is an Associate Dean for Research at the ESDES, Lyon Business School, UCLy. She is also a Professor of Strategic Management. She obtained her PhD at the Ecole Centrale Paris. Her research interests are pragmatist philosophy, microfoundations of CSR, institutional theory and cross-cultural management. Her research has been published in journals such as *Organization Studies, Human Relations*, and *Journal of Organizational Behavior*, among others.

# 1 Introduction

Business education is an institutional field, where the structure is well established with clear identities of global and national elites and players (Antunes and Thomas, 2007). In light of institutional theory, this field can be characterised by normative institutional forces, which govern the ‘business’ of business schools (BS) (Durand and Dameron, 2011). Institutional forces trigger the process of institutionalisation (Meyer and Rowan, 1977) and isomorphism (DiMaggio and Powell, 1983), in which BS imitate each other by incorporating models and procedures of business education that are rationalised and predominant in the industry (Antunes and Thomas, 2007). They become isomorphic, in other words, identical in behaviour (Meyer and Rowan, 1977), thus, in structure, culture and results (DiMaggio and Powell, 1983). On the other hand, scholars have admitted that not all organisations responded similarly to institutional processes (Boxenbaum and Jonsson, 2008). BS can be active in strategising and manipulating institutional pressures (Oliver, 1991) or time, space, and local competition introduce variation in their response despite a full internalisation of institutional pressures (D’Aunno et al., 2000).

In the business education field in France in particular, there have been two important institutional forces. One is accreditations (both national and international). For example, in Europe, the European Foundation for Management Development (EFMD) has created the accreditation labels EFMD accreditation (for programmes) and EQUIS (for
institutions). Across the Atlantic, a similar initiative has been developed by the Association for the Advancement of Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB), which has extended its services and accreditation process to outside the USA. These international accreditations require BS to perform on all aspects of their mission, of which faculty qualification and research are important components for some international accreditation bodies. In France, the National Commission for the Evaluation of Training and Qualifications in Management (Commission d'évaluation des formations et diplômes de gestion - CEFDG), which was created in 2001, also emphasises the importance of research in its evaluation for the granting of the master's degree (CEFDG, 2005). BS rankings by press, magazines, or academic institutions also play an important role. Well-known international rankings include those developed by Shanghai University and the *Financial Times*. At the national level, the French national press, such as *L'Étudiant*, *Le Figaro*, *Le Point* and *Le Parisien*, all provide their own rankings. Like accreditation, this mechanism takes into consideration research as one of the assessment criteria, giving it an important place in the activity of the schools.

In this context, French BS, although having the traditional role of providing academic programmes (Courpasson and Guedri, 2007), have become isomorphic to the extent that they follow the rules of the game regarding research activities and operate accordingly. Research has taken a central role and has become an inherent element of their mission, alongside teaching and professional training. BS practices have converged towards an intensification of research, defined as a quest for high visibility and the attraction of the best talent, all guided by a quality imperative imposed by international and national accreditations and rankings (Blanchard, 2015). The very profession of researcher has been transformed to become more specialised and researchers collaborate more and more on international co-writing (Monin, 2017). As a result, publish and perish, which describes the pressure on academics to publish in scientific journals rapidly to obtain employment, promotion and maintain their job, has become a doctrine among French BS (Moosa, 2018).

However, despite the general perception that French BS has been following the isomorphic pressure of doing academic research, the very few studies, which systematically review the research activity of BS from a quantitative point of view (Mangematin and Belkhouja, 2015; Dubois and Walsh, 2017), focus only on some few top schools and ignore the ones at the lower part of the rankings. This limits our understanding of the entire landscape of French BS, which includes not only top and elite schools, but also the lower-ranked ones, which are historically linked with the training and education needs of local chambers of commerce and financially supported by companies anchored in the regions (Antunes and Thomas, 2007). Therefore, little is known about the heterogeneity in isomorphic responses of French BS to create a fundamental place for research. The following questions remain unanswered: to what extent are the BS isomorphic in their research activities? To what extent are they heterogeneous? Does the structure of the field, i.e., the distinction between elite schools and followers (Guillotin and Mangematin, 2018), remain after the upsurge of research among all BS? Responses to these questions are important in characterising the field of French management education.

The purpose of this article therefore, is to address these unexplored issues. Specifically, we study 36 French BS (see Appendix), which are recognised by the state and deliver master's degree that is endorsed by the Ministry of National Education
(Blanchard, 2015). As the field is characterised by the separation between elite schools and lower-ranked schools (Antunes and Thomas, 2007), with the former taking the lead in doing research and latter joining the game at a much later stage, we divide these 36 schools into two groups: the group occupying the top 10 places in national press rankings and the group of 26 other schools. In this way, we can reveal insights about the heterogeneity in their isomorphic responses to the above institutional forces by comparing their research activities in terms of publication volume and growth, publication quality, research productivity, research collaboration and international collaboration in research during 2008–2018. We draw on Scopus database documenting publications in academic journals from this period and conduct a bibliometric analysis. In this way, we rely on academic publications as indicator of research activity. Our results confirm the general insight that all BS in France are isomorphic in that their research dynamics experience a strong growth in volume, productivity, collaboration and in research internationalisation. However, such isomorphism is not perfect, as there is a significant heterogeneity between the top 10 schools and 26 other followers in terms of research quality and scale of international collaboration. Overall, by applying institutional theory to the field of business education, our work contributes to shed new light on the current literature about research activity of French BS.

## 2 Academic research in French BS: the extant discussion

Several studies have examined the transformation to become research-oriented of French BS. From an empirical point of view, the study by Menger et al. (2015) focused on five schools (HEC, ESSEC, ESCP, EM Lyon and EDHEC) to examine their total publication volumes over the period of 2006–2009. It showed the dominance of HEC, which was followed closely by ESSEC. The study by Mangematin and Belkhouja (2015) is more thorough to the extent that it went beyond total publication volume to examine the evolution of BS and universities in terms of scientific production (number of articles) and visibility (number of citations) from 1994 to 2013. The sample is also bigger, including HEC, INSEAD, EDHEC, KEDGE, ESSEC, Grenoble EM, NEOMA and EM Lyon. In this study, we can see that the research dynamic in the French management field has started to change. While HEC and INSEAD continued their dominance, KEDGE, NEOMA, and EDHEC had become the new leaders thanks to their research investment and the international force of being newly merged schools. The work by Dubois and Walsh (2017) addresses another aspect: research network of French BS. It examines INSEAD and the top 14 schools, which were identified based on their average ranking in national press (Le Figaro, Le Point, Le Parisien and Challenges) over 2013–2015. The study confirmed the general trend of flourishing academic publications by French BS. It also showed that their faculty tend to collaborate with colleagues from overseas schools having similar level of reputation, but a collaboration among faculty of the three top schools in France is absent.

From a theoretical point of view, scholars have discussed different issues. One of them is about impact of research (Abdessemed and Bueno-Mérino, 2016). It is argued that scientific publications by BS have to be useful for decision-makers in both the private and public sectors. This can be achieved by promoting research contracts between academic institutions and partner companies or government bodies, encouraging faculty to pursue professional publications aiming at a general audience as well as academic
ones, and raising awareness about academic research among students and professionals (Abdessemed and Bueno-Mérino, 2016). Another issue is related to possible negative impacts of accreditations and rankings. From the perspective of the whole community of management researchers, the pressure to publish in a limited number of starred academic journals, in the context of a large number of researchers in a larger number of BS throughout the world, generates unreasonable constraints. Such pressure also blocks management ideas from prominent thinkers to make it to the world. Drucker, Mintzberg, Ansoff, and other management ‘gurus’ all rely on books instead of academic articles to build their school of thought (Durand and Dameron, 2011).

## 3 The field of French business education through the lens of institutional theory

### 3.1 *Institutional theory*

Institutional theory is a dominant perspective to understanding organisations (Greenwood et al., 2008). It argues that organisations are influenced by their institutional context, which provides widespread social understandings, or ‘rationalised myths’, about appropriate conduct and what constitutes a proper organisation (Meyer and Rowan, 1977). Organisations conform to these conduct prescriptions to obtain social acceptance and legitimacy to operate. In this way, they signal their fitness with the institutional context and raise their chance of survival. As a result, organisations that share the same environment tend to take on similar forms by becoming isomorphic with their institutional context. On the other hand, it is believed that organisations may respond differently to the institutional context because conforming to institutional rules might conflict with the requirement of technical efficiency and institutional contexts are often pluralistic and inconsistent (Meyer and Rowan, 1977; Zucker, 1987). Organisations may be isomorphic to the institutional processes only on the surface, while in fact they are heterogeneous with regard to their technical core [Zucker, (1987), p.672].

Institutional theory helps explain the features of the business education field. Scholars have identified socially constructed beliefs, serving as ‘rationalised myths’ that shape the evolution of the field and influence the strategies and actions of its members (Antunes and Thomas, 2007). Specifically, from the early 20th century until the present day, they have evolved from beliefs about the boundaries of market and competitive interactions, to beliefs about business education models and recipes, then to beliefs about the reputational orderings that give clear brand identity and reputation status to extant players (Antunes and Thomas, 2007). The evolution of these beliefs has contributed to creating a well-developed structure of the business education field, in which identities of elite and leader schools being clearly distinguished other groups.

In the field of business education, accreditation labels and rankings are two important institutional processes (Thomas et al., 2014). Accreditation is a process, in which BS are scrutinised by a panel of peers. It is considered a way to enhance quality improvement, encourage schools to introduce high quality teaching and research initiatives and follow up the progress by periodical reviews. On the other hand, ranking is a different mechanism. The press publishes yearly issues, in which rankings are released based on a set of criteria using data collected. Accreditation labels and rankings can be considered as rationalised myths, which have the function of removing uncertainty and certifying the
legitimacy of BS (Cret, 2007). Moreover, rankings and accreditation have created a third
institutional force, which is the culture of publish or perish.

As a result, BS respond to these institutional 'pressures' by pursuing accreditation to
certify that they have the structures and processes in place necessary to meet their stated
objectives and continually improve performance, and by trying to climb the global
rankings (Thomas et al., 2014). Paradoxically, conforming to these institutional pressures
does not bring competitive differentiation, but leads to standardisation and homogeneity,
and consequently institutional isomorphism (Casile and Davis-Blake, 2002; Durand and
McGuire, 2005; Guillotin and Mangematin, 2018).

Also, in light of institutional theory, it is important to note that players in the business
education field can be heterogeneous in their response to the institutional context despite
their isomorphic behaviour. Indeed, the evolution of the field from even today has
witnessed certain divergence on a global basis despite common beliefs about appropriate
models of BS. Although both European and US-based BS share much common European
heritage in many aspects, they have followed a range of different and quite distinctive
approaches to management education due to their different history and institutional
shaping (Antunes and Thomas, 2007). For example, European BS are smaller in size,
have a stronger international mindset, more innovative in teaching and learning styles,
and embrace the field of public management and policy much more strongly (Antunes
and Thomas, 2007; Bandera et al., 2020).

The entanglement between organisations’ isomorphic and heterogeneous behaviour
has been depicted in the so-called model of ‘red queen’. The basic idea of the ‘red queen
hypothesis’ is that an organisation facing competition is likely to engage in a search for
ways to improve performance, in particular through diverse types of innovation [see
among others the seminal paper by Barnett and Hansen (1996)]. This process helps to
increase its competitive strength, which in turn triggers learning of its competitors that
adopt the same innovation in order to maintain their own advantage or not to lag behind.
Consequently, these competitors become stronger, which in turn trigger new innovation
and learning of the organisation. At the end of this process, nothing is modified at the
system level, in particular the ‘hierarchy’ (the ranking) between the organisations. Such
model combines (structural) isomorphism and (passing) heterogeneity. As noted by
Robson (2005), such dynamics explains the trend towards more complex organisms, but
heterogeneity is often momentary.

3.2 *Isomorphic response of French BS to accreditations and rankings*

International accreditation labels and rankings have fostered a form of competitive isomorphism among French BS (Thomas et al., 2014) in the 2000s. All of these schools have developed a discourse according to which they apply for accreditations in order to demonstrate their quality, maintain their reputation, and position themselves in relation to each other, and eventually stay attractive in the market. They build their reputation through rankings and accreditation labels, thereby engaging in the ‘reputation race’ [Van Vught, (2008), p.169]. Losing an accreditation label (e.g., ESCEM lost the EQUIS label in 2012) or being downgraded in or removed from a ranking (e.g., several French BS were not included in the *Financial Times* in 2020) has a significant negative impact, resulting in decreased student enrolments (Rindova et al., 2005).

As the institutional forces of accreditation and ranking generally emphasise the
importance of research, a cultural revolution has been taking place within French BS
since the 2000s (Abdessemed and Bueno-Mérino, 2016). Historically, their main mission was not to conduct research, but to provide professional training (Courpasson and Guedri, 2007). However, they have started to grant more importance to research activities, transforming research from “being a marginal activity to becoming a major concern” [Blanchard, (2015), p.279]. They have started investing significant resources in research with initiatives such as introducing bonus schemes, granting higher salary, awarding promotion and career evolution to faculty who publish. ‘Publish or perish’, a term commonly heard in American universities, has become the watchword in the French BS world.

As business education field in France has gradually embraced the culture of publish, BS has started to demand and measure performance in terms of publications. One benefit of this pressure is that academics are motivated to focus on research advancement and generate new knowledge. Publishing become the primary currency in the academic world, being a means for international mobility, reputation and influence, bargaining power and promotion opportunities (De Rond and Miller, 2005). Scholars are eventually rewarded based on merit and not on favouritism (Van Dalen and Henkens, 2012). On the other hand, a consequence of the publish perish culture is the proliferation of publications at a rate that is disproportional to knowledge advancement (Moosa, 2018). Most of the published work remains unnoticed, indicating low quality and lack of contribution to human knowledge. Due to the emphasis on productivity, the inflation of scholarly publications comes at the expense of innovation, novel ideas and scientific progress (De Rond and Miller, 2005). Management research has become less adapted to the world it is supposed to understand (Bouchikhi and Kimberly, 2001). Besides, another important consequence is the rise of unethical practice such as salami slicing, plagiarism, duplicate publication, fraud and ghost authors (Rawat and Meena, 2014).

## 4 Research gap

Although the literature has created a rich discussion about research conducted by French BS, we still do not have a complete picture. First, the extant quantitative studies have focused only on the schools at the top of the rankings. But there are 38 schools that are ranked annually by national press, which are divided into elite and top schools and schools at the lower part of the ranking. A majority of them have had or are applying for international accreditations such as AACSB, EFMD Accreditation and EQUIS. They have surely joined the game of research and academic publications. We do not know much about the research dynamic of the entire business education field in France. Second, from the perspective of institutional theory, the current discussion has focused on the isomorphic behaviour of French BS in research and the related issues. But we do not know much about the heterogeneous side of this research dynamic.

Based on these insights, the purpose of our study is to conduct a systematic investigation of research dynamic in French BS over the period of 2008–2018. In order to be complementary with previous quantitative work, ours compares the top 10 schools with other 26 schools in our analysis. The objective is to examine both isomorphic and heterogeneous behaviours of BS in response to the institutional pressure of doing academic research.
# 5 Research methods

## 5.1 Data collection

We follow the bibliometric literature suggesting that publications in academic journals provide a measure of research output in social sciences (Hicks, 2004). We constructed a database of French BS publications as a measure of their research activity via Scopus. The period of study corresponds to the ‘cultural revolution’ among French BS mentioned above. For each school, the data were constituted for the period 2008–2018 based on its perimeters in 2019.

In terms of sample, there are 38 BS that appear in the annual rankings of national press (L'Étudiant, Le Figaro, Le Point and Le Parisien). Based on our data, one school had publications recorded only in 2018 (South Champagne Troyes), another had very few publications and more scattered over time (ISTEC). Thus, we excluded them from our sample and focused on 36 schools. We calculated for each school an average ranking based on their rankings in 2019 provided by L'Étudiant, Le Figaro, Le Point and Le Parisien (see Appendix). To identify the top-ranked schools, the first quarter was chosen, giving us nine schools. However, as it seemed simpler and more meaningful to add the 10th school to the group, we distinguished between top 10 BS and the other 26 BS to conduct our analysis. This distinction is also justified by the fact that IESEG (Lille), ranked 11th place in our average ranking, had a significantly smaller publication volume compared to KEDGE being at the 10th place. From the perspective of institutional theory, the two groups reflect the current structure of the business education field in France. The top 10 schools are the leaders. They include the main ‘old timers’ such as HEC, ESSEC and ESCP. The other 26 schools are followers, in that they do not have the same level of reputation.

## 5.2 Data analysis

For the period of study, we identified 10,705 publications in the Scopus database, which were published under an affiliation with a French BS in our sample. If the name of a school appeared in the signature of an article, the publication was counted for that school. We did not use fractional counting. The same publication can be associated with several schools if there are several co-authors.

To compare the two groups of BS, we defined the indicator of their size by the number of faculty declared in 2019 for the CEFDG record. As this indicator is related to the potential scale of research activities, we calculated research productivity by dividing the number of publications by the number of faculty. On the other hand, since the pioneering work of Frame and Carpenter (1979), the indicator of intensity of international collaborations has been used as a measure of the degree of internationalisation of academic research in a scientific field or in a research organisation. We defined the rate of research internationalisation (per year and per school) as the ratio between the number of publications in which there is *at least one foreign affiliation* and the total number of publications of the school. By using affiliations instead of authors, we can avoid the difficulty of determining whether or not a name belongs to a foreign researcher. To analyse the quality of the publications in our sample, we used the Centre Nationale pour la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) journal list, in which journals are ranked from 1 to 4, with rank 1 indicating the highest quality journals. There are several journal lists
recognised by French BS, including the Academic Journal Guide (ABS) and Fondational Nationale pour l'Enseignement de la Gestion des Entreprises (FNEGE). We chose to use the CNRS list because it is adapted to the French context. By the time of our data analysis, unlike the FNEGE list, it included not only management journals but also the economic ones. Although the CNRS decided to withdraw the list in 2019, it is still relevant to our study, since our study covers the period of 2008–2018.

# 6 Findings

## 6.1 Isomorphic behaviour of French BS in research activity

The isomorphic behaviour of French BS in research activity can be seen in several aspects. All schools, regardless of their ranking, aim to publish in greater quantity, achieve higher research productivity, collaborate with each other and with international researchers, and publish in international journals.

### 6.1.1 Strong growth in publication volume

Table 1 summarises the average growth rate of the annual publication volume over 2008–2018. It shows that, over time, all French BS experience a growth in their publication volume. The growth dynamic of the 26 BS is even stronger than that of the top 10 (growth rate of 19.6% versus 12.6%). This implies that this group is imitating the top-ranked schools, trying to catch up in terms of research production. Moreover, the publish or perish culture starts to show its impact in terms of publication volume proliferation.

<table><caption>**Table 1** Estimation of the linear relationship of publications with respect to time (OLS)</caption><thead><tr><th>Log publications</th><th>BS36</th><th>Top10</th><th>BS26</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Year</td><td>0.176***<br>(0.0205)</td><td>0.126***<br>(0.0094)</td><td>0.196***<br>(0.0195)</td></tr><tr><td>Constant</td><td>-352.0***<br>(41.20)</td><td>-248.9***<br>(18.98)</td><td>-391.7***<br>(39.26)</td></tr><tr><td>Observations</td><td>396</td><td>110</td><td>286</td></tr><tr><td>R<sup>2</sup></td><td>0.158</td><td>0.622</td><td>0.262</td></tr></tbody></table>

Notes: Standard deviation in parentheses.

***p < 0.01, **p < 0.05 and *p < 0.1.

We conducted further analysis by ranking the 36 BS according to their publication volumes during 2008–2018 (Figure 1), and then classifying them based on their average ranking (see Appendix) and their corresponding publication volume (Figure 2).

These results show that the top schools dominate in terms of research output quantity. With respect to the total volume of publications, the top 10 accounts for 58% of the total publications (i.e., over the period 2008–2018, 6,226 articles) while the number is 42% for the remaining 26 BS. It means the best BS are capable of enhancing their notoriety over time, through which they can attract talents, and that publish or perish culture is more ingrained in these schools. But the isomorphic behaviour of the BS leads to the fact that
some follower schools are reversing the trend. For example, as can be seen in these
two figures, HEC and ESSEC are the top 2 or best two schools in terms of publication
volume and in terms of average ranking. During the 2008–2018 period, each of these
schools published 804 and 798 articles, respectively. The top 10 schools, such as ESCP,
EDHEC or NEOMA, maintain decent places in terms of publication volume. At the other
end of the publication quantity continuum are ESC Clermont, ISG, Brest, which
individually, published 17 papers over 11 years. These schools are also at the lower end
of the average ranking. However, the average ranking of BS does not always correspond
to the ranking in terms of publication volume. Specifically, KEDGE comes in third place
with 766 articles published over the given period, but it is only in 10th position in the
average BS ranking. Montpellier BS and IPAG have high publication quantity, although
they are not among the top-ranked schools.

<figure><img src="image_2.png" /><figcaption>**Figure 1** BS publications by volume (2008–2018) (see online version for colours)</figcaption></figure>

Source: Scopus data and our own calculus

Change in leadership in research productivity. We defined research productivity as the ratio between the quantity of publications of a BS divided by its size, which is equal to the number of faculty in 2019. When we compare the top 10 and the other 26 in terms of average productivity, it can be noted that the top 10 schools publish on average 4.3 articles per tenured faculty member over 11 years. The other 26 schools publish on average 2.24 articles over the same period. There is an important gap between the schools. For example, HEC Paris is about 18 times more productive than EMLV during the period of observation.

Nonetheless, many schools at the lower end of the ranking are catching up with the
top ones in terms of research productivity. We rank the 36 BS according to their research
productivity levels during 2008–2018 (Figure 3), and then classify them based on their
average ranking and their corresponding productivity (Figure 4). The results show that
the two best performers are Montpelier and IPAG. In 2008–2018, they published an
average of 7.17 and 6.35 articles per tenured faculty member, respectively. HEC Paris,
ESSEC and EDHEC follow in terms of publication performance, with productivity scores
of 5.9, 5.58 and 5.28. IESEG and Rennes BS are among the top 10 productive schools,
although they are not among the top 10 ranked schools. On the other hand, Audencia, NEOMA, SKEMA and IESEG are among the top 10 (based on their average rankings that we calculated), but they are not among the most productive ones in terms of research productivity. It follows that the search for large size over the period undertaken by BS does not constitute an effective strategy as far as research productivity is concerned. It also implies that the top schools aim to increase their publication productivity, but not necessarily at the expense of publication quality and the advancement of scientific knowledge.

<figure><img src="image_3.png" /><figcaption>**Figure 2** BS publications according to BS's average ranking (see online version for colours)</figcaption></figure>

Source: Scopus data and our own calculus

<figure><img src="image_4.png" /><figcaption>**Figure 3** BS research productivity (see online version for colours)</figcaption></figure>

Source: Scopus data and our own calculus
<figure><img src="image_5.png" /><figcaption>**Figure 4** Research productivity and BS's average ranking (see online version for colours)</figcaption></figure>

Source: Scopus data and our own calculus

<figure><img src="image_6.png" /><figcaption>**Figure 5** Scale of research collaboration of BS (see online version for colours)</figcaption></figure>

Source: Scopus data and our own calculus

### 6.1.2 Homogenous scale of research collaboration

We are in the ‘forth age of research’ (Adams, 2013), in which it is the norm for researchers to work with each other to publish. The reasons behind this movement are higher productivity, obtaining scientific benefits by sharing knowledge, joint control of the accuracy and meaning of results, and cross-fertilisation of ideas (Franceschet and Costantini, 2010). Since French BS are submitted to the pressure of publishing, they are also inclined toward research collaboration. We used a standard measure in scientometrics, which is the average number of addresses in publication over the period of 2008–2018, to investigate this phenomenon among French BS (Figure 5). Our results show that apart from Montpellier and IPAG, all schools are homogenous in terms of scale of research collaboration. The high degree of research collaboration of Montpellier and
IPAG is necessarily linked to the exceptional level of research productivity of these two schools presented above. Regardless of their research volume and productivity, the average number of authors in each publication of the BS is between 2 and 3. It should be noted that the norm has evolved in management science like in many other academic fields. At the end the studied time period, we observed that the average number of authors of each paper was around 4.

### 6.1.3 Increasing internationalisation of research activity

The internationalisation of research activity can be examined through international collaborations (in research), which lead to joint publications. We calculated the number of papers signed with at least one foreign affiliation for each BS and for each year. We found that on average the internationalisation rate for all 36 BS increased almost monotonically from 0.22 (2009) to 0.35 (2018). A log linear regression over time (years) indicates that the average growth rate per year is 1.3%. The isomorphic behaviour can be observed through the result that there is a convergence in internationalisation rates of BS research, i.e., all 36 BS in our sample are moving toward the same level of internationalisation in research. Concretely, using a regression testing the hypothesis of absolute convergence (see Sala-i-Martin, 1996) and the beta-convergence approach, which estimates the relationship between the growth rate of a variable (InterPubRat in our estimation) and the level of the same variable (LnInterPub in our estimation), we found a significant negative coefficient (Table 2). This result confirms of absolute convergence of two variables (the growth rate of the internationalisation rate and the level of the internationalisation rate) measured by their log. This trend indicates a specific strategy to enter the knowledge global economy and conform to the culture of publish or perish, i.e., international collaboration is means to catch up with international research standards imposed by American universities (Antunes and Thomas, 2007).

We conducted further analysis by ranking BS according to their levels of research internationalisation (Figure 6) and then classifying them based on their average rankings and their corresponding rate of research internationalisation (Figure 7).

<table><caption>**Table 2** Convergence test of research internationalisation rates</caption><thead><tr><th></th><th>InterPubRat</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>LnInterPub (t - 1)</td><td>-0.084***<br>(0.005)</td></tr><tr><td>Constant</td><td>0.019***<br>(0.001)</td></tr><tr><td>Observations</td><td>360</td></tr><tr><td>R<sup>2</sup></td><td>0.462</td></tr><tr><td>No. of groups</td><td>36</td></tr><tr><td>Rate of convergence</td><td>8.76%</td></tr><tr><td>Half-life</td><td>8</td></tr></tbody></table>

Notes: Standard deviation in brackets.

***p < 0.01, **p < 0.05 and *p < 0.1.
These results indicate that regardless of ranking, all BS aim to internationalise their research. The most internationalised school is ECSP, with an internationalisation score of 0.54 over 11 years. Montpellier and IPAG, which score high in terms of publication quantity, also rank very highly in terms of internationalisation (scores of 0.49 and 0.4, respectively). We can have some interesting observations in these two figures. ESC Pau does not rank very highly in terms of publication volume and publication productivity, but has a high internationalisation rate (0.39), just behind HEC Paris (0.4). Rennes BS is well known for its international faculty, and its internationalisation score is only in the middle of the ranking (0.34). IDRAC, which is at the lower end in terms of average ranking, has rather proper place in the ranking of internationalisation. This is a potential consequence of the publish or perish culture, which motivates academics, regardless of their schools, to collaborate internationally.

<figure><img src="image_7.png" /><figcaption>**Figure 6** Internationalisation rate of BS research (see online version for colours)</figcaption></figure>

Source: Scopus data and our own calculus

The internationalisation of research activity can also be observed through the publication outlets of researchers. We found that there is a consistent (and persistent) in volume of publications in international journals. Figure 8 summarises the 30 journals with the highest number of publications (not necessarily the top-ranked 30 journals) of all BS. It shows an overwhelming dominance of British or American journals. This result confirms the phenomenon of internationalisation in the academic research activity of BS (a phenomenon that is general to different disciplines). Collaborating with international researchers motivates French scholars to publish in British or American journals. Only two French journals are present, but they are highly popular: the *Revue Française de gestion* and *M@na@gement*. Here again, there is an isomorphic behaviour among the two groups of BS. During the period 2008–2018, the top 10 BS published 1,500 articles in these journals, which represents 24% of their total publications during this period. Similarly, 26 other BSs published 1,485 articles in total, representing 33% of their total publication volume.
<figure><img src="image_8.png" /><figcaption>**Figure 7** Internationalisation rate of research according to BS's average ranking (see online version for colours)</figcaption></figure>

Source: Scopus data and our own calculation

<figure><img src="image_9.png" /><figcaption>**Figure 8** Thirty journals with highest number of publications between 2008–2018 (see online version for colours)</figcaption></figure>

Source: Scopus data and our own calculation

## 6.2 Imperfect isomorphism: not all BS are on the same research trajectories

Although BS is adopting an isomorphic behaviour in their research activities, they are heterogeneous in many aspects. The top 10 schools and the other groups do not follow the same development path. Specifically, the former group puts more emphasis on publication quality and the scale of international collaboration.

Higher research quality among the top 10 schools. We analysed the rankings of the 30 most popular journals with the highest number of publications identified in the previous section, using the CNRS 2019 list. Figure 9 presents the results of our analysis. It can be seen that the BS in the top 10 have significantly more publications than the
26 others in four-star journals (19% vs. 9%) and fewer publications in one-star journals (5% vs. 12%). In two-star and three-star journals, the two groups have fairly similar proportions of publications. The top 10 BS privilege top journals as their publication outlets through an adequate bonuses policy, emphasising research quality. They are committed in ensuring the balance between publication volume and knowledge development in the context of the publish or perish culture.

<figure><img src="image_10.png" /><figcaption>**Figure 9** Publications in CNRS listed journals – top 10 and 26 other BS (see online version for colours)</figcaption></figure>

Source: Scopus data and our own calculus

<figure><img src="image_11.png" /><figcaption>**Figure 10** Average citations/paper 2008–2018 (see online version for colours)</figcaption></figure>

Source: Scopus data and our own calculus

In addition, in line with scientometric research, we calculated for each French BS and the entire time period under observation the average number of citations per publication. This indicator is acknowledged as proxy for publications value. Figure 10 presents our results. It shows that the top 10 BS maintain decent places, especially HEC Paris, ESCP, EM Lyon, ESSEC and EDHEC. Importantly, there is a large variation in terms of average number of citations among the BS, indicating a real heterogeneity in the research quality. For instance, the HEC publications have 2.6 times more citations than those of IPAG, and
1.5 times more than those of Montpellier BS, both are known for having important publication quantity. Even IESEG, which is in the middle of the ranking in average publication citation, have 40 times more citations than ELMV, which comes last in the list. This result is an important evidence of a consequence of the publish or perish culture: significant publication volume does not always lead to better human knowledge because the published work remains unnoticed.

### 6.2.1 Heterogeneous scale of international collaboration

In the previous section, having a foreign address in a paper is the criteria to qualify the publication as international. We also examined in more details and counted the number of distinct foreign addresses in a publication, a measure of the density of internationalisation (Figure 11). The results show that there is a large variation from 0.23 to 1.63, except Montpellier who has a very high rate of international collaboration at 3.37. For example, Audencia, being in the top 10 schools, is ranked rather small number of foreign addresses in their publications. By contrast, ESC Pau, which has a small publication volume and publication productivity, has a decent place in the ranking. It follows that the scale of international collaborations is very heterogeneous among BS.

<figure><img src="image_12.png" /><figcaption>**Figure 11** Average number of foreign addresses/paper 2008–2018 (see online version for colours)</figcaption></figure>

Source: Scopus data and our own calculus

## 7 Discussion

We contribute to enhance understanding of French business education through the lens of institutional theory. Accreditations and rankings, and consequently the publish or perish culture, have had an important influence on BS strategy, vision and mission. This movement has triggered these schools to engage in research activities and consequently produce more publications as we have seen in this article. They have adopted an isomorphic behaviour in many areas, which is seen in their publication quantity and productivity, their research collaboration, their research internationalisation, and their choice of international outlets for publication. However, what differs is in their research
trajectory. The heterogeneity in their research behaviour can be seen through the quality
of their research and the degree of their international research collaboration.

## 7.1 Acceleration of research in French BS, but different trajectories in terms of research quality

The introduction of the accreditation and ranking system has transformed the research culture in French BS (Abdessemed and Bueno-Mérino, 2016). All BS clearly conform to the isomorphic pressure exerted by these two institutional forces and adopt the publish or perish culture. Our analysis confirms that research and the publications that constitute its visible output are no longer the objective of only the best schools ('the elite'). This result is consistent with what has been revealed by recent studies (e.g., Dubois and Walsh, 2017). Some schools, even if they are not among the top 10, are beginning to have a high level of productivity in publication and research (e.g., KEDGE, Montpellier and IPAG). The follower schools are getting closer to the top school in terms of publication quantity, which is seen in the result that the growth rate of publication volume of the top 10 is smaller than that of the other 26 BS (see Table 1).

However, the two groups of schools (top 10 and 26 others) do not necessarily share the same research interest, with the former being more interested in publishing in top journals, thus being more concerned about contributing to developing research impact and advancing scientific knowledge. The top 10 are known for their strong movement towards high quality publications, favouring publications in four-star and three-star journals while turning away from publications in one-star and two-star journals. The results in Figure 9 confirm this trend by showing the difference of the two groups in terms of the proportion of publications in one-star and four-star journals. One possible explanation for this finding is the different publication strategy adopted by these schools. Some may follow a differentiation strategy, which involves specialising in sub-disciplines such as finance such as EDHEC (Mangematin and Belkhouja, 2015). This would be a good illustration of Loasby's (2002) 'law' according to which knowledge related to a specific field grows by knowledge specialisation into (new) subfields. Some others, especially the ones among the group of 26 follower schools, may make the trade-off between research quality and quantity, choosing to privilege the volume of publication over quality. This shows that the top schools make efforts to minimise the negative consequences of publish or perish culture.

## 7.2 Internationalisation of research activity

Due to the pressure of accreditation and ranking, all BS have started to internationalise their research. Dubois and Walsh (2017) studied the research networks of faculty of the top 15 BS, revealing that they had significantly internationalised their research. Our study complements this result by showing that this is the case for all BS due to their isomorphic behaviour. Some BS, which are not among the top 10, have taken a major step forward in the internationalisation of their research, including Montpelier, IPAG and ESC Pau. In addition, all BSs are trying to further strengthen the international network of their research, as evidenced by their rate of growth in the internationalisation of this activity. As the top 10 have a lower growth rate of research internationalisation compared to other 26, the latter are catching up with the former. There is a trend toward convergence in terms of internationalisation among all schools.
Despite this common trend, research internationalisation is not truly homogenous
among French BS. They differ significantly in terms of scale of internationalisation. This
can be explained by the fact that these schools do not share the same policy with regard
to the recruitment of foreign faculty. Foreign professors joining French BS have their
own international network, which contributes to the internationalisation of research in
their schools. Schools having more international faculty have higher propensity to
internationalise their research. The result can also be explained by the difference in the
schools’ support for their faculty to develop international network, such as available
budget to participate in international conferences. In other words, the model of red queen
previously outlined only applies to some extent here.

7.3 Implications for French BS

As all schools adopt an isomorphic behaviour and aim to take advantages over
competitors through accreditations, there is a paradoxical outcome: accreditation-based
reputation alone is no longer a competitive advantage (Guillotin and Mangematin, 2018).
Now, each school owns its research activity structured by specific high-level
competences and a particular management of high-level professors. In some way,
engaging in research produces parity instead of competitive advantage. French BS need
to find new strategies of generating differentiation and competitive strengths. It has been
suggested that promoting research impact and application is becoming important in the
current context and will be a relevant source of differentiation. Through co-production or
co-publication with stakeholders, researchers can provide relevant advice and expertise to
solve business issues, while remain faithful to the prime objective of producing
knowledge.

Although research management has been criticised on the grounds that it remains too
academic and that its impact on the economic and social world is zero or weak, the ideas
have evolved in particular in recent years in France. We can reasonably consider that
'management science' can have an impact on the corporate world. Its research is
incorporated to the stock of knowledge of private or public managers and helps them to
make better strategies. New research themes such as CSR, sustainable development and
gender studies have pushed French BS to practice 'open research' more in liaison with
companies and various stakeholders. More in relation to local or regional environments
as well [on all aspects, see Igalens (2016)]. It is a way for undertake specific research
projects more idiosyncratic as a mean to generate uniqueness.

Overall, we have shown that, in a context where there is no decline in student
enrolment, most French BS have embarked on a ‘red queen’ race by:

1 conducting academic research in the field of management and making it more efficient

2 striving for excellence in this activity

3 fostering international collaborations to boost their profile.

Despite a real catch-up, the rankings of BS have changed only slightly. We have also
highlighted the fact that some BS have sought to gain well-founded advantages through
other strategies, such as concentrating resources, aggressively producing publications
(IPAG) or asserting a ‘sustainable’ image. Although heterogeneity in the practices
of several players is an effective feature in a competitive environment, in the
medium-to-long-term, isomorphism remains a real convergent process.

8 Conclusions, limitations and future research

In this article, relying on institutional theory, we examined over the period 2008–2018 the evolution of the research activity of 36 French BS which are regularly ranked in national press. We divided them into two groups (top 10 schools and 26 other schools) to examine their isomorphic and heterogeneous research behaviour. In doing so, we contribute to bringing new insights about the specificities of the trajectory of the academic research activity of the French business education landscape.

Our study has some limitations. Due to lack of information about research expenditure of French BS, we cannot provide a full picture on the relationship between research productivity and research performance, its variability and its evolution. The quality of research publications should be explored more fully and in greater detail, e.g., its dependence on international collaboration. Moreover, to compare the BS' research performance, we used the number of faculty declared in 2019 for the CEFDG record as the indicator of their size. It should be noted that many schools start recruiting at a large-scale at the outset of the period (2008). As a consequence our results in terms of productivity are impacted by this dynamic and do not reflect entirely the evolution of performance. There is no single relevant mean for neutralising such bias. Future research should focus on addressing these issues.

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# Appendix

<table><caption>Average ranking of French business schools in 2019</caption><thead><tr><th>French BS</th><th>Ranking in L'Etudiant 2019</th><th>Ranking in Le Figaro 2019</th><th>Ranking in Le Point 2019</th><th>Ranking in Le Parisien 2019</th><th>Average ranking in 2019</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>HEC</td><td>1</td><td>1</td><td>1</td><td>1</td><td>1.00</td></tr><tr><td>ESSEC</td><td>2</td><td>2</td><td>2</td><td>2</td><td>2.00</td></tr><tr><td>ESCP Europe</td><td>3</td><td>3</td><td>4</td><td>2</td><td>3.00</td></tr><tr><td>EM Lyon</td><td>4</td><td>4</td><td>2</td><td>4</td><td>3.50</td></tr><tr><td>EDHEC</td><td>5</td><td>5</td><td>5</td><td>4</td><td>4.75</td></tr><tr><td>Grenoble EM</td><td>6</td><td>6</td><td>6</td><td>7</td><td>6.25</td></tr><tr><td>SKEMA BS</td><td>7</td><td>7</td><td>7</td><td>6</td><td>6.75</td></tr><tr><td>Audencia BS</td><td>7</td><td>8</td><td>10</td><td>8</td><td>8.25</td></tr><tr><td>NEOMA</td><td>7</td><td>10</td><td>8</td><td>8</td><td>8.25</td></tr><tr><td>KEDGE</td><td>11</td><td>9</td><td>8</td><td>8</td><td>9.00</td></tr><tr><td>IESEG</td><td>7</td><td>11</td><td>14</td><td>12</td><td>11.00</td></tr><tr><td>Toulouse BS</td><td>11</td><td>12</td><td>10</td><td>11</td><td>11.00</td></tr><tr><td>Rennes SB</td><td>13</td><td>13</td><td>12</td><td>12</td><td>12.50</td></tr><tr><td>Montpellier BS</td><td>14</td><td>14</td><td>13</td><td>12</td><td>13.25</td></tr><tr><td>ICN</td><td>15</td><td>19</td><td>16</td><td>16</td><td>16.50</td></tr><tr><td>EM Strasbourg</td><td>17</td><td>20</td><td>14</td><td>15</td><td>16.50</td></tr><tr><td>IMT BS (ex Telecom EM)</td><td>16</td><td>17</td><td>17</td><td>18</td><td>17.00</td></tr><tr><td>EM Normandie</td><td>19</td><td>16</td><td>20</td><td>16</td><td>17.75</td></tr><tr><td>ESSCA</td><td>18</td><td>15</td><td>21</td><td>18</td><td>18.00</td></tr><tr><td>BSB – Burgundy SB</td><td>21</td><td>18</td><td>21</td><td></td><td>20.00</td></tr><tr><td>EMLV</td><td>21</td><td>22</td><td>23</td><td>21</td><td>21.75</td></tr><tr><td>PSB</td><td>19</td><td>23</td><td>25</td><td>20</td><td>21.75</td></tr><tr><td>La Rochelle BS</td><td>27</td><td>24</td><td>18</td><td>21</td><td>22.50</td></tr><tr><td>ISC</td><td>24</td><td>28</td><td>19</td><td>21</td><td>23.00</td></tr><tr><td>INSEEC</td><td>21</td><td>32</td><td>23</td><td>21</td><td>24.25</td></tr><tr><td>IPAG</td><td>24</td><td>21</td><td>29</td><td>27</td><td>25.25</td></tr><tr><td>EDC</td><td>28</td><td>25</td><td>30</td><td>21</td><td>26.00</td></tr><tr><td>EBS Paris</td><td>28</td><td>29</td><td>26</td><td>27</td><td>27.50</td></tr><tr><td>ESCE</td><td>24</td><td>31</td><td>31</td><td>29</td><td>28.75</td></tr><tr><td>ESC Clermont</td><td>32</td><td>33</td><td>27</td><td>30</td><td>30.50</td></tr><tr><td>ICD</td><td>31</td><td>26</td><td>34</td><td>32</td><td>30.75</td></tr><tr><td>ESDES</td><td>35</td><td>27</td><td>32</td><td>30</td><td>31.00</td></tr><tr><td>ISG</td><td>30</td><td>34</td><td>33</td><td>32</td><td>32.25</td></tr><tr><td>IDRAC</td><td>34</td><td>35</td><td>37</td><td>35</td><td>35.25</td></tr><tr><td>ESC Pau BS</td><td>37</td><td>37</td><td>36</td><td>N/A</td><td>36.67</td></tr><tr><td>BBS – Brest BS</td><td>38</td><td>38</td><td>38</td><td>36</td><td>37.50</td></tr></tbody></table>