We recently conducted a study published in Corporate Reputation Review that examined the rankings from the perspective of top-50 business school leaders. They also perceived it as a game with sometimes hidden criteria and no provision for redressing apparently arbitrary rules. Not surprisingly, most also felt it was a game impossible to win. Strangely, it can. The reason is straightforward.
Competition improves the breed.
The mere fact that B-schools must compete in an open arena against rivals offering similar programs has changed and improved those programs. That's the good news. The more problematic issue is that the rankings coerce changes that conform to the magazines' selective criteria, and those criteria are not necessarily true to an educational agenda. Magazines would like to avoid producing the same rankings every year, so there is motivation to generate variation artificially. It also means they are forced to become masters of spin and image management because resources mainly flow to rankings-driven changes, rather than bona fide program improvements.