Although school and faculty competencies have advanced, the gap between practice and academic research and teaching has widened. The lack of business interaction, changing technologies, aging faculty and shortage of incentives to change have inhibited faculty initiative for change that is necessary to keep pace with a rapidly changing environment. Faculty should be leading the next generation of industry knowledge and practice, but, in some schools, this is not the case. The pace of change in the external environment is too high for some faculty and many are not investing in lifelong learning for themselves. Often they rely too much on old methods and, lacking direct interaction with industry, generate little cutting-edge research that makes a difference to industry.
Most research is high in theory and low in relevance.
This ideal kind of research is necessary to improve the practice of management and must be reflected in the core curriculums of business schools. Faculty need to lead in converting research into the persistent core body of knowledge that is imparted to students so they can improve the practice of business. The growing gap between academic and business worlds and the lack of theory and relevance in research can be traced to deficits in underlying skills. Figure Three represents, in the judgment of the task force, a set of current and ideal skill dimension levels of faculty. Faculty are doing well on theory testing and construction and have made some progress on global thinking, but the greatest needs exist for improvement in multidisciplinary methods, new teaching technologies, technological awareness and innovative research.