Business schools come in all shapes and sizes. Their programmes, methods of delivery, types of teaching and even their names are in a constant state of flux. More change is anticipated.

“Over the next few years we will see global for-profit organisations with centralised design and distributed delivery, but with quality problems and an over-emphasis on money, competing with business schools,” predicts Kai Peters, chief executive of Ashridge Business School, which is pictured right.

Recent months have seen a number of developments that may point to the shape of the business school of the future.

In July it was announced that Peter Lorange. a Norwegian professor, had bought the Zurich-based Graduate School of Business Administration (GSBA) for £2.8 million. He stepped down as president of the Swiss business school IMD last year. After 15 years leading one of the world’s best-known schools Lorange prepared to head off into the educational sunset. But he re-emerged to attempt to set the business school agenda again.

GBSA is a minnow In the business school firmament. Its turnover last year was £5 million and it has about 900 students. It is known for its Living Case Study and focus on linking practice to theory. This is music to Lorange’s ears because he has lamented the functional focus of much executive education. In his blueprint for the future of business education, Thought Leadership Meets Business, he observed: “I believe the traditional, axiomatic, discipline-based research to be less valid than it was before and that the interplay between best practice — the prescriptive knowledge coming from the best firms — and research — the propositional knowledge coming from professors — can give rise to an alternative model for academic value-creation.”

Many in the business school world are watching to see how Lorange’s alternative model develops.

The second summer change was the announcement of the creation of the Jack Welch Management Institute at Chancellor University in Cleveland, Ohio. Welch, the legendary former chief executive of General Electric, stepped down in 2001. Since then he has become more famous — and wealthier — thanks to a series of bestselling books, magazine columns and worldwide appearances and, now, a business school, backed by a $12 million investment.

The third important change in the business school world was that the American company Apollo Global bought BPP, owner of BPP Business School, for £303 million. BPP is significant because it is the first private sector organisation in the country with powers to award degrees.

The school opened in January and is led by Chris Brady, formerly at Cass Business School and Bournemouth University Business School, where he was dean. “We could be at the tipping point in higher education in Europe,” he predicts. “The interesting thing is that it is the private sector that is driving wider participation.”

BPP has tailored an MBA for a law firm and is looking to develop in the MBA market. Where does it aim to be in five years’ time? “We want to fit with the learning needs of students. We are looking to develop a more American-style MBA targeted at people with two or three years’ experience, as well as an Executive MBA.”

All set to ‘change lives for the better’

The Jack Welch Management Institute will offer two accredited graduate-level degree programmes — an MBA and a Master of Management. Delivery will be mainly online, Stuart Crainer writes.

“We think this school, with its fresh approach, reach, accessibility and flexibility, has the potential to change lives and organisations for the better,” says Welch, the former chief executive of General Electric (GE). The Institute, in Cleveland, Ohio, will be led by Noel Tichy, previously head of GE’s famous Leadership Center at Crotonville, New York.

Welch’s involvement will include weekly online video updates about business and news issues.

Not everybody is convinced of the merits of a school centred on the work and thoughts of Welch, however. “I think an MBA devoted to one individual is wrong because management is contextual,” says Peter Cohan, an American consultant and author.