Re-imagining management education in post-WWII Britain: views from government and business

Abstract

This paper questions what British management education promoters sought to create through their efforts to establish high-level business training institutes in Britain in the 1960s. In response to the landmark Robbins Report of 1963, businessmen and politicians re-imagined management education and in doing so formed a new type of management education institute to operate alongside, and ultimately to compete with, a wide variety of other methods of management preparation then in use in the country. As business conditions changed and firms–especially large ones–grew more complex, both business leaders and government ministers sought ways to prepare the next generation of managers to lead firms successfully in the long term but do so in a way that satisfied their own firms’ needs as well as those of society. Using both archival and published sources, the text explores the perspectives of those involved with the business school project as well as those interested in it as observers to determine what business leaders and government truly wanted from Britain’s future managers.