ABSTRACT
A remarkable development in the twentieth century has been the rise of business studies and constituent disciplines and their institutionalization in many universities as business schools. During this short history, the original aim of the founding institutional entrepreneurs-to build a profession-was replaced by the goal of gaining academic legitimacy within universities, which in turn led to the increasing detachment of constituent disciplines from the conduct of business.1 Indeed, the excesses of the visible hand of management during the last decade, and recent economic crises attributed to them, have reignited the examination of the role of business schools. This has stimulated an examination of the ‘pretension to theory’ widely exhibited in many business subfi elds.
