The Changing Role of the Business Professor

There was an interesting interview on Morning Ireland on RTÉ Radio 1 during the business news with Joe Haslam who is professor of entrepreneurship and innovation at the Instituto de Empresa (IE) Business School in Spain. While the interview was about the economic situation facing the Spanish Government, I was most interested in his comments towards the end of the interview where he pointed out that the role of the professor is changing.

Image source: Joe Haslam Google+ profile.

Haslam (pictured) makes sense when he tells us in the interview that a list of publications "as long as your arm" is not what "business schools look for" anymore. To appear to be "relevant", professors have to be "actively in the market" and "doing the same things that the students are doing" - this makes his business school different to a University environment.

Well "Here, Here" I say!

My last journal publication was in 2005. Since then I have published a book, one other book chapter, and a few conference papers. In short, my academic research output is dismal when compared to what is expected of other third-level lecturers. This should not be a surprise to anyone as I do not conduct any research, nor do I have any research students. Most of my non-teaching related activity is in YouTube and Blogging.

I can see this idea trending a bit more. Soon academics will be judged not just on how many journal papers they have had published, but also on what their personal web site looks like and does, what their Twitter activity is, what subjects they are blogging about (and the frequency of posting), and what third-party blogs they read and are subscribed to. All this is easy to track with analytics. It can take months to research and write a paper, and more time for publication to take place - easily leading to a year or more before your work can be read by your peers. With a blog, you can publish instantly. You can even write your own book and publish it yourself whenever you want. 

Keep up!