by Ulrich Hommel

In the complex ecosystem of business education, we often examine external threats: changing job markets, disruptive technologies, and evolving student expectations. Yet the most significant risk factor might be sitting in the corner office with the best view. As the primary decision-maker and figurehead, the business school dean can represent both the greatest opportunity and risk to an institution’s future.

The Power of a Leadership Position

Business school deans wield extraordinary influence. They control budgets, set strategic direction, hire key faculty, approve curriculum changes, and represent the school to stakeholders. This concentration of authority creates a natural risk point – one person’s judgment affects everything from academic quality to financial sustainability.

The Risk Dimensions

The dean’s role as a risk factor manifests in several key ways:

Strategic Myopia: A dean fixated on short-term metrics like rankings or immediate revenue can undermine long-term viability. When quarterly numbers trump educational innovation or faculty development, the institution becomes vulnerable to disruption.

This myopia is often exacerbated by the intense pressure to meet annual contribution targets to the university. Business schools frequently function as “cash cows” within their university systems, expected to generate substantial financial surpluses that subsidize other academic units. These contribution commitments create perverse incentives that can distort strategic decision-making.

Under pressure to deliver ever-increasing financial returns, deans may resort to short-sighted tactics: aggressively increasing enrollments without corresponding investments in faculty or support services; launching hastily designed revenue-generating programs that dilute the school’s brand; cutting corners on essential but less visible infrastructure; or squeezing faculty workloads to unsustainable levels. Each decision may help meet this year’s budget target, but it erodes the foundation for long-term excellence.

The constant pressure to deliver financial results can transform even visionary deans into quarter-by-quarter managers, making decisions that optimize for immediate financial metrics rather than sustainable educational impact. This financial short-termism is particularly dangerous because its consequences often emerge slowly, becoming apparent only after the dean has moved on. It leaves successors to manage the fallout from depleted intellectual capital, diminished market reputation, or faculty burnout.

Accreditation Obsession: Many deans pursue prestigious accreditations (AACSB, EQUIS, AMBA) as a be-all-end-all strategy, sometimes with destabilizing effects. The single-minded focus on meeting accreditation standards can drain resources, divert attention from innovation, and force homogenization of programs. Schools may implement drastic changes to faculty qualification requirements, research expectations, and curriculum design that don’t align with their unique strengths or market position. When accreditation becomes the goal rather than a validation of quality, it can paralyze a school with compliance activities at the expense of genuine educational excellence.

Cultural Mismatch: Business schools thrive on a delicate balance between academic rigor and practical relevance. A dean who skews too heavily toward either pole risks alienating critical stakeholders. The academically obsessed dean may lose industry connections, and the overly market-focused dean may diminish scholarly standards.

The cultural mismatch challenge runs deeper than simple strategic preferences. Deans often arrive with backgrounds and biases shaped by their previous institutions and experiences. A dean from an elite, research-focused institution may struggle to understand the culture of a regional, teaching-oriented school, imposing inappropriate expectations on faculty while overlooking the school’s traditional strengths and community connections. Conversely, a dean with an industry background might introduce corporate management practices that clash with academic governance traditions, creating friction and resistance.

This cultural disconnect frequently manifests in communication breakdowns. Deans may speak a different institutional “language” than their faculty and staff, emphasizing metrics and outcomes that seem foreign or irrelevant to long-term faculty. The resulting mistrust becomes particularly dangerous when deans attempt to implement change without first building cultural bridges and establishing a shared understanding of institutional values and identity.

Change Resistance: Perhaps counterintuitively, deans can become obstacles to necessary evolution. Having built their careers in traditional educational models, some deans struggle to embrace emerging pedagogies or business models that challenge convention.

This resistance often intertwines with cultural mismatch in a reinforcing cycle. Deans may champion changes that worked in their previous contexts while resisting innovations that don’t fit their experience – regardless of local relevance. The paradox is striking: the same dean might simultaneously push disruptive changes in some areas (often creating organizational stress) while staunchly defending outdated approaches in others.

The resistance typically manifests in selective innovation. A dean might enthusiastically adopt technology-enabled learning platforms while maintaining rigid faculty evaluation systems rooted in 20th-century academic paradigms. Or they might embrace innovative program designs while clinging to traditional pricing models that undermine accessibility. This inconsistent approach to change creates strategic incoherence and operational confusion.

Most problematically, when deans resist certain changes themselves, they create permission structures for institutional stagnation. Faculty and staff learn which innovations are politically safe to propose and which will be dismissed, narrowing the school’s adaptive capacity precisely when educational markets demand maximum flexibility and experimentation.

Resource Allocation: The dean’s funding priorities become the school’s de facto strategy. Misallocated resources – whether overinvesting in facilities while neglecting faculty development or chasing prestige projects at the expense of core operations – can cripple a school’s competitive position.

Resource allocation under a dean’s leadership carries profound symbolic and practical implications. Each budgetary decision signals institutional values and priorities more powerfully than any strategic plan or mission statement. When deans disproportionately fund certain departments, initiatives, or individuals, they create internal hierarchies that can persist for decades.

The resource allocation risk manifests in several patterns. Some deans succumb to “edifice complex,” directing disproportionate resources toward physical infrastructure – gleaming buildings, luxury amenities, and state-of-the-art facilities – while underinvesting in the human capital that actually delivers educational value. These architectural monuments may impress visitors but do little to enhance learning if faculty development, curriculum innovation, and student support remain underfunded.

Other deans fall prey to “prestige project syndrome,” channeling scarce resources into high-visibility initiatives designed to enhance institutional reputation or personal legacy. These might include specialized centers, boutique programs, or exclusive partnerships that consume disproportionate resources while serving small constituencies. Meanwhile, core educational programs serving the majority of students may languish with outdated curricula and overworked faculty.

Perhaps most dangerous is the “innovation starvation” pattern, where deans maintain comfortable legacy activities while failing to allocate sufficient resources for experimentation and future-focused initiatives. With no organizational slack or dedicated funding for genuine innovation, the school becomes increasingly misaligned with evolving market needs and technological possibilities.

Relationship Management: Business education relies on complex partnerships with corporations, alumni, and other university departments. A dean who neglects these relationships or manages them poorly jeopardizes critical support systems.

The relationship dimension represents a particularly nuanced risk. Business schools function within complex ecosystems of stakeholders, each with distinct needs and expectations. The dean serves as the primary relationship manager across these constituencies, and relationship failures can cascade through the organization in devastating ways.

Internally, deans must manage delicate relationships with university leadership, particularly presidents and provosts who control institutional resources and priorities. A dean who fails to effectively advocate for the business school’s interests or who creates unnecessary conflicts may find their school gradually marginalized within university resource allocation decisions. Conversely, deans who position themselves as university leadership’s enforcer rather than the school’s advocate can lose faculty trust and internal legitimacy.

External relationships carry equal weight. Alumni connections, properly nurtured, provide essential financial support, hiring pathways for students, and advisory input. When deans neglect these relationships or treat alumni solely as funding sources rather than valued community members, they lose crucial advocates. Similarly, corporate partnerships require sophisticated management to balance company needs with academic integrity. Deans who mismanage these relationships risk either corporate disengagement or inappropriate corporate influence over academic decisions.

Perhaps most critically, deans must manage relationships with their own faculty and staff – the people who actually deliver on the school’s educational promises. Deans who create adversarial relationships through autocratic management styles, perceived favoritism, or communication failures find their strategic initiatives undermined by passive resistance, declining morale, and eventual talent exodus. A dean might excel at external relationship building while failing catastrophically at internal community building, creating a glossy façade with a hollow core.

The Amplification Effect

What makes this risk particularly acute is the multiplier effect. A faculty member’s poor performance impacts their students; a program director’s missteps affect one degree program. But a dean’s errors reverberate throughout the entire institution, potentially for years beyond their tenure.

The Path Forward

Recognizing the dean as a risk factor isn’t about diminishing leadership but about implementing appropriate governance. Strong boards, meaningful faculty involvement in strategic decisions, and transparent performance metrics can provide the necessary counterbalance.

Business schools must approach dean selection and evaluation with the same rigor they teach in their risk management courses. After all, no investment decision or strategic pivot carries more consequences than choosing who will lead the institution into an uncertain future.

In our eagerness to analyze external threats, we sometimes overlook the most fundamental risk of all – that the captain of our ship might be steering toward, rather than away from, the iceberg on the horizon.