Reimagining business schools and reimagining management education

Prof Véronique Ambrosini, 2025

Véronique Ambrosini’s research reveals a coherent mission to transform management education from a narrow, managerialist enterprise into a more holistic, stakeholder-centred, and socially responsible endeavour.

Reimagining business schools

Her work is driven by a fundamental concern that business schools have lost their way, becoming overly focused on metrics, rankings, and profit maximisation at the expense of meaningful education and societal and ecological contribution. She challenges the status-quo. She argues that traditional management education fails to prepare students for complex real-world challenges and perpetuates harmful managerialist controls that undermine both learning and well-being. Her purpose is to reimagine business schools as institutions that create genuine value for all stakeholders while fostering sustainable, ethical and responsible leadership.

Her work guides business schools on how they can be transformed so that they align with emerging sustainability values and stakeholder expectations, moving away from purely profit-driven models toward more socially responsible approaches. To make it happen, she has developed multiple theoretical frameworks and pedagogical approaches to address these challenges. She has advocated for service-dominant logic in business education, promoting value co-creation between schools and diverse stakeholders rather than one-way knowledge transfer. She has presented actionable arguments for change in governance and moving beyond narrow performance metrics toward more holistic value creation models.

Reimagining management education

Her work envisages diverse and innovative educational approaches. Through phenomenographic thinking, she has challenged essentialist views of management, encouraging students to construct their own understanding rather than passively receive prescribed knowledge. She has integrated critical diversity perspectives into strategy education, helping students navigate the complexity of implementation. Additionally, she has examined how circadian health principles can improve learning outcomes.

These approaches empower educators to engage in meaningful scholarship that serves societal and ecological needs and help prepare students for real-world complexity while supporting their well-being. Véronique’s work represents significant shifts to how students can experience more authentic, contextually relevant learning that develops both cognitive and affective capabilities. Students gain tools for managing their own well-being and understanding the human complexity of organisational life.

In conclusion her work contributes to understand how systemic change can happen in business schools. She aligns business school transformation with the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Her emphasis on sustainability values and the UN SDGs positions business schools as agents of positive social change rather than perpetuators of harmful neoliberal practices. By advocating for collective action and “positive rebellion” against managerialism, she provides pathways for broader institutional transformation. Her work influences employers who receive graduates better prepared for ethical leadership and complex problem-solving. Society benefits from business schools that prioritise public good over private profit, contributing to more sustainable and equitable economic systems.

Through this comprehensive research approach, Véronique has established herself as a leading voice for transforming management education into a force for positive social change, demonstrating how academic scholarship can drive meaningful reform in business schools and amplify their broader societal and ecological impact.