Stern School of Business Study Demonstrates Academic Return on Research Investment

In publishing the first empirical evidence measuring the value of academic research on business school performance, Stern School of Business marketing professor Peter Golder, with Debanjan Mitra of the University of Florida, used data to challenge the widely publicized 2005 Harvard Business Review opinion-based attack on business schools for becoming too focused on research at students’ expense. Golder and Mitra’s research appeared in the September 2008 issue of The Journal of Marketing.
    Based on data collected from 57 business schools over the course of 18 years, the professors evaluated the impact of academic research on multiple measures of business school performance, finding that academic research has positive, long-term effects on the perception of business schools by recruiters, applicants, and other academics, of which 90% are realized in just three to six years. They also discovered that when a business school has a persistent increase of three single-authored articles per year, its student acceptance rate (selectivity) declines 1 percent, its graduates’ average starting salary increases by more than $750, and its ranking by peer academics moves up one spot. The salary effect is about 25 percent larger for business schools at the most academically reputable universities.