Ford Foundation funding drove business schools’ academicization in the 1960s

Evidence

In response to the perception that they were not rigorous enough, American business schools sought to “academicize” themselves, a goal whose achievement was assisted by the availability of funds for the task from the Ford Foundation and by the general expansion in higher education. Academicization proceeded rapidly in the 1960s and the 1970s. — Donald MacKenzie, An Engine, Not a Camera, 322

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Finance scholarship rose from business-school marginality to Nobel-level prominence by the 1990s; American business schools were academically weak until the late 1950s — Donald MacKenzie, An Engine, Not a Camera: How Financial…, 321; The Ford Foundation funded a 1950s behavioral-sciences reorganization — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 331 (+2 more)

Broader Connections

• The Ford Foundation funded a 1950s behavioral-sciences reorganization #corroborates (0.85) — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 331
• Academicization opened finance jobs beyond the Chicago and MIT schools #expands (0.75) — Donald MacKenzie, An Engine, Not a Camera, 323
• Foundation funding and private research work shaped early neoliberal career paths #complicates (0.72) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 101