Copenhagen Business School Triumphs in Reputation Stakes: MBA News

In a vote designed to test business schools’ reputation among their academic peers, Copenhagen Business School has come out top.

The deans or directors of 1,000 business schools in 154 countries worldwide were given the chance to recommend schools by country in Eduniversal’s ‘Deans Vote’.

Copenhagen Business School received 672 recommendations – more than any other school. London Business School received 668 votes and Harvard Business School (HBS) 664.

“The reason for us doing so well is that we have pursued a consistent diversity strategy for the last quarter of a century: opening up to globalization, including more academic disciplines, and cooperating with numerous other universities,” said Sven Bislev, an associate professor at Copenhagen Business School in a press release.

Eduniversal voting marks international recognition

Of course, the system of recommendation by country – each dean can vote for up to 50% of the schools within a country – makes a fair comparison between countries impossible and is not intended as such. Indeed, the number of institutions in each country, and resultant level of competition, will vary widely.

Instead, Eduniversal’s ranking is useful in assessing the international recognition and standing in which business schools are held by their peers in business education – deans don’t have to recommend any school in a particular country if they don’t feel inclined to. It does also make for interesting in-country comparisons. 

For the US, HBS’s count of 664 recommendations saw it place first. Yale School of Management was some distance behind with 576, but placed ahead of the traditional business school ranking stalwarts of Stanford and MIT Sloan.

Far behind London Business School’s 668 votes in the UK, meanwhile, came the trio of Oxford Saïd, Warwick Business School and LSE – with recommendations around the 450 mark.

Eduniversal uses these votes to rank the schools by region across varying levels of excellence that are set along criteria such as accreditation and research reputation. In the highest bracket, Copenhagen Business School scooped the regional prize for Western Europe, for instance, ahead of London Business School and INSEAD. The top three schools in a selection of Eduniversal’s regions are detailed below.