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research into the business school. This article sets out to stimulate debate that will fill this gap. We review the origins and evolution of the business school and debates about management research and teaching in terms of ideals and practice. Increasingly, the role of the business school is being questioned but much of this debate looks at the business school in isolation from changes in the wider university sector. We situate our analysis within the broader context of debates about the university as a privileged knowledge space. We conclude by suggesting that the future of the business school can best be discussed in terms of changes in knowledge production and that the business school has the opportunity to position itself as a unique site of knowledge generation and diffusion. K E Y W O R D S business school knowledge learning management research university There is relatively little serious academic research into the business school itself. This article sets out to stimulate debate that will fill this gap. It also confronts the irony that as the business school has become more dominant as a global institution, its role is increasingly questioned, most notably by Pfeffer and Fong (2002). Their argument is stark. The future of the business school is in doubt because its research and teaching missions are compro-mised, perhaps fatally