“A Mess in Theory — a Mess in Practice”. Thoughtful article by Simon Caulkin on the failure of management education in Britain. Very good on the baleful impact of the RAE.

“management research must pass a dual test of rigour: it must be theoretically robust but also stand up to the buffeting of practice. (As one business-school head used to say: ‘There’s nothing so practical as a good theory.’) It is also transdisciplinary. Important issues such as supply-chain management or indeed productivity do not sit comfortably in traditional subject areas.

RAE tramples on both these imperatives. It judges research in 69 standalone units of assessment, and in purely academic terms, by peer review of books and articles in learned journals. For RAE purposes, articles in Harvard Business Review, the most influential management publication on the planet, don’t count because it is not an academic journal. ”

Netscape Communications, AOL Time Warner’s subsidiary, on Tuesday sued Microsoft for damages, citing its anti-competitive behaviour during the so-called “browser wars” in the mid-1990s. The private antitrust lawsuit is based on the government’s antitrust case against the software giant, which found the company guilty of anti-competitive behaviour. FT story here.

Dave Winer: “For some writing I want to do I need a definition of the term Full Peer. What do you think, does this explanation make sense to you?”  Yes Dave, it does.