Teaching history in business schools: 1982-2003

A long tradition in business schools is teaching the history of business or business disciplines. However, surveys over the past quarter century suggest that such teaching is becoming less common - to the detriment of our students, particularly doctoral students. We trace that tradition and present the results of two major surveys that indicate a current decline in teaching the history of business disciplines. We offer reasons and examples to support our position that we need to study history not only to gain a historical perspective but also the ability to think critically about current problems.