IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/envira/v43y2011i1p10-27.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Commoditising Learning: Cultural Economy and the Growth of for-Profit Business Education Service Firms in London

Author

Listed:
  • Sarah Hall

    (School of Geography, University of Nottingham, University Park, Nottingham NG7 2RD, England)

  • Lindsay Appleyard

    (Centre for Household Assets and Savings Management, Institute for Applied Social Studies, University of Birmingham, Birmingham B15 2TT, England)

Abstract

Individuals working in graduate labour markets are increasingly expected to enhance their employability and career progression by undertaking lifelong education and learning within the workplace. Research has examined how graduates navigate this dynamic educational landscape, but the changing nature of educational providers has been comparatively neglected. In response, in this paper we examine the growth of for-profit business education service firms that have grown to meet the increased demand for lifelong learning and education by focusing on the financial business education sector in London. We develop cultural economy approaches to market making in order to understand how these educational service firms have developed by ‘stabilising’ new educational services and products that compete with, and seek to ‘destabilise’, more established forms of business education, particularly MBA degrees. In so doing, we position educational service firms as an important, yet hitherto neglected set of business services within economic geography. Moreover, by focusing on a relatively mature for-profit educational sector, the research presented in the paper has important implications for the development of educational landscapes beyond the case of financial business education as they become increasingly beholden to the activities of for-profit education service firms and wider discourses of markets in educational services.

Suggested Citation

  • Sarah Hall & Lindsay Appleyard, 2011. "Commoditising Learning: Cultural Economy and the Growth of for-Profit Business Education Service Firms in London," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 43(1), pages 10-27, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:envira:v:43:y:2011:i:1:p:10-27
    DOI: 10.1068/a42488
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1068/a42488
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1068/a42488?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Sarah Hall & Lindsey Appleyard, 2009. "'City of London, City of Learning'? Placing business education within the geographies of finance," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 9(5), pages 597-617, September.
    2. J V Beaverstock & P J Taylor & R G Smith, 1999. "The Long Arm of the Law: London's Law Firms in a Globalising World Economy," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 31(10), pages 1857-1876, October.
    3. Brown, Phillip & Hesketh, Anthony, 2004. "The Mismanagement of Talent: Employability and Jobs in the Knowledge Economy," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199269549.
    4. Brown, Phillip & Green, Andy & Lauder, Hugh, 2001. "High Skills: Globalization, Competitiveness, and Skill Formation," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199244201.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Thomas Wainwright & Ewald Kibler & Jukka-Pekka Heikkilä & Simon Down, 2018. "Elite entrepreneurship education: Translating ideas in North Korea," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 50(5), pages 1008-1026, August.
    2. James R Faulconbridge & Sarah Hall, 2014. "Reproducing the City of London's Institutional Landscape: The Role of Education and the Learning of Situated Practices by Early Career Elites," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 46(7), pages 1682-1698, July.
    3. Andrew C G Cook & James R Faulconbridge & Daniel Muzio, 2012. "London's Legal Elite: Recruitment through Cultural Capital and the Reproduction of Social Exclusivity in City Professional Service Fields," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 44(7), pages 1744-1762, July.
    4. Chaudhuri, Sarbajit & Ghosh, Arnab & Banerjee, Dibyendu, 2018. "Can public subsidy on education necessarily improve wage inequality?," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 165-177.
    5. Roberta Comunian & Alessandra Faggian & Sarah Jewell, 2014. "Embedding Arts and Humanities in the Creative Economy: The Role of Graduates in the UK," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 32(3), pages 426-450, June.
    6. Rajani Naidoo, 2011. "Rethinking Development: Higher Education and the New Imperialism," Chapters, in: Roger King & Simon Marginson & Rajani Naidoo (ed.), Handbook on Globalization and Higher Education, chapter 3, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    7. Andrew Morrison, 2013. "Outclassed?: Undergraduates’ Perceptions of the Competition for Primary Teaching Jobs in England and Wales," Sociological Research Online, , vol. 18(3), pages 63-73, August.
    8. Ashley, Louise & Boussebaa, Mehdi & Friedman, Sam & Harrington, Brooke & Heusinkveld, Stefan & Gustafsson, Stefanie & Muzio, Daniel, 2023. "Professions and inequality: challenges, controversies, and opportunities," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 119522, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    9. Busemeyer, Marius R., 2011. "Varieties of cross-class coalitions in the politics of dualization: Insights from the case of vocational training in Germany," MPIfG Discussion Paper 11/13, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies.
    10. Alistair Cole, 2004. "Devolution and decentralization in Wales and Brittany: a framework for evaluation," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 28(2), pages 354-368, June.
    11. Matthias Grossmann (SKOPE) and Mark Poston (DFID), "undated". "Skill Needs and Policies for Agriculture-led Pro-poor Development," QEH Working Papers qehwps112, Queen Elizabeth House, University of Oxford.
    12. Nick Wilton, 2011. "Do employability skills really matter in the UK graduate labour market? The case of business and management graduates," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 25(1), pages 85-100, March.
    13. Sophie Hennekam & Dawn Bennett & Sally Macarthur & Cat Hope & Talisha Goh, 2018. "An international perspective on managing career as a woman composer," Post-Print hal-03232754, HAL.
    14. Christal Lane & Margaret Potton & Wolfgang Littek, 2000. "The Professions Between State and Market: A Cross-National Study of Convergence and Divergence," Working Papers wp189, Centre for Business Research, University of Cambridge.
    15. Moyo Lincolyn & Mukomana Saziso, 2021. "The use of experiential learning in effective provision of skills to secondary school learners in Zimbabwe," International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science, International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science (IJRISS), vol. 5(6), pages 155-159, June.
    16. Bayley, Stephen H., 2022. "Learning for adaptation and 21st-century skills: Evidence of pupils’ flexibility in Rwandan primary schools," International Journal of Educational Development, Elsevier, vol. 93(C).
    17. Theocharis Kromydas, 2017. "Rethinking higher education and its relationship with social inequalities: past knowledge, present state and future potential," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 3(1), pages 1-12, December.
    18. Kim Allen & Sumi Hollingworth, 2013. "‘Sticky Subjects’ or ‘Cosmopolitan Creatives’? Social Class, Place and Urban Young People’s Aspirations for Work in the Knowledge Economy," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 50(3), pages 499-517, February.
    19. Johanna L Waters, 2009. "In Pursuit of Scarcity: Transnational Students, ‘Employability’, and the MBA," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 41(8), pages 1865-1883, August.
    20. Gordon L. Clark, 2016. "The Components of Talent: Company Size and Financial Centres in the European Investment Management Industry," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 50(1), pages 168-181, January.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:envira:v:43:y:2011:i:1:p:10-27. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.