Report to MU Curators Supports Rankings of Bloch School at UMKC

     An independent review released this morning by the University of Missouri System Board of Curators concludes that UMKC’s Bloch School of Management’s 2012 ranking as the nation’s top program for innovation management research met the standards for generally acceptable professional practices.

    A release from UMKC said that was one of three key findings submitted by Robert Hisrich, former director of the Center for Global Entrepreneurship at Thunderbird School of Global Management in Glendale, Ariz., in conjunction with PwC, the global audit and accounting firm PwC.

    Hisrich also determined that Henry Bloch’s $32 million gift for a new building was not motivated by past and future rankings, but by enrollment growth. He also found that while the Bloch School had issues with data collection used in the rankings, those problems–since addressed by UMKC–made no material difference in the Journal of Product Innovation Management’s No. 1 ranking for the Bloch school or in Michael Song’s top ranking in innovation research.

     Gov. Jay Nixon requested the review after news reports last summer questioned whether UMKC had incorrectly provided data to inflate its ratings. Some critics argued that the higher ratings were used to persuade Henry Bloch to make the donation for the new school that bears his name. Hisrich’s review noted that Bloch’s decision to donate the funds came in the spring of 2011, months before the publication of the JPIM article. The new building opened in 2014.

     “I am grateful to Gov. Nixon for insisting that an independent expert be brought in to bring the truth to light. Dr. Hisrich’s credentials and credibility are such that this report should put this matter to rest once and for all,” Bloch said in the UMKC release. “It’s time to get back to the important work of building on the successes of the Bloch School and continuing the fine work they’ve been doing to meet the needs of its students and Kansas City’s business community.” 

The Hisrich report cane be found at http://umurl.us/RHreport and the PwC report at http://umurl.us/PWCreport.