The dean's job, in being at the point where the academic and business worlds are joined, requires the ability to cope with two different environments: the academic world – which is individualistic, inward and has a long-term focus; and the fast-changing and customer-responsive world of business. In fact the capacity to understand and integrate these two realities is at the heart of being a good dean.

The idiosyncrasies of academics diffuse the dean's power and authority. They tend to conceive the dean's role as that of an enabler, to facilitate their research and teaching agendas by generating resources, but without much interference in their individual academic interests. The traditional academic tenure system is likely to consolidate this culture.

Simultaneously, the dean deals with both growing competition and increasing pressure on customisation and price for executive education, as well as a shrinking market for MBAs.