Evolution of the Strathclyde Business School

At the time of obtaining the Royal Charter, two departments, Administration and Industrial Economics whose successor departments continue in SBS, were already in place in the Royal College. The Business and Management presence was increased substantially with the immediately pre-Charter merger with the Scottish College of Commerce.

The Scottish College was established originally in 1845 as the Glasgow Commercial College, the lectures being given in Anderson's College which later became the Royal College of Science and Technology. In 1847 it was renamed the Glasgow Athenaeum. The College came under the jurisdiction of the Scottish Education Department in 1903 and was designated the Central Institution for Commercial Education in Glasgow and the West of Scotland. In 1934 newly constructed premises were provided in Pitt Street and in 1955 the Institution was renamed the Scottish College of Commerce.

The post-1945 period was one of considerable expansion for the Scottish College of Commerce. In 1948 there were three main departments, Business Administration, General Commercial Studies and Modern Languages to which were soon added the Scottish School of Librarianship and the Scottish Hotel School. Subsequently, the departments of Accountancy, Law, Management Studies and Sociology were established.

The College offered London external degrees and a College Associateship, both being available as full-time day courses and in evening classes. Many of the students left school without gaining university entrance qualifications and later decided to pursue academic courses. The students, therefore, tended to be strongly motivated and mature. Those not taking the London degree examinations could take the internal College Associateship examinations.

Several changes took place in the Scottish College of Commerce in the years just before the 1964 merger. The first generic social work course in Scotland was established in 1961, and in 1962 there was a major reorganisation: new departments of Economic and Social Studies and of Secretarial Studies were established; and the department of Business and Administration focused on commerce and business administration.

At the point of merger the former Scottish College activities in Modern Languages, English Studies, Librarianship and Sociology were transferred to the School of Arts and Social Studies. The remaining departments were reconstituted in a School of Business and Administration to which was added the Department of Industrial Administration from the Arts School. This reconstitution produced five departments:

• Accountancy
• Law
• Scottish Hotel School
• Commerce
  • commerce
  • business economics
  • marketing
  • secretarial studies
• Administration and Industrial Administration
  • industrial relations
  • operational analysis
  • social administration
  • public administration

The School of Business and Administration was moved in September 1972 to the main University campus where Economics and Administration were already being offered in the Faculty of Arts and Social Studies. This impending move signaled an appropriate time to resolve the separate teaching of Economics in Arts and Business and to reconsider the role of the Department of Commerce. The following changes were agreed:

• the Department of Commerce ceased to exist from October 1971
• Marketing was established as a separate department
• Secretarial Studies was set up as a separate Centre for Secretarial Studies
• the Business Economics and Commerce sections joined the Department of Economics
• the Industrial Relations section of the Department of Industrial Administration transferred to the Department of Economics

The merger of the Royal College of Science and Technology and the Scottish College of Commerce followed a lengthy period of collaborative activity by the two Colleges which together had founded the Glasgow School of Management Studies in 1948. Management education was provided to undergraduate engineers and technologists in the Royal College, and during the 1960s real progress was made in the development of postgraduate and post-experience management education. Chester's Residential Management Centre in Bearsden, donated to the Royal College by Alexander Turnbull in 1953, had established itself as one of the premier centres for post-experience business studies in the UK and two initiatives were undertaken: physical expansion by the addition of forty bedrooms and, reflecting the shift at Chester's to postgraduate and post-experience courses, development of a programme for a new degree of Master of Business Administration which was launched in 1966.

In 1970 the Scottish Business School was formed involving the Universities of Strathclyde, Glasgow and Edinburgh. In the campaign for a major business school to be situated in Scotland the Scottish Council (Development and Industry) and others had supported strongly the argument that Strathclyde should be the base for this new School. However, the University Grants Committee proposed a tripartite structure and this was accepted by the Council of Industry for Management Education. A central element of the agreement setting up the Scottish Business School was that Strathclyde should be given special responsibility for residential courses in a new building on the Strathclyde campus.

At that time the Strathclyde component of the Scottish Business School, and what was then called the Strathclyde Business School, had its own steering board with a number of leading members of the business community, a staff of fifteen at Chester's, responsibility for the MBA programme and the resources of the University departments to draw on. Over time the Scottish Business School fell into dysfunction as the three universities pursued their own MBA programmes, and staff from Chester's transferred to the new Sir William Duncan Building which was completed in 1976. With the development of the MBA programme, further accommodation was provided for the Strathclyde Graduate Business School, known now as the Strathclyde Business School, with the opening of the Cathedral Street Building in 1992.

The merger of the Royal and Scottish Colleges in 1964, the restructuring in 1971 and the developments from Chester's shaped the basic structure of what is now the Strathclyde Business School. With, during the 1980s and 1990s, some further organisational changes, e.g. the merger of Industrial Relations and Administration, with some changes of name, e.g. from Operational Analysis to Management Science, and with some new developments, e.g. the Hunter Centre for Entrepreneurship and the Graduate School of Environmental Studies, the School now has the following departments and units:

Key points in the development of the Strathclyde Business School:

1845	Establishment of Glasgow Commercial College (renamed Glasgow Athenaeum 1847)
1903	Glasgow Athenaeum designated the Central Institution for Commercial Education in Glasgow and the West of Scotland
1948	Glasgow School of Management Studies established
1953	Chester's Residential Management Centre donated to Royal College of Science and Technology
1955	Law School
1964	Central Institution for Commercial Education renamed the Scottish College of Commerce London external degrees College Associateship's
1966	New degree of Master of  Business Administration introduced
1970	Scottish Business School formed by Strathclyde, Glasgow and Edinburgh
1971	Restructuring of departments in the Schools of Business and Management and Arts and Social Studies to create basis for present-day Strathclyde Business School
1976	Transfer of staff from Chester's to the Strathclyde Graduate Business School (SGBS) within the Strathclyde Business School
1992	Opening of Cathedral Street Building for SGBS, now the Department of Management