Henley Business School is a

business school A business school is a university-level institution that confers degrees in business administration or management. A business school may also be referred to as school of management, management school, school of business administration, or ...

which now forms part of the

University of Reading The University of Reading is a public university in Reading, Berkshire, England. It was founded in 1892 as University College, Reading, a University of Oxford extension college. The institution received the power to grant its own degrees in 192 ...

. It was formed by merging the previously independent Henley Management College (formerly the Administrative Staff College) with the existing business school of the University of Reading. As a result of the merger it now occupies two sites: Greenlands Campus, near the town of

Henley-on-Thames Henley-on-Thames ( ) is a town and civil parish on the River Thames in Oxfordshire, England, northeast of Reading, west of Maidenhead, southeast of Oxford and west of London (by road), near the tripoint of Oxfordshire, Berkshire and Buckin ...

, the original site of the Henley Management College, and Whiteknights Campus in

Reading Reading is the process of taking in the sense or meaning of letters, symbols, etc., especially by sight or touch. For educators and researchers, reading is a multifaceted process involving such areas as word recognition, orthography (spell ...

. As of 2020 the school had

triple accreditation Triple is used in several contexts to mean "threefold" or a " treble": Sports * Triple (baseball), a three-base hit * A basketball three-point field goal * A figure skating jump with three rotations * In bowling terms, three strikes in a row * ...

EQUIS The EFMD Quality Improvement System (EQUIS) is an international school accreditation system. It specializes in higher education institutions of management and business administration, run by the European Foundation for Management Development (EFM ...

AMBA Amba or AMBA may refer to: Title * Amba Hor, alternative name for Abhor and Mehraela, Christian martyrs * Amba Sada, also known as Psote, Christian bishop and martyr in Upper Egypt Given name * Amba, the traditional first name given to the fir ...

and the

AACSB The Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business, also known as AACSB International, is an American professional organization. It was founded as the American Assembly of Collegiate Schools of Business in 1916 to provide accreditation to ...

History

1945-1981

The Administrative Staff College was set up in 1945 at

as the civilian equivalent of the military

staff college Staff colleges (also command and staff colleges and War colleges) train military officers in the administrative, military staff and policy aspects of their profession. It is usual for such training to occur at several levels in a career. For e ...

s. It offered short courses in problems of advanced management. The college was offered the use of Greenlands by the 3rd Viscount Hambledon in 1946, and was bought outright from the family in 1952. In its early years, the college was influenced by the management consultant and writer

Lyndall Urwick Lyndall Fownes Urwick (3 March 1891 – 5 December 1983) was a British management consultant and business thinker. He is recognised for integrating the ideas of earlier theorists like Henri Fayol into a comprehensive theory of management admi ...

, the academic

Hector Hetherington Sir Hector James Wright Hetherington (21 July 1888 – 15 January 1965) was a Scottish philosopher, who was Vice-Chancellor of the University of Liverpool from 1927 to 1936, and Principal of the University of Glasgow until 1961. Early life H ...

, the civil servant Sir Donald Banks and the businessman Sir Geoffrey Heyworth (later Lord Heyworth); its curriculum was designed by its first principal, Noel Hall. From the beginning, its intention was to bring together executives from

Her Majesty's Civil Service His Majesty's Home Civil Service, also known as His Majesty's Civil Service, the Home Civil Service, or colloquially as the Civil Service is the permanent bureaucracy or secretariat of Crown employees that supports His Majesty's Government, which ...

, private business and nationalised industries to help develop their skills for promotion to senior management. Henley ran its first Masters in Business in 1974. This was renamed

MBA A Master of Business Administration (MBA; also Master's in Business Administration) is a postgraduate degree focused on business administration. The core courses in an MBA program cover various areas of business administration such as accounti ...

by the end of the 1970s.

1981-2008

In 1981, the college changed its name from its original title to Henley - The Management College. This was changed again to the Henley Management College when it was awarded a

royal charter A royal charter is a formal grant issued by a monarch under royal prerogative as letters patent. Historically, they have been used to promulgate public laws, the most famous example being the English Magna Carta (great charter) of 1215, b ...

in 1991. In the 1980s the college's full time and part time MBA education were based at Brunel University. In the beginning the MBAs were awarded by Brunel University. By 2002, the college achieved

status from the

Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business The Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business, also known as AACSB International, is an American professional organization. It was founded as the American Assembly of Collegiate Schools of Business in 1916 to provide accreditation to ...

(AACSB), the

Association of MBAs The Association of MBAs (AMBA) is a global organisation founded in 1967 which focuses primarily on international business school accreditation and membership. Roles Based in London, AMBA is one of the three main global accreditation bodies in ...

(AMBA) and the

European Quality Improvement System The EFMD Quality Improvement System (EQUIS) is an international school accreditation system. It specializes in higher education institutions of management and business administration, run by the European Foundation for Management Development (EFM ...

(EQUIS). The Greenlands campus of the college is located on the banks of the river

Thames The River Thames ( ), known alternatively in parts as the River Isis, is a river that flows through southern England including London. At , it is the longest river entirely in England and the second-longest in the United Kingdom, after the R ...

near Henley-on-Thames, on a

country estate An estate is a large parcel of land under single ownership, which would historically generate income for its owner. British context In the UK, historically an estate comprises the houses, outbuildings, supporting farmland, and woods that s ...

and former home of the

WH Smith WHSmith (also written WH Smith, and known colloquially as Smith's and formerly as W. H. Smith & Son) is a British retailer, headquartered in Swindon, England, which operates a chain of high street, railway station, airport, port, hospital and m ...

family.

2008-present

In 2008, the Henley Management College merged with the University of Reading to form the Henley Business School. It consists of the School of International Business and Strategy; the School of Leadership, Organisations and Behaviour; the School of Marketing and Reputation; the School of Business Informatics, Systems and Accountancy (which includes the Informatics Research Centre); the School of Real Estate & Planning; the

ICMA Centre The International Capital Market Association Centre (or ICMA Centre) is a centre of higher education based in the English town of Reading, Berkshire. It offers undergraduate, postgraduate and executive education tailored to the capital markets i ...

; and Executive Education Programmes. As of 2021 the dean is John Board.

Accreditation

As of 2020 Henley Business School held triple-accredited status from

and

References

External links

* {{Authority control Business schools in England Education in Buckinghamshire Henley-on-Thames Higher education colleges in England University of Reading Educational institutions established in 2008 2008 establishments in England