1st China Management Model Global Forum held at Renmin University of China in 2018 and  Professor Xu Shuying there delivered a speech that shocked business school professors. He told, "Business school professors, don't hide in the ivory tower,” which caused a great stir among Chinese business studies professors. In the speech, Professor  Shuying talked about how the scientific rigor of business research has regressed. It is conducted in the ivory tower without negotiating to enterprises and the practice has been increasingly ignored. "We should truly understand the enterprises, study their difficulties, extract their logic. In addition, we need to propose a core theory, repeatedly verify this theory, overturning the wrong ones to retain the right ones for further verification. “This is the scientific method," said Professor Xu Shuying. Then, Chen Fangruo, Dean of Antai College of Economics & Management at Shanghai Jiao Tong University urged to the establishment of the Industry Research Institute at Shanghai Jiao Tong University on December 8, 2018. The institute established a new mode of industry research, which will redesign the of academic recognition.  The research program launched a study the internal rules and future trends of industry development, break down the division between disciplines, and establish a diverse value system.

Obviously, from Professor Xu Shuying's speech and Dean Chen Fangruo's promotion, we can comprehend that there is a concern about the detachment of business research from practice in contemporary issues. So why are professors in business schools getting progressively detached from practice? Many scholars have conducted a lot of research on thiissue and disseminated various findings. The more mainstream one, as mentioned by Professor Xu Shuying, is that "the scholars' salaries and career position depends on their academic publications, and it is not important thing whether they have created knowledge for business benefits” He also explained, "the reputation or certification of the school depend on the number of academic publications,”  He told that it is primary consideration on how many articles have been published in the series of journals, but it is secondary to whether this school has had a significant impact on research.." As a result, academic publication has become the core responsibility for business school professors, and the people who determine whether they can publish are also business school professors. Business school professors, therefore, have formed an independent, closed, and self-appreciative academic publishing loop, which does not require the consideration of  social reactions, entrepreneurial attitudes, or practicality.

Although since 2018, Professor Xu Shuying and Dean Chen Fangruo have loudly been advocating for practical values, the results have generated minimal. Traditional evaluation indicators, discipline assessments, talent caps directly or indirectly favor academic publications, and this trend has gradually been intensifying. However, I personally believe that the command to change this situation has arrivedwhich is transforming into ‘GPT.’ The command to change  the situation does not arise from the business school, or from the higher-level management professor of the department , but from entirely an external force - the new technology, GPT.

GPT-4, take off! On March 14, 2023, OpenAI officially launched the GPT-4 text generation AI system. GPT-4 is a multi-modal language model that supports both image and text input and outputs.; Its capability is enhanced, and it can process text with more than 25,000 words. It is more creative and can handle more subtle instructions. Geoffrey Hinton, the father of deep learning, said, "Just as a caterpillar absorbs nutrients, GPT-4 also transforms into a butterfly after condensing the essence of human natural language understanding."

Generally speaking, traditional business education focuses on professional functional education. Business education is aiming at cultivating the basic qualities of business management talents. It covers a wide range and involves multiple majors, with FAME (finance, accounting, management, economics) as the representative of the four professional categories. However, current business education severely lacks practical scenarios and applications. The practical scenario is to the point where professors speak fluently but students are left in dark. The GPT+Meta model will entirely change the shortcomings of present scenarios and the variability of practical scenarios in business education. Business schools can actively apply the ‘GPT+Meta model’ to develop relevant courses  scenario-based, immersive, and gamified. Following this "GPT+Meta model,” students will experience scenarios that resemble real company environments, learn business theories, methods, and techniques. and They can apply these theories, methods, and techniques to real company set-ups in a timely manner. This "GPT+Meta model" learning method can customize theoretical knowledge and provide timely feedback on effective learning based on each student's learning skills. This allows the further design of customized learning plans for strengthening learning system.

In general, traditional business research starts with solving real-world problems. This research works from the era of Taylor's scientific management to the social-human era focusing on human role in management. Most of them focus on the starting point of solving practical problems, such as Taylor's shoveling iron experiment and Harvard professor Mayo's Hawthorne experiment,. They are recognizable examples of management research in real problems of the companies. However, Professor Xu Shuying pointed ou from 1990 business research has undergone a transformation and become increasingly rigorous, retreating back into the Ivory tower.” The work has starting to do theoretical research, gradually moving away from practice. Many professors and scholars have offered analysis for this including assessment methods, and the lack of management studies confidence on science, among other reasons.

However,  GPT will gradually acquire certain capabilities for repetitive, simulation-based, trial-and-error research in the future. The research paradigms in business studies, including current empirical research, experimental approach, and simulation models, will gradually be mastered by GPT.It will be faster with the  capablity of trial and error, and be able to simulate more areas than human researchers. Therefore, where can human research not be replaced? This is something that current business professors need to think further about the present technology. Perhaps,  professors will produce valuable research questions, because valuable research questions may have just appeared in some phenomena, which only humans can acquire. They have to to "think about how to implement and monetize research outcomes," because artificial intelligence has done a lot of research, but far away from how to apply many findings to create value and so on. Of course, these are still hypothetical phenomena. However, it will change business professors’ trends, and they have closely to align  practices.

Obviously, GPT will gradually acquire teaching and research abilities that business professors possessed in the past, and it is precisely because GPT possesses these abilities changing business professors’ research paradigm. Such changes will be "closely aligned with practice, embracing practice, and loving practice." Only  exercising practice can continue business school professors to have teaching and research abilities that GPT cannot possess. The core capabilities will be "originated from practice, above practice, and used for practice."

Originated from practice: Scientific research originates from practice, and course design needs to be based on practice. By delving into practice, observing phenomena, and raising questions, problems will arise along with ongoing practice. However, how to keenly discover, raise, and refine problems from practice that may be the first thing for future researchers.. Meanwhile, by delving into practice, observing practice, the scenarios of practice can be applied to course design and teaching practice. The practice allows students to quickly understand and become aware of the business enterprises, which can aid students quickly understand of practical work after graduation.

-Above practice: Scientific research is above practice, and course design needs to be above practice. Only by delving into practice, observing and raising questions, a research can be conducted. Such research requires to be condensed and summarized into a relatively normative theoretical system, which entails being "above practice." Similarly, such theoretical systems can be applied to course teaching, becoming above practice course content, which can provide students a outline of knowledge structure experiencing practical problems in the future.

-Used for practice: Scientific research is used for practice, and course knowledge is used for practice. Practice is the unique critera for testing truth, as an applied discipline, knowledge and research in business.. For the problems discovered from practice, the theoretical research outcomes formed following the standards of "above practice." All need to be "used for practice" in the end, and need to be used to guide practical work. Only by creating value in practice can be the value of research and teaching work.

Business school professors who stay in high-end environments, may "get out of the ivory tower and get closer to practice." The reality of comfort and current evaluation systems make business school professors indifferent. However, the future challenges have already arrived and what will change the future development of business professors is neither our famous experts, nor supervisory authorities, but the technology that does not belong to the field of business research education. Such new technologies will push us into a state that we must change without any emotional attitudes. There is not much time left for business school professors. Only by embracing technology and practice,  we can embrace tomorrow.