Commoditising learning: Cultural economy and the growth of for-profit business education service firms in London

Individuals working in graduate labour markets are increasingly expected to enhance their employability and career progression by undertaking lifelong education and learning within the workplace. Research has examined how graduates navigate this dynamic educational landscape, but the changing nature of educational providers has been comparatively neglected. In response, in this paper we examine the growth of for-profit business education service firms that have grown to meet the increased demand for lifelong learning and education by focusing on the financial business education sector in London. We develop cultural economy approaches to market making in order to understand how these educational service firms have developed by ‘stabilising’ new educational services and products that compete with, and seek to ‘destabilise’, more established forms of business education, particularly MBA degrees. In so doing, we position educational service firms as an important, yet hitherto neglected set of business services within economic geography. Moreover, by focusing on a relatively mature for-profit educational sector, the research presented in the paper has important implications for the development of educational landscapes beyond the case of financial business education as they become increasingly beholden to the activities of for-profit education service firms and wider discourses of markets in educational services.