Does a great MBA teacher have to be a great researcher?

Following on from my earlier blog on why MBA programs are so expensive, some of my colleagues from B schools in Europe informed me that a significant portion of the cost is the cost of faculty & research. In short, great MBA programs require great researchers, who can translate the research into great class room teachings. This costs money and therefore, makes the program expensive. Therefore, good programs (that have great researchers as teachers) are expensive (and presumably not so good programs are not so expensive!!)

However, if I look around the world - and in particular towards Asia & Africa where the cost of an MBA degree is still relatively low compared to the US / Europe, I notice two things:

a) Not all good / great MBA programs have great researchers teaching on them - of course, it is difficult to define what a 'good/ great' program is and therefore, I will take the populist view of rankings to define 'good/great' MBA program. These programs have average to good researchers - but not great by global standards. What they are great at is in translating existing research from around the world into learning modules that make practical sense to the MBA participants. In addition, a second component that these programs have is a rigorous selection process for candidates which ensures that only those who are academically the brightest and display top level of professional 'potential' are admitted. In fact, many of these good/great programs face the accusation that they simply polish the gold to make it brighter (and do not really convert copper to gold).

b) The researchers on the programs focus on the practice of management. In other words, their research is focussed on solving real world problems using existing body of knowledge created by someone else - rarely do these researchers focus on creating a completely new body of knowledge.

Considering that very few MBAs eventually become researchers / academics - most tend to become managers / practitioners, the obvious question in my mind is - do these programs really need top researchers? Can we not reduce the cost of the programs by engaging average to good researchers - and training them to be great teachers of management practice - while leaving the job of creating knowledge to specialist researchers? Such a split may also have an unintended benefit in the long term viz. the program delivery could leverage new trends in technology & outsourcing to reduce costs further without impacing the quality.