A business school is a university-level institution that confers degrees in Business Administration. This paper examines the causes of business school reputation using two competing perspectives: the meritocratic and the institutional. The meritocratic perspective is based on the belief that reputation is an outcome of the business school's achievements, which act as signals of organisational reputation. The institutional perspective highlights the importance of the institutional context in explaining reputation (business school past reputation and parent university reputation), minimising the effect of outcomes as reputation signals. The two perspectives are tested on a sample of US business schools via the use of multiple regressions and path analysis. The results lend weight to the institutional thesis, which brings into doubt the efficiency of short-term strategies that look to increase business school reputation. (Contains 3 figures, 4 tables, and 1 note.)