Through 25 years of development, SBA-SCUT has accomplished its functional transition from teaching to the combination of teaching and research. Since 2004, SBA's research sectors have been funded with about 10 million Yuan per year on average, that is, over 100,000 Yuan per capita. According to which, SBA is the best funded business school in South China .

At the early stage of development, the school's research fellows mainly focused on introducing, digesting and promoting management theories and techniques proposed by scholars from Western developed countries. In this approach, SBA has developed a group of researchers with in-depth understanding in foreign theories and great insight into domestic conditions, especially the condition of enterprises in Guangdong . They provide services for the local government and enterprises based on their research and have received many achievements in application.

In accordance with the needs of community and business, SBA has recently shifted its focus of research to introducing, digesting and innovating, because management research is subject to the real world. In this process, SBA resorts to increasing the existing capacity instead of introducing researchers from outside. These years, SBA's research fellows have made a number of remarkable achievements in some large vertical research projects.