Nail in the coffin. Perhaps not, but I'd have to agree it's a bad case. The New York Times portrays a tough canvas of MBAs and their responsibilty in the economic crises in the article entitled, "Is It Time to Retrain Business Schools?". The article starts off:
JOHN Thain has one. So do Richard Fuld, Stanley O’Neal and Vikram Pandit. For that matter, so does John Paulson, the hedge fund kingpin.
Yes, all five have fat bank accounts, even now, and all have made their share of headlines. But these current and former giants of finance also are all card-carrying M.B.A.’s.
Couple of interesting points which I had not seen before and probably should be thought out further:
- The notion of professionalization and stewardship
- The emphasis on shareholder value as an underpinning to finance, entrepreneurship, etc. instruction
But I also have some off-the-cuff thoughts (* indicates based on the Organizational Behavior 4th Edition text [2008] by Dr. Steven McShane and Dr. Mary Ann Von Glinow):
- Which investors or Boards reward something other than shareholder value? Are these groups in a minority?
- Although socially responsible companies have been brought to light over the past decade or so, do they get widely-known, superior returns? Do youth and business people value them? Do kids (or adults) worship Bill Gates as part of Microsoft or as part of the Gates Foundation more? Where is the balance?
- In most surveys, when asked about the most important characteristic employees look for in a leader, most say honesty and ethics (*). What does that say about our ability to hire qualified managers and executives then?
- 95% of the Fortune 500 companies in the US have codes of ethics (*). Enron also had a well-developed code (*).
- Is it that business school students are neither trained in risk management nor tragedy of the commons systems structures? Or is it that personal performance plans and reward structures do not align? Other?
If the problems stem from business-, company-, or world-cultures, then how will we get educated and make amends?
This should be a good comment thread…
Few people I know went to business school to become a better businessperson. People get MBAs on the expectation that it qualifies them for higher-paying jobs. As such, an MBA goes in the same bucket as diet pills and goofy exercise machines — everyone wants to be thin and beautiful, but no one wants to go the gym…
So it sounds like you are saying that b-school attracts the type of people that will be largely unaffected by any revision that the b-school programs may take with respect to being socially responsible (e.g., regarding leadership, ethics, organizational behavior training). That is, people are motivated by money coming in, and they are motivated by money going out (post-MBA).
I’m about 2/3 through my MBA program. Like you, my background is in engineering and I’ve been working full time throughout my MBA program. I think there is a real distinction to be made between full time MBA programs, where candidates often times come straight out of undergrad, and part time programs where candidates almost exclusively work full time professional jobs.
I’ve spent my whole career in what I consider the “real economy,” where people produce things and actually add value. I started the MBA program as a manufacturing engineer and I’ll soon finish the MBA program as a business consultant (currently) who does ERP implementations.
I feel that part time MBA programs foster an environment where both education and experience all you to grasp industry best practices while keeping your feet firmly planted on the ground of the “real” economic truths of the world.
Elliot,
Congrats on making it this far. I have a tremendous amount of respect for those that are able to complete an MBA while still working!