Submitted by bschools on Tue, 06/15/2010 - 09:30
Financial and economic crisis are apparently sweeping aside many established ideas of how societies should run their economies and one measure is how to stop Business schools churn out jargon-spewing economic vandals. Barring few random changes, it is again business schooling as usual after some crocodile tears. The real question is not whether business schools need to change, but how. Management education needs to start again from scratch and just not focus on teaching greedy people how to satisfy their appetites.
Obviously those strictly following management vandalism tend to outperform their peers in all the measures like productivity, sales growth and return on capital. Many companies in the developing world are desperate to hire more MBAs in order to improve their approach to management.
The real argument should be "business schools need to put more emphasis on business ethics and corporate social responsibility". Business leaders need to learn that economic history is punctuated with crises and disasters, that booms inevitably give way to busts, and that the business cycle, having survived many predictions of extinction, continues to prey on the modern economy. The 2008 credit crunch might have come as less of a surprise if all those MBAs had been taught that there have been at least 124 banking crises around the world since 1970, most of which were preceded by booms in house prices and stock markets, large capital inflows and rising public debt.
For both short-term crisis management and long-term decisions, it is imperative that policy-makers, bankers, investors and MBA students understand clearly what went wrong with the world economy. B-Schools should encourage people who are willing to bite the hands that feed them, to prick business bubbles, expose management fads and generally rough up the most feted managers and leaders.
Comments and discussions welcome.
Web Link:
B School Directory 
That's not a good business proposition for the schools by the way, run by the same guys you are referring as vandals. Employers will not come to the campuses to hire the so-called smartest they are paid to churn-out. Only viable solution - societies & markets learn to ignore their role or better bury and move ahead.
If you wish to have different quality of students coming out of such business schools, get the faculty set, library stock and teaching methods updated. A visit to such an institution, the educational background check of the faculties, and a glance at the obsolete books and references in library will give you the root causes for release of such products to society.
It is interesting that it is preferred to blame the educational system, in preference to punishing the jargon-spewing economic vandals; who themselves do not necessarily have the QRs to either make good managers or decision makers.
If large sections of the organized sector are willing to be led by such, then the blame for the results lies with them and the persons who initiated such actions to have resulted in this sorry mess.
I too have done an MBA many years ago. It was an education in management; and we learned various aspects of operations research, managerial economics, mathematical and statistical applications in management, human resource management, industrial relations and labour management, marketing, market research, managerial finance and accounting, project management, MIS, MCS, business ethics, etc.
These were just the tools that a manager or decision makers would require to have knowledge of; but, to be frank it does not make the person in question a specialist in all aspects of management. He would be a generalist and probably a manager to deliver against the objectives stated by the board of directors; and may not necessarily be a person qualified to make policy decisions at the initial stages of his or her career.
For such expertise (or specialization if you prefer), you would probably find them at the university campus; like, MA (Economics), MA (Mathematics), MA (Statistics), MA (Philosophy), MA (Sociology), MCom, not forgetting the other masters streams with regard to the relevant science subjects. But, then again the university campus is not as fancy or marketing and product packaging savy as the business schools.
Now to conclude, if you are looking at finding solutions to the mess up; then it may be time to revisit the university campuses and seek out and speak with the specialists (the doctorates and masters) at their convenience.
But the chances are that it would be just another forgotten story line over the passage of time; and may be someone in the future would write a white paper on the subject.
Sincerely,
Akash
The financial crisis and the ensuing downturn has precipitated a wide ranging debate on the role of MBAs, and more particularly on the role of CSR and business ethics. The model of a CSR department and the ability of this small group to cause fundamental changes to a company’s way of doing business are being questioned. Because business leaders have not been able to make the changes desired and corporate governance is alleged to have failed, the scrutiny is going all the way back to the business school and its framework of creating leaders (if at all).
The change has already started, with business schools driving emphasis on systemic risks, considering the problem of incentives and the goal of shareholder maximization, as well as considering a more immersive, integrative approach to social and sustainable thoughts and actions in daily life.
Please find links on HBS faculty is looking at this issue and the Durham Business School report on “The Post Downturn MBA: An Agenda for Change”. Hope this helps.
http://blogs.hbr.org/how-to-fix-business-schools/2009/05/change-is-in-th...
I know. Do we have any statistics where these so called brilliant managers have invested their personal money in the companies where they work?
Most of them ask for shares before joining and suggest the managements to invest millions in some business, but they may never invest their personal money.
May be Management is like that- Invest other's money!
Ramesh
Dishonest practices by corporates like AIG, Lehman, Enron, WorldCom, Global Crossing, Xerox, Qwest, Arthur Andersen, Satyam, Merck, etc. show how business leaders lack the moral courage to seek and disclose truth. Ethics has been thrown to the side as a Wild Wild West form of capitalism has taken hold on leaders.
These corporate vandals has costs thousands of jobs, trillions of dollars in stockholder value, and scepticism of our free economic system. This is a far-reaching problem in our society and reforms in the business school curriculum is urgent to help instil responsibility and accountability in our business leaders.
Source: Social Responsibility Development Institute S.L.
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