A fundamental review of business education is overdue

Veronica Hope-Halley

The near-collapse of the investment banks has led to a lot of finger-pointing, some of it at business schools and at MBA programmes, in particular. According to the charge-sheet, modern-day MBAs are out of touch with industry practice, their heads are filled with theory and their professors indulge in research that has no real-world application. Worse, MBAs are motivated only by the promise of personal, financial gain that business schools do nothing to challenge; still less do the schools inculcate a sense of civic responsibility.

The acceptance of these criticisms by many top schools has been welcome. Reform is under way, but, as the economic crisis passes, there will doubtless be a slackening of resolve and many schools could emerge unchanged. If this is the outcome, an opportunity would have been missed. The crisis has revealed that we have a generation of business leaders who lack the intellectual tools, including the vocabulary, the mindset, the frames of reference and the forums, to be the effective custodians of the long-term health of their corporations. There is a mismatch between our business leaders’ ability to do damage and their preparedness to do good.

The balance of teaching and learning in business schools, between skills (eg, the ability to interpret a balance sheet or value an asset), knowledge (eg, understanding the role of information management in business practice) and wisdom (eg, having insight into cross-cultural working), has placed too much emphasis on skills and knowledge and not enough on wisdom. Eager MBA students want to acquire skills and they appreciate the benefits of knowledge, but they find wisdom a tougher proposition. Maybe the schools have unduly pandered to their impatience.

In the world of globalised business, in which flatter, smaller, more volatile and more entrepreneurial businesses are coming increasingly to the fore, in which knowledge-based sectors are key and in which creativity and critical thinking are crucial to long-term sustainability, the paradigm of business school education based upon skills and knowledge is no longer sufficient.

Harvard’s graduate code of ethics and my own school’s increased emphasis on corporate social responsibility are welcome developments, as is the increasing insistence that academic research be relevant. But we need a more fundamental review of business education, so that we can deliver programmes to groom leaders who have the wisdom, and who can create the opportunities, to do good, by fostering the long-term health of their companies and by contributing to public debate on issues that impact upon business.

If our mission is to educate tomorrow’s leaders, are we really appealing to, and admitting, the right people? Are we equipping our students with the critical apparatus to be able to see themselves, their companies, their sector and the economy in the wider context of social equity, on a global as well as local basis? If we are not doing these things, what, exactly, is our purpose?

See: http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/management/article6871570.ece