How Business Schools Lost Their Way pt 2

http://www.businessweek.com/bschools/content/may2005/bs20050525_7954.htm

In part (emphasis mine):

 

The following is the abstract of "How Business Schools Lost Their Way"

Business schools are facing intense criticism for failing to impart useful skills, prepare leaders, instill norms of ethical behavior, and even lead graduates to good corporate jobs. These criticisms come not just from students, employers, and the media but also from deans of some of America's most prestigious B schools. The root cause of today's crisis in management education, assert Warren G. Bennis and James O'Toole, is that business schools have adopted an inappropriate--and ultimately self-defeating--model of academic excellence. Instead of measuring themselves in terms of the competence of their graduates, or by how well their faculty members understand important drivers of business performance, they assess themselves almost solely by the rigor of their scientific research. This scientific model is predicated on the faulty assumption that business is an academic discipline like chemistry or geology when, in fact, business is a profession and business schools are professional schools--or should be. Business school deans may claim that their schools remain focused on practice, but they nevertheless hire and promote research-oriented professors who haven't spent time working in companies and are more comfortable teaching methodology than messy, multidisciplinary issues--the very stuff of management. To regain relevancy, the authors say, business schools must rediscover the practice of business and find a way to balance the dual mission of educating practitioners and creating knowledge through research.

What does this say about accreditations like AACSB? Are they perpetuating the scientific model mentioned in the abstract?

 

I've only taken a few classes towards my MBA so I don't feel totally qualified to take one side or another of a debate. However, I will say that I think the debate sounds a bit one-sided.

The assumption seems to be that the non-academic business world is a model of efficiency and superior hands-on knowledge. That's often the case, but it's also a vast reservoir of stultifying bureacracy, pointless tradition and departmental infighting. I recently read a scholarly article that used computer modeling to predict the efficiency of promotion systems: absolute merit-based versus relative merit-based. The conclusions were very interesting! Nobody does these kinds of studies in the real business world. Although individual businesspeople might want to, the organization as a whole tends to just use whatever has worked in the past (even if it doesn't really work all that well) or else whatever is the latest hot thing.

Therefore I don't think studying business should be exactly like doing business. The two things should complement each other but demanding that they both be exactly the same would ultimately be counterproductive.

Also, a lot of what it takes to succeed in business is very simple... and you can't really teach it in a classroom. When people try to teach it and it just sounds like a bunch of inane cliches. E.g. "the timing of a decision is crucial" "don't get all freaked out when someone moves your stupid cheese".

I can see someone who went straight from undergrad to MBA entering the real business world and getting shocked at how different it really is from what they learned in school. But speaking as someone who's already in that world, I want something that also tells me what I don't already know, even if it's not immediately useful.

 

Well, then, that being the case, shouldn't every MBA program list in its catalog courses like: BSNS 500: Bureaucratic BS; BSNS 501: Departmental Infighting & Fief-Building; BSNS 502: How to Properly Evaluate & Consume the Latest Flavor of the Month Consulting Fad; and, of course, BSNS 503: Water Cooler Strategy & Tactics?

 

Now it was my understanding that Business Administration degrees (traditionally) were set up as more of a practical degree. It was Management degrees that were suppose to be more of a "research" degree. This is why the MBA is (or at least was) considered a terminal degree, where as a MS in management is/was not. It also why many schools offer both degrees (no, it was not to confuse people). It was also why MBA’s (historically) have been more sought after (the degree was suppose to be more stringent too). Of course all those lines have become more and more blurred.

 

I have always been a lousy follower. I don’t like to be told what to do nor do I ever follow blindly. So when I decided to pursue an MBA and heard about AACSB I decided to investigate.

I was told things such as the University of Phoenix is a sub par school. They are not AACSB. They use mid to high level managers with a minimum of five years real world experience in the area they teach.

AACSB schools are wonderful. Up until fairly recently they required 75% of faculty to be full time PhDs doing research. No real world experience required!!! They research and produce material very few in the real world read.

Say what???? Shouldn’t it be the other way around? For the past year I have questioned AACSB and the way the so-called top schools operate.

Thank you Warren Bennis, distinguished professor of business administration and founding chairman of USC’s Leadership Institute, and James O'Toole, the research professor in the Center for Effective Organizations at USC and the Mortimer J. Adler senior fellow at the Aspen Institute.

They have the courage to tell it like it is.


Just my opinion

 

I was teaching my DBA and MBA candidates in International Business and Marketing Management for two universities based in Australia and I realized that the data and literature did not really address current issues of Asian culture from an Asian perspective although yes you do get South Asians writing many journal articles and books on global business, there is a shortage of ideas coming from oriental, East Asian academics. As such from my Oriental candidates I find that their perspectives of business performance is very different compared to what Western Business Schools prescribe. It would be an excellent comparison of what Oriental practionners prescribe and what is written by Oriental academicians rather than from Western consultants and academicians who see it from their perspective and terminology.

Globalization is changing the way business is done and India and China are changing ways and methods of doing business. Even the yardsticks and benchmarks are shifting.

 

I couldn't agree more Carlos that AACSB lacks the emphasis on practicality, and we may be even able to successfully argue that some lower tier non-AACSB schools graduate as good of quality and perhaps maybe even better prepared graduates. The end result does that really matter when you consider outcomes. I do not think anyone here can disagree that if you graduate from Wharton,Sloan,Harvard, or any other top tier school you are going to have more opportunity (esspecially as a new graduate) then if you graduate from a second or third tier school. All of the top business schools are AACSB accrediated and this opens opportunity and that is VERY important in the end result because what good is an MBA if you can't find a job no matter how good of a program you graduate from. Of course once we start talking about second tier schools AACSB doesn't matter so much in the real world. You are best off going to the school with the best name recognition at that level (regardless of accrediation).

Of Course I personally feel AACSB needs the top schools more than the top schools need AACSB.

 

I do think that business schools not just in the US but around the world need to rethink their ways of improving a candidate's business performance whether as an employee or as an entrepreneur.

It is clear that the business degree at whatever level is suffering from a dilution of what is required to be good in business and generator of income. It has become a general degree with I am afraid less substance than a civil engineering degree. Although I may be corrected each business school has very different syllabi according to where it is located.

It is far better to have a combination of accounting and marketing qualifications than to have a general MBA which I found after graduating with it having not much value in the employment market as there seems to be an oversupply compared to a smaller degree of demand.

 

This article seems to be based on the assumption that most MBA graduates get their degrees and start working in general management. That's simply not true.

According to http://members.tripod.com/~mbaexchange/mbapg4.html (as well as more reputable sources), the most popular fields for new MBA graduates are "management consulting, investment banking, corporate finance, and product management or marketing."

All four of these fields are specialized and quantitative/analytical (if you consider the demographic aspects of market research), and the single most popular field is one in which MBA grads provide the expertise and analytical capabilities that most line managers do not have.

I suspect that many managers would agree that new MBAs are not especially well-suited for general management duties. These same managers do hire MBAs, however -- often to do jobs that are better served by their specialist expertise.