Issue of the week: Rethinking business education

In the wake of the economic collapse, business schools are beginning to reconsider what students should learn.

The world economy is in deep recession, Ponzi schemes and other frauds dominate the headlines, and alumni of some of the world’s most prestigious business schools have led their companies to ruin, said Philip Broughton in the London Times. “Given the present chaos, shouldn’t we be asking if business education is not just a waste of time but actually damaging to our economic health?” Despite their expensive training, these “Masters of the Business Apocalypse” missed the warning signs that financial asset prices were dangerously overheated. And when it was clear that something had gone terribly wrong, their first instinct wasn’t to acknowledge fault, but to protect their big paychecks and plush offices. “If doctors or lawyers wreaked such havoc in their own professions, we would certainly reconsider what is being taught at medical and law schools.” Why should business schools be any different?

To be fair, the “internal soul searching” at business schools is well under way, said Francesca Di Meglio in BusinessWeek. In particular, educators are rethinking “the gospel of shareholder value.” Many critics say that the heavy emphasis on shareholder value has “allowed a kind of moral relativism to flourish on campus and, ultimately, in the business world itself.” Students, say the critics, learn that almost any legal or ethical shortcut is justified if it rewards shareholders. But blaming the economic catastrophe on business schools is a stretch. After all, “a lot of the corporate leaders who were among the worst offenders never came within a stone’s throw of an MBA.”

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