For one, there was a recent article in the New York Times carrying the headline "Bye, Bye B-School" ( http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/16/business/16mba.html). It noted that while the MBA is still one of the most popular graduate degrees, many financial up-and-comers have run the numbers and concluded that the return on investment in an MBA just isn't there.
And just the other day, the dean of a London-based business school stopped by the BsuinessWeek offices for a chat. Among other things, we discussed the emergence of London as the world financial capital and how European business schools, with their eastward view to the growing markets of India and Asia, are poised to thrive in the 21st-century economy.
Finally, there was the recent publication of a new book by Harvard Business School Associate Professor Rakesh Khurana that takes a critical look at the evolution of the American business school. Needless to say, the book, "From Higher Aims to Hired Hands: The Social Transformation of American Business Schools and the Unfulfilled Promise of Management as a Profession," has gotten a lot of attention in U.S. higher education community.
Khurana argues that business schools have gotten away from their original goal of making management a profession, similar to law, medicine or science, and are instead mere sellers of a product, the MBA. He says that when the first American university-based business schools were founded more than a century ago, the idea was to train a professional class of managers who would ensure that corporations served the greater good of society and didn't focus solely on the self-interest of their owners.
The challenge for business schools is to identify their mission, Khurana told my BusinessWeek colleague Hardy Green. "When you look at the problems of global society – pandemics, climate change, issues of sustainability – business can be a solution to those kinds of problems," he said. (To view Green's interview with Khurana, go to http://www.businessweek.com/mediacenter/video/bschools/ecab2d73a4cd1b2ea189d5559ccd3410fa684369.html )
Khurana's solutions include restoring the professional nature of business schools through an agreed-upon body of knowledge, faculty with "legitimacy and authority" in the classroom, and a system of self-governance that ensures integrity.
The challenges being faced by American business schools shouldn't be taken lightly. After all, as Khurana notes, the MBA has become a global degree, and there are plenty of competitors to U.S. business schools around the world. The U.S. can't assume it will always have primacy in the world of management education – or that it has the option of ignoring the questions that are being raised.
More and more, students can, and will, go elsewhere.
Phil Mintz is the B-Schools Channel Editor for BusinessWeek.com in New York. He can be reached at [email protected]
