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March 06, 2005
Misleading on MBAs
Politicians, under pressure for some awful action, sometimes play a clever trick: they deny responsibility for a different action, that nobody had accused them of. The supporters of business schools are playing a similar trick at the moment. For two weeks running, The Economist has lambasted critics of business school education for suggesting that scandals such as Enron are the schools’ fault . After all, says The Economist, many bad–guy CEOs never even went to business school. Which is true, and utterly beside the point. The problem with b-schools is not that they breed black-hat bad guys, but that they train thousands upon thousands of future managers to regard human beings as discretionary costs – costs that can be eliminated by a bland-sounding technique, that they all learn by rote, called ‘restructuring’.
Posted by John Thackara at March 6, 2005 10:36 AM
Comments
is restructuring bad??/ not always...sometimes one also restructures life when things are not going well...BUT restructioring shud not lead to job loss..
Posted by: Ankur at March 7, 2005 04:40 AM
"After all, says The Economist, many bad–guy CEOs never even went to business school."
Many bad-guy CEOs did carry umbrellas when it rained, and drank coffee, and drove expensive cars. I propose we target those three obvious causes of corporate ethical problems immediately, and with massive legislation.
Posted by: Andrew at March 8, 2005 07:02 PM