Business schools must accept their responsibilities
Most organisations have their worst enemies outside. There are small shopkeepers who detest Wal-Mart, anarchists who kick in the windows at McDonald's and environmentalists who boycott Exxon. Only at business schools are the most vociferous critics the paid employees.
Christopher Grey of Cambridge University's Judge Institute of Management says business schools cannot carry on selling "a product that so manifestly fails to do what it says it will do".*
Jeffrey Pfeffer of Stanford and Christina Fong of Washington University criticise business schools' record in the teaching of morals: "Some evidence would suggest that business schools are sending the implicit message that unethical behaviour is acceptable."** Not that the students arrive with much moral integrity in the first place: Professors Pfeffer and Fong allege that business students, at least at undergraduate level, cheat more than other students.
This comes on top of the scathing views of Henry Mintzberg of McGill University in Montreal. Prof Mintzberg, in his recent book Managers not MBAs (discussed in this column on March 31), said that all MBA graduates should have skulls and crossbones stamped on their foreheads, along with warnings that they were not fit to manage.
Last year, the number of prospective MBA students taking the Graduate Management Admission Test fell. This, surely, is clear evidence that the gloomy academics are right: business schools are failing. Unless they change, they are doomed.
Well, not quite. Take those GMAT examination numbers. Yes, there were fewer candidates in 2003 than in 2002. But the 2002 figures were exceptionally high. Jobs were in short supply and many work-seekers did MBAs while they waited for the market to pick up. The 2003 GMAT figures may have been down on 2002, but they were higher than any of the years before that.
And those who do MBAs generally find it is money well spent. The FT's rankings show that graduates of the top schools can earn two to three times more than they did before.
So what is the problem? Professors Pfeffer and Fong say judging business schools' success by how much their graduates earn is the problem. Salaries do not tell us anything about the efficacy of what business schools teach - and graduates' salaries are an unreliable guide to what sort of people they are.
Take the efficacy of what business schools teach. All the educators quoted above believe that business schools are teaching the wrong things. They are giving young and inexperienced students the impression that management is a straightforward process rather than one filled with ambiguity and uncertainty.
Why do companies employ MBAs if they have been taught so little that is useful? Easy, say the critics. The MBA acts as a screening process for corporate recruiters. The competition to win places is fierce and the courses are hard work. Companies know that those who get through are bright, ambitious and tough. It does not much matter what they were taught.
Management consultancies and investment banks recruit many non-MBAs and teach them everything they would have learnt on an MBA in a fraction of the time. Professors Pfeffer and Fong argue that business schools should be worried about this. "To be a smaller version of McKinsey or some other consulting firm seems like a losing game," they say.
How seriously should we take this hand-wringing? The argument that we should not judge business schools' success purely by what their graduates earn has some merit, but it would be perverse to suggest salaries are of no importance. However widely one interprets the purpose of business, the making of money has to be in there somewhere.
The issue of ethics is more pressing. Business schools are right to worry about whether they contributed to the moral lapses of the last few years, just as everyone involved in business should worry about it. The damage is far-reaching. Gerard Roche, senior chairman of Heidrick & Struggles,the headhunters, told me last week that some young people were reluctant to become managers because of business's tarnished reputation.
What should be done? There are almost as many suggested solutions as there are management professors. Professors Pfeffer and Fong argue that business schools need to become more like faculties of medicine and law in establishing professional standards.
Mr Grey disagrees. Management is not a profession. You do not have to have an MBA to be a manager. And for all the claims made for management practice, none of it works as reliably as medicine's cures and remedies.
Mr Grey argues that students should, instead, be encouraged to challenge every assumption on which management and management teaching are based. "To engage in management, or to research management, is to commit to some kind of stance on political and moral values, such as the desirability of efficiency or of productivity or of profitability or, even, of employee satisfaction or well-being." Students need to think about what they are doing, and why.
Many areas of higher education are short of money and students. It is a buyers' market. Faculty have to provide what students want, and what the students want, above all, is the practical skills that will get them jobs. Business schools, on the other hand, are inundated with high quality applicants happy to pay tens of thousands of dollars to be taught. Employers will offer them jobs anyway.
A root-and-branch examination of what business is and what it should stand for will do the students no harm. Business schools are in a privileged position. They can afford to be a little more forceful about the responsibility that goes with that privilege.
商学院必须承担责任
对大多数机构来说，最可怕的敌人来自组织外部。小店主憎恨沃尔玛(Wal-Mart)，无政府主义者踢碎麦当劳(McDonald's)的窗子，环境保护人士联合抵制埃克森(Exxon)。只有在商学院里，叫得最响的批评者是那些拿着薪水的员工。
剑桥大学佳奇管理学院(Judge Institute of Management)的克里斯托弗?格雷(Christopher Grey)表示，商学院不能再继续出售“这样一个明显无法发挥其所说功效的产品”*。
斯坦福的杰弗里?普费弗(Jeffrey Pfeffer)和华盛顿大学的克里斯蒂娜?方(Christina Fong)对商学院教授道德的记录提出批评：“有些证据可以表明，商学院正在发出一种隐晦的信息，暗示不道德的行为是可以接受的。”**这倒并不是说，学生刚进校时就有多么正直：普费弗教授和方教授声称，至少在本科生中，商学院学生的作弊行为比其他科系的学生多。
在此之前，加拿大蒙特利尔麦吉尔大学的亨利?明茨伯格(Henry Mintzberg)也提出了严厉的批评观点。明茨伯格教授在他最近的一本书《经理人，不是MBA》(Managers not MBAs)(我曾于3月31日在本专栏中讨论过)中表示，应该在所有MBA毕业生的前额都画上骷髅头的标志，同时打上他们不适合做管理的警告语。
去年，期望报考MBA而参加研究生管理入学考试(GMAT)的人数下降。这的确清楚地证明，这些学者的悲观看法是正确的：商学院是失败的，除非赶紧变革，否则它们注定要遭厄运。
可是，情况并非完全如此。就拿参加GMAT考试的人数来说。确实，2003年的报考人数是比2002年少。但2002年的数字却格外地高，因为当时工作很不好找，因而许多求职者一边读MBA，一边等待就业市场好转。2003年GMAT考试人数可能较2002年有所下降，但却比2002年以前的任何年份都要高。
而那些读MBA的人通常会发现，这钱花得很值。《金融时报》的排名显示，顶级商学院的毕业生能挣到比以往多两三倍的钱。
那么问题在哪里呢？普费弗教授和方教授表示，问题就在于人们根据商学院毕业生赚多少钱来判断商学院是否成功。其实，薪水并不能告诉我们商学院讲授的内容有什么用，而且通过毕业生的薪水来判断他们是哪种人也不可靠。
就拿商学院所教内容的效用来说。以上提到的所有教育人士都认为，商学院教的东西错了。他们给年轻人和经验不足的学生一种印象，即管理是一种直截了当的过程，而不是模糊和不确定的。
如果商学院没有教MBA什么有用的东西，那为什么公司还会聘用他们呢？批评人士表示，那是因为简单。MBA已成为公司招聘人员的一个筛选过程。MBA的入学竞争非常激烈，而且课程十分辛苦。公司知道那些能通过课程的人都是聪明、有抱负、能吃苦耐劳的人。至于他们学了些什么，这没有太大关系。
管理咨询公司和投资银行招募许多非MBA员工，然后把MBA所学的内容教给他们，但所耗时间仅为攻读MBA学位的一小部分。普费弗教授和方教授认为，商学院应对此感到担忧。他们说：“变成麦肯锡(McKinsey)或其他一些咨询公司的小翻版，这似乎是一场必输无疑的比赛。”
我们该如何认真对待这种焦虑呢？那种认为我们不应纯粹根据毕业生所挣薪水的多少来判断商学院成功与否的观点有其可取之处，但如果认为薪水毫不重要，也是不正常的。无论人们怎样解释商业的目的，挣钱总应该占有一席之地。
道德问题更具有紧迫感。商学院是否对近几年来的道德水准下滑负有责任呢？它们应该对此感到担忧，就象每个与商业有关系的人都应该对此感到担忧一样。道德沦丧对商业造成的损害影响深远。猎头公司海德思哲(Heidrick & Struggles)的资深董事长杰拉德?罗谢(Gerard Roche)上周告诉我，一些年轻人现在已不愿当经理，因为商业的声誉已被玷污了。
那我们该怎么办呢？对解决方法的建议几乎和管理学教授的人数一样多。普费弗教授和方教授认为，商学院有必要在建立职业标准方面向医学院和法学院靠拢。
但格雷先生不同意。管理不是一门职业。你想当经理人，不必非得有MBA学位不可。无论人们怎样看好各类管理实践方法，但没有一个能像医学上的治疗方法和药物处方那样可靠有效。
相反，格雷先生认为，应该鼓励学生去挑战管理和管理学教学所基于的每个假设。“投身于管理，或从事管理研究，就是在政治上和道德价值观上坚守某种立场，如对效率、生产力、或者利润率的追求，或者甚至是员工满意度或福利。”学生们必须思考，他们在做什么，为什么要这样做。
高等教育的许多领域都缺乏资金和学生。这是个买方市场。高校的各个专业都必须提供学生所需要的东西，而学生最需要的，是能帮助他们找到工作的实践技能。另一方面，商学院充满了高素质的申请者，他们乐意支付数万美元来接受教育。不管怎么说，雇主们将为他们提供工作岗位。
商业是什么，应该代表什么，对此进行一次全面彻底的审视应该不会对学生有任何害处。商学院有着挺特殊的的地位，不过伴随这一特殊地位的是相关的责任，商学院应能在这方面表现得更有力一些。
