MBA News: Harvard Business Review Debates “How to Fix Business Schools”

April 16th, 2009

For those interested in a more intellectual discussion of the value of an MBA and its strengths and weaknesses, the Harvard Business Review has been looking inward and facilitating an excellent debate on the topic “How to Fix Businesss Schools.” If you log on to the Harvard Business Publishing Web site, you will find a blog full of point-counterpoint arguments, such as the following:

MBA Critic Henry Mintzberg’s “Scrap the MBA” vs. David Champion’s “An MBAs Defense of his MBA” vs. Goldman Sach’s Chief Learning Officer Steve Kerr’s “Don’t Blame the B-Schools”
Former Yale Dean Joel Podolny’s “Are Business Schools to Blame?” vs. Stanford Professor Bob Sutton’s “Are B-School Economists to Blame?”

These are just a sample, and additional topics have yet to be discussed. Furthermore, you can weigh in with your own thoughts via a poll. With more than 250 votes cast thus far, 50% of those polled feel that business schools deserve “some” of the blame for the economic crisis, 16% feel they deserve “most” of the blame and 34%, “none” of the blame. Of course, one should keep in mind that the readers of this site are likely MBAs. So, there is likely a sampling bias.

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