There is no shortage of books critical of business schools. The titles leave little doubt about how much disdain the authors have for the schools meant to prepare future leaders in business.
Consider books like “Shut Down the Business School: What’s Wrong with Management Education,” or “Nothing Succeeds Like Failure: The Sad History of American Business Schools.”
For criticisms of a specific school, there is “The Golden Passport: Harvard Business School, the Limits of Capitalism, and the Moral Failure of the MBA Elite.”
These books lament the failure of business schools to develop ethical business leaders and to address societal concerns.
In a February 2022 address to business school deans, Dartmouth management professor Sydney Finkelstein piled on by criticizing schools for not producing research that has an impact on society.
The title of his talk spared no one: “Big Scam? What’s Wrong with Business Schools, Business School Faculty, and the Study of Management.”
My recent field study of legendary business school professors, published in “Seven Essentials for Business Success: Lessons from Legendary Professors,” tells quite a different story.
In my effort to identify the best teaching practices, I also found that the star professors profiled in the book are deeply involved in activities outside their traditional classrooms that have a positive impact on their students and society.
Beyond the traditional classroom
Stanford emeritus accounting professor Charles Lee, for example, has helped bring the Veritas Forum to campus. This organization encourages students to address fundamental questions, such as “Who are you?” “What are you doing here?” and “Where are you going?”
In talks to students at universities around the country, he stresses that “you are not your resume.” Instead of their obsession with educational and professional accomplishments, Lee encourages the students to use other metrics, such as virtue, to define success and happiness in life.
In a similar vein, business law professor Richard Shell co-founded the “Purpose, Passion, and Principles Program” at Wharton, the business school at the University of Pennsylvania. The program seeks to encourage students to reflect on how they define success and happiness. One student observed that the program has motivated her to develop a “better understanding of how I define both happiness and success in my personal and professional lives.”
The profiled professors are also involved in activities that benefit society at large.
Strategy professor Jan Rivkin is a leader of Harvard Business School’s U.S. Competitiveness Project. He is active in training the next generation of civic leaders through an offshoot of the project called the Young American Leaders Program.
The program inspired a work-based learning program in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Through the program, high school students get paid US$9 an hour to help make car parts at a local manufacturer. The hands-on job experience also counts toward their graduation. A program coordinator calls the program a “win-win for the students and the company.”
Management professor Gretchen Spreitzer is a leader at the University of Michigan’s Center for Positive Organizations, which encourages positive work environments for employees. Organizations as varied as the NBA’s Cleveland Cavaliers, General Motors and Google use research produced by the center, according to Wayne Baker, a University of Michigan business and sociology professor who serves as faculty co-director at the center.
And when it comes to impact, I believe Steve Kaplan’s record is hard to match. A finance professor at the University of Chicago, he started a new venture program that enables student teams in his special projects course to win cash prizes for their business plans. The program has launched over 370 companies that are still in existence and created thousands of jobs.
