Lesson One: Greed is good
May 24, 2018 1:34 AM Subscribe
I studied Engineering (Robotics, specifically, which I mention only because it sounds cooler than it is) and every year we had a business module to take as part of our course requirement.
We universally railed against it. It was dumb, we complained. Trivial (and in many ways it was. The level of academic and mathematical rigor was far lower). None of us studied for the exams outside of maybe flicking through the textbook the day before or put much effort into the coursework.
But it terms out that in my career as a an Engineer those three business modules have been the things which have been the most useful most often. I don't really need to calculate the flux gap of a motor (or whatever it was that first year course was about), but I often need to do estimate how long a thing will take, how many people are needed to do it, what the critical path is etc etc.
posted by Just this guy, y'know at 2:31 AM on May 24, 2018 [26 favorites]
We universally railed against it. It was dumb, we complained. Trivial (and in many ways it was. The level of academic and mathematical rigor was far lower). None of us studied for the exams outside of maybe flicking through the textbook the day before or put much effort into the coursework.
But it terms out that in my career as a an Engineer those three business modules have been the things which have been the most useful most often. I don't really need to calculate the flux gap of a motor (or whatever it was that first year course was about), but I often need to do estimate how long a thing will take, how many people are needed to do it, what the critical path is etc etc.
posted by Just this guy, y'know at 2:31 AM on May 24, 2018 [26 favorites]
Also, just as Engineering schools should hire business experts, business schools should hire social epistemology teachers.
posted by Just this guy, y'know at 2:31 AM on May 24, 2018 [12 favorites]
posted by Just this guy, y'know at 2:31 AM on May 24, 2018 [12 favorites]
The only business students I come into contact with at uni, as if their capitalism-loving greed is good, worker-hating ethos was not sufficient for me to despise them, often seem to engage in what I generally understand to be completely bunk pseudo-sciences around types of personalities, insane management theories, all kinds of absurd rationalisations about the nature of people and how best to control them. While I'm sure a couple of such things are effective, the sheer proliferation of nonsense that surrounds these students makes it nearly impossible to take them seriously. I recently had to back out a discussion with a business student who was explaining how some people have aggressive humours and that's why they tend towards management positions. Humours. I had to leave before bile came up. In either sense.
While normally I'm scornful of Myers-Briggs, at least it evokes a sense of reasonability in comparison.
posted by AnhydrousLove at 2:32 AM on May 24, 2018 [53 favorites]
While normally I'm scornful of Myers-Briggs, at least it evokes a sense of reasonability in comparison.
posted by AnhydrousLove at 2:32 AM on May 24, 2018 [53 favorites]
Sorry, when did we start pretending that the MBA is anything except a cocktail degree, or that someone who graduated from business school is actually competent to run a business? The MBA students I met at law school were hand-waving charlatans. I haven't seen much from any other business school to change that impression.
posted by 1adam12 at 2:37 AM on May 24, 2018 [23 favorites]
posted by 1adam12 at 2:37 AM on May 24, 2018 [23 favorites]
"the business school acts as an apologist, selling ideology as if it were science."
This quote is so perfect, and reason enough to destroy the whole institution on its own.
posted by Dysk at 2:44 AM on May 24, 2018 [53 favorites]
This quote is so perfect, and reason enough to destroy the whole institution on its own.
posted by Dysk at 2:44 AM on May 24, 2018 [53 favorites]
Idk... I was a humanities guy all through school but after teaching in a top-40 business school for over 10 years, I just see students who are struggling to 1) do well in school and 2) create some financial security for themselves and their family after they graduate. Few of them actually 'like' what they are studying but they are making a life calculation that studying supply chain or finance or marketing of whatever will put them in a better position to avoid debtors prison or the gig economy. For every 1 asshole MBA student there are at least 4 of her classmates who are there for the right - or at least understandable - and maybe even honorable - reasons.
posted by jmccw at 2:59 AM on May 24, 2018 [42 favorites]
posted by jmccw at 2:59 AM on May 24, 2018 [42 favorites]
They want to learn to use the devil's tools for personal enrichment, not out of ideological fanaticism. I mean, it's a little less bad...
posted by Dysk at 3:00 AM on May 24, 2018 [18 favorites]
posted by Dysk at 3:00 AM on May 24, 2018 [18 favorites]
I think most of the pseudoscience in management courses is due to the general poor quality of psychology research. Knowledge builds on itself, so if one thing is wrong and you base other things on it they will eventually be revealed to have flaws.
posted by Small Dollar at 3:15 AM on May 24, 2018 [5 favorites]
posted by Small Dollar at 3:15 AM on May 24, 2018 [5 favorites]
I BEEN SAYIN'
posted by halation at 3:26 AM on May 24, 2018 [6 favorites]
posted by halation at 3:26 AM on May 24, 2018 [6 favorites]
We all use the devil's tools for personal enrichment. Where we draw the line varies, but everyone is complicit in this system. Root of all evil, and that.
posted by Anticipation Of A New Lover's Arrival, The at 3:29 AM on May 24, 2018 [11 favorites]
posted by Anticipation Of A New Lover's Arrival, The at 3:29 AM on May 24, 2018 [11 favorites]
We all use the devil's tools for personal enrichment.
No, we all play in the devil's playground (existing under capitalism). We can choose not to use his tools (business and capital). Workers are not bosses or managers.
posted by Dysk at 3:34 AM on May 24, 2018 [13 favorites]
No, we all play in the devil's playground (existing under capitalism). We can choose not to use his tools (business and capital). Workers are not bosses or managers.
posted by Dysk at 3:34 AM on May 24, 2018 [13 favorites]
I disagree about whether the distinction you are making is a meaningful one. In some systems, even the oppressed and powerless are perforce complicit in perpetuating the system that oppresses them. I submit that capitalism is one such system.
posted by Anticipation Of A New Lover's Arrival, The at 3:44 AM on May 24, 2018 [5 favorites]
posted by Anticipation Of A New Lover's Arrival, The at 3:44 AM on May 24, 2018 [5 favorites]
Have an MBA degree with coursework from two top 20 schools (one host school, another exchange term). Deliberately chose these two given the academics and the price; didn’t want to take on too much loans.
The academic experience has been excellent; was able to travel three continents, presented ideas to CEOs and Ministers. Learnt a lot; had a lot of fun. Graduated in the top 10% of the class. Was able to wipe away memories of bad grades from my first degree. Couldn’t find a job for many months after graduation though.
Had shitty grades in my CS degree. But was hired within 3 weeks of graduation then.
I’m pretty certain this says more about me than the programmes. But that’s my life’s irony forever. Don’t do an MBA for grades or “learning”. Nobody cares about the Business Model Canvas. The MBA won’t teach you critical thinking. Do it in a programme that will open doors. All your regular cliches about the MBA are true.
Now watch me waste another 6 years of life as I contemplate a PhD in strategy or some nonsense.
posted by the cydonian at 3:48 AM on May 24, 2018 [1 favorite]
The academic experience has been excellent; was able to travel three continents, presented ideas to CEOs and Ministers. Learnt a lot; had a lot of fun. Graduated in the top 10% of the class. Was able to wipe away memories of bad grades from my first degree. Couldn’t find a job for many months after graduation though.
Had shitty grades in my CS degree. But was hired within 3 weeks of graduation then.
I’m pretty certain this says more about me than the programmes. But that’s my life’s irony forever. Don’t do an MBA for grades or “learning”. Nobody cares about the Business Model Canvas. The MBA won’t teach you critical thinking. Do it in a programme that will open doors. All your regular cliches about the MBA are true.
Now watch me waste another 6 years of life as I contemplate a PhD in strategy or some nonsense.
posted by the cydonian at 3:48 AM on May 24, 2018 [1 favorite]
In some systems, even the oppressed and powerless are perforce complicit in perpetuating the system that oppresses them
Unavoidably perpetuating something is different to cynically or intentionally exploiting it.
posted by Dysk at 3:55 AM on May 24, 2018 [4 favorites]
Unavoidably perpetuating something is different to cynically or intentionally exploiting it.
posted by Dysk at 3:55 AM on May 24, 2018 [4 favorites]
Yes, yes, there is no ethical education under capitalism, we get it.
posted by Etrigan at 4:05 AM on May 24, 2018 [8 favorites]
posted by Etrigan at 4:05 AM on May 24, 2018 [8 favorites]
Where do you draw that line, though? Would you own a house? Would you take a job that offered a 401k? What is greed, and what is just seeking security? I get your point and I don't know that I even disagree with you except in the details. I just have a hard time throwing all MBAs under the bus. There are precious few ways to achieve economic safety in this world. It's hard for me to blanket-condemn everybody who is pursuing one of those paths.
posted by Anticipation Of A New Lover's Arrival, The at 4:09 AM on May 24, 2018 [18 favorites]
posted by Anticipation Of A New Lover's Arrival, The at 4:09 AM on May 24, 2018 [18 favorites]
As someone with absolutely no economic security (in part due to an unwillingness to engage intentionally in that kind of exploitation) I don't find that hard at all.
posted by Dysk at 4:11 AM on May 24, 2018 [6 favorites]
posted by Dysk at 4:11 AM on May 24, 2018 [6 favorites]
(Or, seeking security where it comes at the cost of others, is greed.)
posted by Dysk at 4:12 AM on May 24, 2018 [5 favorites]
posted by Dysk at 4:12 AM on May 24, 2018 [5 favorites]
"the business school acts as an apologist, selling ideology as if it were science."
Marx's central point that rents, prices, profits, supply and demand, etc. are not natural truths but historically specific aspects of a particular economic system remains explosive.
posted by ryanshepard at 4:14 AM on May 24, 2018 [14 favorites]
Marx's central point that rents, prices, profits, supply and demand, etc. are not natural truths but historically specific aspects of a particular economic system remains explosive.
posted by ryanshepard at 4:14 AM on May 24, 2018 [14 favorites]
There's a pretty easy place to draw the line. Being a worker is fine. Being a boss is not.
I know there's an awful lot of bosses on MeFi but that's pretty much the long and short of it. If you're in management, a part of your job is crushing workers. Yes I understand there are practical considerations to organising labour in large institutions, but it doesn't have to be hierarchical as such. If you choose to accept a management position, you've got to accept you're putting yourself against workers. That doesn't mean lower management aren't also exploited by their own managers, but they're putting themselves above and against other workers.
posted by AnhydrousLove at 4:20 AM on May 24, 2018 [7 favorites]
I know there's an awful lot of bosses on MeFi but that's pretty much the long and short of it. If you're in management, a part of your job is crushing workers. Yes I understand there are practical considerations to organising labour in large institutions, but it doesn't have to be hierarchical as such. If you choose to accept a management position, you've got to accept you're putting yourself against workers. That doesn't mean lower management aren't also exploited by their own managers, but they're putting themselves above and against other workers.
posted by AnhydrousLove at 4:20 AM on May 24, 2018 [7 favorites]
As someone with absolutely no economic security (in part due to an unwillingness to engage intentionally in that kind of exploitation)
This feels like there's some unexamined privilege in there in being able to afford to choose economic instability.
I was looking up "anti-capitalist business school" (having been in a somewhat similar situation myself a couple of years ago) and found this person's blog about, literally, being an anti-capitalist in business school. It hasn't been updated in many years though.
posted by divabat at 4:26 AM on May 24, 2018 [5 favorites]
This feels like there's some unexamined privilege in there in being able to afford to choose economic instability.
I was looking up "anti-capitalist business school" (having been in a somewhat similar situation myself a couple of years ago) and found this person's blog about, literally, being an anti-capitalist in business school. It hasn't been updated in many years though.
posted by divabat at 4:26 AM on May 24, 2018 [5 favorites]
There's a lot of privilege in that, for sure, but I wouldn't call it unexamined. That's a discussion for another time. Suffice to say, it has not been without personal consequence, and I've not always been able to, say, eat on a daily basis throughout my life.
I am not sympathetic to arguments that are effectively analogous to saying "we're all doing prison labour anyway, who can begrudge anyone for volunteering to wield the whip?" regardless.
posted by Dysk at 4:32 AM on May 24, 2018 [7 favorites]
I am not sympathetic to arguments that are effectively analogous to saying "we're all doing prison labour anyway, who can begrudge anyone for volunteering to wield the whip?" regardless.
posted by Dysk at 4:32 AM on May 24, 2018 [7 favorites]
They want to learn to use the devil's tools for personal enrichment, not out of ideological fanaticism.
Do you really really believe this?
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 4:35 AM on May 24, 2018
Do you really really believe this?
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 4:35 AM on May 24, 2018
Having spent my undergraduate years in a department that was physically next door to the business school: yes, absolutely.
posted by Dysk at 4:38 AM on May 24, 2018
posted by Dysk at 4:38 AM on May 24, 2018
Though I also think that people perhaps underestimate the proportion of business school students that are arch-capitalist true believers.
posted by Dysk at 4:40 AM on May 24, 2018 [4 favorites]
posted by Dysk at 4:40 AM on May 24, 2018 [4 favorites]
As an MBA and as a person whose job it was to hire and manage MBAs, I've found that for entry- and mid-level jobs, the appeal of the MBA to recruiters has little to do with his or her actual business education; rather, it's a function of the perception that these candidates will in all likelihood be of a particular "high-functioning" type, possessing some measure of proactivity, professionalism, and ambition.
posted by jeremy b at 4:50 AM on May 24, 2018 [2 favorites]
posted by jeremy b at 4:50 AM on May 24, 2018 [2 favorites]
MBA reporting for duty!
I agree with this article - business schools are definitely not good at what they do. That being said, we need better business education, not no business education whatsoever.
A few random thoughts I’ve been having on this topic:
- modern businesses are how the majority of people most directly experience coercive / cooptive power (both as leaders and followers) in their everyday lives today [1]. Is it possible to both advocate for a more just system of economic organization on a macro level, and try to increase just and effective use of power on a micro level? Are all forms of power and influence (e.g.persuasion, inspiration) bad?
- the effective wielding of power is really hard to teach and involves lessons and philosophies that are not well addressed by academia. My professors emphasized “interesting quantitative findings” vs how to make leadership decisions under uncertainty and persuade
- there’s also a bad selection effect where a sub-segment of the MBA population are not ethical people. It’s not obvious until you get to know them. T3 b-schools I think are also run by these sorts of people so unfortunately I don’t think they make a good effort to weed them out.
There are drastic changes I would make to the curriculum and methodologies currently in use (for example, fire all PhDs). Given how poorly these schools do their job today I think there should be a big opportunity for someone to do it better.
[1] maybe tied with modern police state! That’s also important and valid.
posted by The Ted at 5:12 AM on May 24, 2018 [13 favorites]
I agree with this article - business schools are definitely not good at what they do. That being said, we need better business education, not no business education whatsoever.
A few random thoughts I’ve been having on this topic:
- modern businesses are how the majority of people most directly experience coercive / cooptive power (both as leaders and followers) in their everyday lives today [1]. Is it possible to both advocate for a more just system of economic organization on a macro level, and try to increase just and effective use of power on a micro level? Are all forms of power and influence (e.g.persuasion, inspiration) bad?
- the effective wielding of power is really hard to teach and involves lessons and philosophies that are not well addressed by academia. My professors emphasized “interesting quantitative findings” vs how to make leadership decisions under uncertainty and persuade
- there’s also a bad selection effect where a sub-segment of the MBA population are not ethical people. It’s not obvious until you get to know them. T3 b-schools I think are also run by these sorts of people so unfortunately I don’t think they make a good effort to weed them out.
There are drastic changes I would make to the curriculum and methodologies currently in use (for example, fire all PhDs). Given how poorly these schools do their job today I think there should be a big opportunity for someone to do it better.
[1] maybe tied with modern police state! That’s also important and valid.
posted by The Ted at 5:12 AM on May 24, 2018 [13 favorites]
I wonder if they had business education or similar management study courses in the Soviet Union. I wonder what they were like.
posted by Huffy Puffy at 5:19 AM on May 24, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by Huffy Puffy at 5:19 AM on May 24, 2018 [1 favorite]
The great tragedy of the MBA is that being in possession of the degree does nothing to assure others that the person holding it wanted the education that led to the degree, or just the piece of foolscap itself. And the granting school will in no way attempt to clarify it; they are not in the education business, they are in the foolscap business.
That said, my partner learned a great deal from their MBA, because they took those classes to learn what was in them.
posted by seanmpuckett at 5:21 AM on May 24, 2018 [1 favorite]
That said, my partner learned a great deal from their MBA, because they took those classes to learn what was in them.
posted by seanmpuckett at 5:21 AM on May 24, 2018 [1 favorite]
Though I also think that people perhaps underestimate the proportion of business school students that are arch-capitalist true believers.
posted by Dysk at 4:40 AM on May 24
It s less that the business school produces true believers than it normalizes indifference and exploitation of the humans that make the economy function, which is worse
posted by eustatic at 5:22 AM on May 24, 2018 [2 favorites]
posted by Dysk at 4:40 AM on May 24
It s less that the business school produces true believers than it normalizes indifference and exploitation of the humans that make the economy function, which is worse
posted by eustatic at 5:22 AM on May 24, 2018 [2 favorites]
I remember reading that historically the MBA was instituted when (early boomer post WWII?) technical folks began being boosted into management positions from labs and engineering and had no idea about accounting practices, basic law or other details of keeping a business running.
posted by sammyo at 5:47 AM on May 24, 2018 [5 favorites]
posted by sammyo at 5:47 AM on May 24, 2018 [5 favorites]
Let's just bulldoze the concept of school in general, at least in higher education, while we're at it. At the very least the domains of pedagogy, research, and the sports-industrial complex ought to be separated from each other the way the Glass–Steagall Act in the U.S. separated deposit banking from investment banking.
Is education really even something that should be left in the hands of institutions at all? The school is a fundamentally aristocratic pattern poorly adapted to the modern world and the average person. And most non-average people, for that matter.
How about some way for people choosing careers in education to thrive and prosper and for others to benefit from their work, and be educated, independent from any institution? We could come up with a way of making education a fundamental omnipresent substrate of civil society the way, say, finance is in capitalism.
posted by XMLicious at 6:12 AM on May 24, 2018 [1 favorite]
Is education really even something that should be left in the hands of institutions at all? The school is a fundamentally aristocratic pattern poorly adapted to the modern world and the average person. And most non-average people, for that matter.
How about some way for people choosing careers in education to thrive and prosper and for others to benefit from their work, and be educated, independent from any institution? We could come up with a way of making education a fundamental omnipresent substrate of civil society the way, say, finance is in capitalism.
posted by XMLicious at 6:12 AM on May 24, 2018 [1 favorite]
I wonder a lot how much "don't know how to run a business" is a stand-in for wanting to use high-quality, responsibly manufactured inputs, wanting to pay workers a solid share of the profits, being skeptical about handing over control to investors, yknow, a range of great, should-be-supported practices that nonetheless make a business uncompetitive and less profitable than those run by people with a degree in exploitation.
posted by AnhydrousLove at 6:58 AM on May 24, 2018 [15 favorites]
posted by AnhydrousLove at 6:58 AM on May 24, 2018 [15 favorites]
Two things:
1) when I was looking at a graphics design program, the one I was looking into had a one semester basic business skills course - accounting, bookkeeping, project planning, stuff that most freelance artists either are bad at and get in trouble as a result, or learn fast and half-assedly. I thought that was brilliant - the goal really was to help you succeed.
2) my brother has an MBA. He talks about how he went to night school while his wife was taking care of their first child, and wonders aloud sometimes about my ability to get jobs based on my technical skills without a degree. (My mother has a BA in secondary education; my father's is in chemical engineering; my brother's is in business with his MBA.) Every friend of mine who's heard this has the same response when they hear he's asked that question: "Christ, what an asshole."
posted by mephron at 7:08 AM on May 24, 2018 [5 favorites]
1) when I was looking at a graphics design program, the one I was looking into had a one semester basic business skills course - accounting, bookkeeping, project planning, stuff that most freelance artists either are bad at and get in trouble as a result, or learn fast and half-assedly. I thought that was brilliant - the goal really was to help you succeed.
2) my brother has an MBA. He talks about how he went to night school while his wife was taking care of their first child, and wonders aloud sometimes about my ability to get jobs based on my technical skills without a degree. (My mother has a BA in secondary education; my father's is in chemical engineering; my brother's is in business with his MBA.) Every friend of mine who's heard this has the same response when they hear he's asked that question: "Christ, what an asshole."
posted by mephron at 7:08 AM on May 24, 2018 [5 favorites]
I wonder if they had business education or similar management study courses in the Soviet Union. I wonder what they were like.
My grandfather studied & taught something like this (though I think it had a more marketing-oriented lens.) I'll ask if he still has any materials around - it's interesting stuff.
Interestingly, he's the sort of person who never let go of his idealized view of socialism to the point where he'll defend North Korea as a near-utopian place where nobody goes hungry, so.
posted by mosst at 7:09 AM on May 24, 2018 [2 favorites]
My grandfather studied & taught something like this (though I think it had a more marketing-oriented lens.) I'll ask if he still has any materials around - it's interesting stuff.
Interestingly, he's the sort of person who never let go of his idealized view of socialism to the point where he'll defend North Korea as a near-utopian place where nobody goes hungry, so.
posted by mosst at 7:09 AM on May 24, 2018 [2 favorites]
similar management study courses in the Soviet Union
I remember seeing something recently (I think from here) about a soviet economist who did pretty good research on the impacts of incentives on production at Norilsk nickel mines...basically showing that people work better when they have some kind of carrot.
[Sorry, wasn't able to find the name with search.]
posted by Reasonably Everything Happens at 7:56 AM on May 24, 2018
I remember seeing something recently (I think from here) about a soviet economist who did pretty good research on the impacts of incentives on production at Norilsk nickel mines...basically showing that people work better when they have some kind of carrot.
[Sorry, wasn't able to find the name with search.]
posted by Reasonably Everything Happens at 7:56 AM on May 24, 2018
sammyo: ...technical folks began being boosted into management positions from labs and engineering and had no idea about accounting practices, basic law or other details of keeping a business running....
Which sounds good: teach technicians how businesses work!
But getting someone who is ignorant of a particular business, and only knows businesses-in-general, to apply that knowledge to this-here-business-in-front-of-us -- and do it in the very near term -- is a much bigger problem because it requires mastery of two bodies of knowledge, not just one (and a generic one at that).
posted by wenestvedt at 7:59 AM on May 24, 2018 [2 favorites]
Which sounds good: teach technicians how businesses work!
But getting someone who is ignorant of a particular business, and only knows businesses-in-general, to apply that knowledge to this-here-business-in-front-of-us -- and do it in the very near term -- is a much bigger problem because it requires mastery of two bodies of knowledge, not just one (and a generic one at that).
posted by wenestvedt at 7:59 AM on May 24, 2018 [2 favorites]
This is hilarious:
titles such as Against Management, Fucking Management and The Greedy Bastard’s Guide to Business appear not to cause any particular difficulties for their authors. I know this, because I wrote the first two. Frankly, the idea that I was permitted to get away with this speaks volumes about the extent to which this sort of criticism means anything very much at all. In fact, it is rewarded, because the fact that I publish is more important than what I publish.
posted by sammyo at 8:12 AM on May 24, 2018 [6 favorites]
titles such as Against Management, Fucking Management and The Greedy Bastard’s Guide to Business appear not to cause any particular difficulties for their authors. I know this, because I wrote the first two. Frankly, the idea that I was permitted to get away with this speaks volumes about the extent to which this sort of criticism means anything very much at all. In fact, it is rewarded, because the fact that I publish is more important than what I publish.
posted by sammyo at 8:12 AM on May 24, 2018 [6 favorites]
I wonder a lot how much "don't know how to run a business" is a stand-in for wanting to use high-quality, responsibly manufactured inputs, wanting to pay workers a solid share of the profits, being skeptical about handing over control to investors, yknow, a range of great, should-be-supported practices that nonetheless make a business uncompetitive and less profitable than those run by people with a degree in exploitation.
Honestly not that much of it. The best example I can come up with is like when a restaurant employee says the boss "doesn't know how to run a restaurant", they mean they don't purchase the right amount of food, the food they do purchase takes too long to prepare, staffing is wrong, and marketing is wrong. It doesn't typically mean they are buying organic, cruelty free meat, because that doesn't take any longer to prepare than the cheap slabs of horse steaks.
posted by The_Vegetables at 8:15 AM on May 24, 2018 [11 favorites]
Honestly not that much of it. The best example I can come up with is like when a restaurant employee says the boss "doesn't know how to run a restaurant", they mean they don't purchase the right amount of food, the food they do purchase takes too long to prepare, staffing is wrong, and marketing is wrong. It doesn't typically mean they are buying organic, cruelty free meat, because that doesn't take any longer to prepare than the cheap slabs of horse steaks.
posted by The_Vegetables at 8:15 AM on May 24, 2018 [11 favorites]
At the smallish private school where I worked for several years (and just graduated from) the business school in general and the M.B.A. program in particular (but also the undergrad business program) was a major income source for the school, essentially subsidizing the smaller liberal arts components. I don't think a ton of higher business education, but structurally a lot of universities need their business schools just to keep the rest of the endeavor afloat. My beloved art history department, with 6 graduating students who were all getting some kind of money from the school, sure as hell wasn't paying for itself.
posted by the phlegmatic king at 8:21 AM on May 24, 2018 [3 favorites]
posted by the phlegmatic king at 8:21 AM on May 24, 2018 [3 favorites]
Guy Kawasaki has a formula for quickly calculating the value of an early-stage tech startup:
Company Value = (Engineers * $1,000,000) - (MBAs * $500,000)posted by JoeZydeco at 8:23 AM on May 24, 2018 [10 favorites]
The difference between "some business, accounting and management knowledge can be useful for people running a business, accounting or managing" and " all you need is an MBA and you get to ruin the lives of your workers, customers and the environment by running your own cult of personality and being an underinformed psychopath".... well, thats a big difference. Keep the business department, but make it a minor or double-major only proposition. There's no one so dangerous as one who has only the mind for managing others and not for what those others actually have to do.
posted by Anchorite_of_Palgrave at 8:58 AM on May 24, 2018 [7 favorites]
posted by Anchorite_of_Palgrave at 8:58 AM on May 24, 2018 [7 favorites]
Of course, management should come from the workers, elected, rotated, part-time while still working, distributed, democratic... a business run by its workers, a worker cooperative. Doesn't solve the "assholes exist" problem; does solve the "asshole have all the power and none of the consequences" problem.
posted by Anchorite_of_Palgrave at 9:03 AM on May 24, 2018 [7 favorites]
posted by Anchorite_of_Palgrave at 9:03 AM on May 24, 2018 [7 favorites]
I have a Master's in Accounting. A friend, around the same time I was getting that, got an MBA from a very elite university, paid for by their employer. Like 75% of the non-accounting-specific stuff we learned in class was actually identical and most of it was stuff anybody could learn with internet access and some motivation. The difference between what I got and what they got was that I didn't spend all my time doing group projects with other people who were currently attending an MBA program at an elite university and going to therefore go on to take a bunch of other positions with elite employers. I don't think the knowledge is the point of MBA programs. The point is for the employer to be able to say you have an MBA from a fancy school, and for you to be able to leverage it later for the sake of your career.
This has led me to the conclusion that MBAs at most universities exist mostly to charge tuition, because they sure aren't really providing much value besides that.
All that said, business schools do have programs that aren't MBA programs, and not having actual accounting programs would be a disaster.
posted by Sequence at 9:07 AM on May 24, 2018 [7 favorites]
This has led me to the conclusion that MBAs at most universities exist mostly to charge tuition, because they sure aren't really providing much value besides that.
All that said, business schools do have programs that aren't MBA programs, and not having actual accounting programs would be a disaster.
posted by Sequence at 9:07 AM on May 24, 2018 [7 favorites]
I briefly went on a quest to find an overview of management training in the Soviet Union; I didn't really get anywhere but did come across this remarkable sentence (uncited on English Wikipedia, doesn't appear in the current Russian version):
posted by XMLicious at 9:48 AM on May 24, 2018 [2 favorites]
Some theorists even considered combining toilet-bowl functions with the shower's sink, but the idea was discarded.
posted by XMLicious at 9:48 AM on May 24, 2018 [2 favorites]
In my experience, all of the best managers at my company are ones that have oddball academic and professional backgrounds. MBAs seem to signal primairly that a person has a voracious appetite for bullshit and no shame about giving absolutely dismal powerpoint talks.
posted by cirgue at 9:53 AM on May 24, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by cirgue at 9:53 AM on May 24, 2018 [1 favorite]
Don't bulldoze the business school!
That's usually where the best cafe on campus is.
posted by FJT at 10:04 AM on May 24, 2018 [6 favorites]
That's usually where the best cafe on campus is.
posted by FJT at 10:04 AM on May 24, 2018 [6 favorites]
Is education really even something that should be left in the hands of institutions at all? The school is a fundamentally aristocratic pattern poorly adapted to the modern world and the average person. And most non-average people, for that matter.
I've met a number of Reddit or 4Chaners who would agree; their self-taught studies are far superior to the elitist model of universities.
Usually this is in the context of a person coming into a NASA or science community with the desire to show us how their YouTube video totally proves that the mass of scientists are wrong, and the world IS flat. Pity how those aristocratic degree holders reject out of hand the work of that self-taught average person.
posted by happyroach at 10:32 AM on May 24, 2018 [16 favorites]
I've met a number of Reddit or 4Chaners who would agree; their self-taught studies are far superior to the elitist model of universities.
Usually this is in the context of a person coming into a NASA or science community with the desire to show us how their YouTube video totally proves that the mass of scientists are wrong, and the world IS flat. Pity how those aristocratic degree holders reject out of hand the work of that self-taught average person.
posted by happyroach at 10:32 AM on May 24, 2018 [16 favorites]
They want to learn to use the devil's tools for personal enrichment, not out of ideological fanaticism. I mean, it's a little less bad...
Wowzers, this is a real shitty way to think of people.
First, there are a lot of MBAs, particularly those not at the superrich private legacy schools who come from not-advantaged backgrounds who get the degree to establish financial security for themselves and their families. Like jmccw said:
And then these students do it not just for the knowledge, but because of what jeremy b says. They know:
posted by Anonymous at 10:41 AM on May 24, 2018
Wowzers, this is a real shitty way to think of people.
First, there are a lot of MBAs, particularly those not at the superrich private legacy schools who come from not-advantaged backgrounds who get the degree to establish financial security for themselves and their families. Like jmccw said:
...they are making a life calculation that studying supply chain or finance or marketing of whatever will put them in a better position to avoid debtors prison or the gig economyReal easy to rage against capitalism and crow about the anti-capitalist choices you make, but do you have kids? Do you have families who rely on you for support? Do you just tell them to fuck off and not eat along with you?
And then these students do it not just for the knowledge, but because of what jeremy b says. They know:
the appeal of the MBA to recruiters has little to do with his or her actual business education; rather, it's a function of the perception that these candidates will in all likelihood be of a particular "high-functioning" type, possessing some measure of proactivity, professionalism, and ambition.Plus business schools offer some measure of networking opportunities that can facilitate getting that good job that will help you support yourself and those you love. We aren't talking people who go to Wharton and get a job with Dad's Finance Firm, just someone who wants the steady, hopefully higher-than-average income that will allow them to breathe in a way they haven't with other jobs so far.
posted by Anonymous at 10:41 AM on May 24, 2018
Business School is the apotheosis of the Dunning-Kruger effect.
posted by symbioid at 10:58 AM on May 24, 2018 [3 favorites]
posted by symbioid at 10:58 AM on May 24, 2018 [3 favorites]
Another MBA here. From personal experience, there were certainly a few Gordon Gekko types in my program, but only a few. Most were people like me: pleasant professionals with technical or other skills who needed some additional financial grounding to move up in the world. I could barely balance a checkbook going in, so my career path was always going to be handicapped, and this seemed to be the best way to learn what I needed and have the credentials to prove it.
As far as the teaching went, at least at the program I attended, we did do a fair bit of discussion about ethics and the changing views on maximization of shareholder value, etc. I never got the sense that money was the only object or that we had to grind people into the dirt.
I mean, I get it. We're mostly all good progressives around here, we want to see capitalism reined in. I certainly don't intend to go oppress any workers today. But unless you're calling for a full-scale Marxist revolution (and if you are, fine, but it seems like that's a larger thread), then I think the MBA still has some value, especially when it comes to getting technical people up to management levels, though I grant that about half the handwavey management curriculum could be dropped with no harm done.
(I am less charitable toward *undergraduate* business programs, which really do seem to be filled mostly with the type of person who view money as a life score).
posted by tau_ceti at 11:10 AM on May 24, 2018 [6 favorites]
As far as the teaching went, at least at the program I attended, we did do a fair bit of discussion about ethics and the changing views on maximization of shareholder value, etc. I never got the sense that money was the only object or that we had to grind people into the dirt.
I mean, I get it. We're mostly all good progressives around here, we want to see capitalism reined in. I certainly don't intend to go oppress any workers today. But unless you're calling for a full-scale Marxist revolution (and if you are, fine, but it seems like that's a larger thread), then I think the MBA still has some value, especially when it comes to getting technical people up to management levels, though I grant that about half the handwavey management curriculum could be dropped with no harm done.
(I am less charitable toward *undergraduate* business programs, which really do seem to be filled mostly with the type of person who view money as a life score).
posted by tau_ceti at 11:10 AM on May 24, 2018 [6 favorites]
I've met a number of Reddit or 4Chaners who would agree; their self-taught studies are far superior to the elitist model of universities.
Usually this is in the context of a person coming into a NASA or science community with the desire to show us how their YouTube video totally proves that the mass of scientists are wrong, and the world IS flat. Pity how those aristocratic degree holders reject out of hand the work of that self-taught average person.
Except that I didn't say anything about self-taught studies and in the part you didn't quote proposed that the educators should be able to work and succeed independently from the educational institutions.
But hey, my diploma is written in Latin which I can't read, so it probably doesn't authorize me to have opinions on whether the place I got it from is too aristocratic.
posted by XMLicious at 11:19 AM on May 24, 2018
I wonder if they had business education or similar management study courses in the Soviet Union.
Although they had business schools in Soviet times (Moscow's State University of Management has been around since before the civil war was over, 1919), the below linked study suggests that its graduates were not evenly distributed. The last part of the article covers a series of truck plant managers elected directly by the workers of the plant, ranging from an engineer to a mechanic, no management degrees listed, which you'd think a Wharton study would be sensitive to...
posted by ivan ivanych samovar at 12:35 PM on May 24, 2018 [1 favorite]
Although they had business schools in Soviet times (Moscow's State University of Management has been around since before the civil war was over, 1919), the below linked study suggests that its graduates were not evenly distributed. The last part of the article covers a series of truck plant managers elected directly by the workers of the plant, ranging from an engineer to a mechanic, no management degrees listed, which you'd think a Wharton study would be sensitive to...
posted by ivan ivanych samovar at 12:35 PM on May 24, 2018 [1 favorite]
"Nothing wrong with wanting to have higher than average income," says person surprised at anger of those who that person pays a lower than average income to, who work more hours. I know, I know, your work is hard too and you have so much stress, thats why you get to eat lunch or sit down or talk, and we don't.
"Don't hate the player, hate the game" is a good philosophy for solidarity if the leading players were helping change the game to increase fairness, deal with negative externalities or spread opportunity, instead of playing extra vicious to get ahead by standing on the backs of those who are falling behind.
Sorry, i guess i have more anger at MBAs than i first thought.
posted by Anchorite_of_Palgrave at 12:40 PM on May 24, 2018 [4 favorites]
"Don't hate the player, hate the game" is a good philosophy for solidarity if the leading players were helping change the game to increase fairness, deal with negative externalities or spread opportunity, instead of playing extra vicious to get ahead by standing on the backs of those who are falling behind.
Sorry, i guess i have more anger at MBAs than i first thought.
posted by Anchorite_of_Palgrave at 12:40 PM on May 24, 2018 [4 favorites]
#notallMBAs
posted by Anchorite_of_Palgrave at 12:41 PM on May 24, 2018
posted by Anchorite_of_Palgrave at 12:41 PM on May 24, 2018
i'd like to retract my previous comments, it is unfair to lay responsibility for our economic system and those it harms on those who follow the incentives of the system and pursue the degrees that they or their own bosses think will give them more opportunity and value.
posted by Anchorite_of_Palgrave at 12:55 PM on May 24, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by Anchorite_of_Palgrave at 12:55 PM on May 24, 2018 [1 favorite]
schroedinger: Real easy to rage against capitalism and crow about the anti-capitalist choices you make, but do you have kids? Do you have families who rely on you for support? Do you just tell them to fuck off and not eat along with you?
I have a child. I think that the attitude "I only want to do what's best for my kids" is pernicious, and I try not to get sucked into it. Maybe we can find solutions that are good for my kid and good for your kid, too.
posted by clawsoon at 1:05 PM on May 24, 2018 [4 favorites]
I have a child. I think that the attitude "I only want to do what's best for my kids" is pernicious, and I try not to get sucked into it. Maybe we can find solutions that are good for my kid and good for your kid, too.
posted by clawsoon at 1:05 PM on May 24, 2018 [4 favorites]
No economic security but has an undergraduate and possibly graduate degree. Okay.
Anyway, I've only had to suffer through business classes at the undergraduate level and only did it because it seemed easy and my job would pay for some of it. And aside from some accounting stuff and learning how to make a business plan, it was easy because it was just useless. It was a glue of psychobabble holding a hodge-podge of other disciplines together. The classes were made up of underachievers (like yours truly) who just wanted to get a diploma and be done with it, some very earnest and conscientious types who probably will do well in life, and some folks who once took a Buzzfeed test that sorted them into Slytherin and that result became the entire basis of their personality. Sadly, I have a feeling it will be the last group and not the second who will make up the bulk of future MBA students.
On the bright side, I have decided I will make my fortune by churning out a bunch of Art of War knockoffs and other books best described as Machiavelli for Dummies because I have a feeling as long as the current MBA model is a thing, there will always be an audience for that.
posted by asteria at 1:17 PM on May 24, 2018
Anyway, I've only had to suffer through business classes at the undergraduate level and only did it because it seemed easy and my job would pay for some of it. And aside from some accounting stuff and learning how to make a business plan, it was easy because it was just useless. It was a glue of psychobabble holding a hodge-podge of other disciplines together. The classes were made up of underachievers (like yours truly) who just wanted to get a diploma and be done with it, some very earnest and conscientious types who probably will do well in life, and some folks who once took a Buzzfeed test that sorted them into Slytherin and that result became the entire basis of their personality. Sadly, I have a feeling it will be the last group and not the second who will make up the bulk of future MBA students.
On the bright side, I have decided I will make my fortune by churning out a bunch of Art of War knockoffs and other books best described as Machiavelli for Dummies because I have a feeling as long as the current MBA model is a thing, there will always be an audience for that.
posted by asteria at 1:17 PM on May 24, 2018
Business schools are also responsible for the poisonous idea, promulgated within the public service, that government should be run the same way as the private sector, but, at the same time, should not compete with the private sector.
It is literally the responsibility of government (one of the responsibilities, anyway) to create sandpits for the economy to grow in (e.g. the internet, or: "not the thing, but the thing that gets you the thing"), but we content ourselves with mediocre ideas like "open data" and "hey, let's make all our forms fillable PDFs!" because we are so shit-scared of developing something that could accidentally be interpreted as monetisable. It's a fucking disgrace, and I trace it directly to senior management being stacked with MBAs, who spend some years here to suck the innovation out of the workforce, put a red line through the business cases, and then fuck off to the private sector to present "a few ideas I've had bouncing around".
posted by turbid dahlia at 2:44 PM on May 24, 2018 [2 favorites]
It is literally the responsibility of government (one of the responsibilities, anyway) to create sandpits for the economy to grow in (e.g. the internet, or: "not the thing, but the thing that gets you the thing"), but we content ourselves with mediocre ideas like "open data" and "hey, let's make all our forms fillable PDFs!" because we are so shit-scared of developing something that could accidentally be interpreted as monetisable. It's a fucking disgrace, and I trace it directly to senior management being stacked with MBAs, who spend some years here to suck the innovation out of the workforce, put a red line through the business cases, and then fuck off to the private sector to present "a few ideas I've had bouncing around".
posted by turbid dahlia at 2:44 PM on May 24, 2018 [2 favorites]
I respect anyone who studies supply chains. If anything can save the world, it will be getting what is to where it needs to be.
posted by BeeDo at 3:03 PM on May 24, 2018
posted by BeeDo at 3:03 PM on May 24, 2018
Gosh metafilter can be so crazily judgmental and sheltered at times. Lots of strong opinions about business degrees and the people that do them from people who don't have them. I don't think being physically near a business faculty really qualifies, either.
I don't have a business degree but I work every day with MBAs and commerce graduates in my job at a.... Bank! (lock me up right now)
Firstly, a business degree is not required to be a boss. You think engineers don't have bosses? Biologists? Secondly the idea that being someone's boss makes you "the man" is very short sighted. The supervisor at seven eleven is a boss. My friend who is director at a non-profit after school centre is a boss - and I can tell you she is not exactly raking it in.
A better understanding of Marx would remind you that capitalists are the owners of capital. Bosses are merely petit bourgeoisie (thanks arts degree!). Its pretty rarefied, even in a bank, to get up to the level where you break out from that.
The grads I work with, and I've worked with dozens, did not choose commerce because they are ayn rand acolytes, they chose it because they wanted to get jobs that weren't behind a counter, and often for very good reasons. It's hard out there for grads these days, very competitive. They are concerned about working, not debating how virtuous their poverty is. They are good kids, smart and thoughtful.
I've also worked with a bunch of MBAs. They have mixed opinions about their degrees, the value of them, quality of education. Again they did their degrees for a range of different reasons. I would be really reluctant to draw conclusions about the degrees as a whole.
I myself started a commerce degree when I first entered university twenty years ago, and yeah the course seemed like a bunch of pat corporate bromides, one unit, anyway. The other one was about how to use Office software, so pretty vocational.
But that was one unit, at one uni, twenty years ago. I don't really know anything about modern business schools and I feel like a lot of commenters here don't, either, but are happy to lob a few grenades. Don't forget, any higher education is a privilege, and doing a non vocational degree is also a kind of privilege. You can still end up being a boss too!
posted by smoke at 3:08 PM on May 24, 2018 [13 favorites]
I don't have a business degree but I work every day with MBAs and commerce graduates in my job at a.... Bank! (lock me up right now)
Firstly, a business degree is not required to be a boss. You think engineers don't have bosses? Biologists? Secondly the idea that being someone's boss makes you "the man" is very short sighted. The supervisor at seven eleven is a boss. My friend who is director at a non-profit after school centre is a boss - and I can tell you she is not exactly raking it in.
A better understanding of Marx would remind you that capitalists are the owners of capital. Bosses are merely petit bourgeoisie (thanks arts degree!). Its pretty rarefied, even in a bank, to get up to the level where you break out from that.
The grads I work with, and I've worked with dozens, did not choose commerce because they are ayn rand acolytes, they chose it because they wanted to get jobs that weren't behind a counter, and often for very good reasons. It's hard out there for grads these days, very competitive. They are concerned about working, not debating how virtuous their poverty is. They are good kids, smart and thoughtful.
I've also worked with a bunch of MBAs. They have mixed opinions about their degrees, the value of them, quality of education. Again they did their degrees for a range of different reasons. I would be really reluctant to draw conclusions about the degrees as a whole.
I myself started a commerce degree when I first entered university twenty years ago, and yeah the course seemed like a bunch of pat corporate bromides, one unit, anyway. The other one was about how to use Office software, so pretty vocational.
But that was one unit, at one uni, twenty years ago. I don't really know anything about modern business schools and I feel like a lot of commenters here don't, either, but are happy to lob a few grenades. Don't forget, any higher education is a privilege, and doing a non vocational degree is also a kind of privilege. You can still end up being a boss too!
posted by smoke at 3:08 PM on May 24, 2018 [13 favorites]
Plus business schools offer some measure of networking opportunities that can facilitate getting that good job that will help you support yourself and those you love. We aren't talking people who go to Wharton and get a job with Dad's Finance Firm, just someone who wants the steady, hopefully higher-than-average income that will allow them to breathe in a way they haven't with other jobs so far.
Expanding your social networks is especially important for recent immigrants and other people who don't have a lot of connections in more high paid positions. I agree with the point made above: a lot of students who study business are doing so because they are risk adverse, and are often from immigrant and/or disadvantaged families. (I wonder if anyone has access to the stats on first generation college students and their choices of majors?)
That said, there's some research out of the US that applied undergraduate degree programs like business, education or social work don't teach their students critical thinking skills as well as some of the more traditionally academic programs like the humanities, social sciences or physical sciences. (The research was based on a longitudinal study - testing students early and late in their degrees - so it could pull out what the effect of the program was versus the differences in the populations). It suggests that the programs themselves have issues.
And based on pure anecdata: I have found people who chose business as their undergraduate program to be less interesting than other people I've met. I'm sure there are exceptions, but it felt like the density of curiosity in that community is lower. And there are certain values and lifestyles which are more prevalent among anyone who works in business as opposed to non-profits or government or the arts. You can't help but be affected by who you're surrounded with. I work with scientists now, and I'm slowly being transformed from a good humanist/social scientist into a full-on empiricist, looking for meta-analyses on what kind of coffee I should drink.
posted by jb at 3:39 PM on May 24, 2018 [1 favorite]
Expanding your social networks is especially important for recent immigrants and other people who don't have a lot of connections in more high paid positions. I agree with the point made above: a lot of students who study business are doing so because they are risk adverse, and are often from immigrant and/or disadvantaged families. (I wonder if anyone has access to the stats on first generation college students and their choices of majors?)
That said, there's some research out of the US that applied undergraduate degree programs like business, education or social work don't teach their students critical thinking skills as well as some of the more traditionally academic programs like the humanities, social sciences or physical sciences. (The research was based on a longitudinal study - testing students early and late in their degrees - so it could pull out what the effect of the program was versus the differences in the populations). It suggests that the programs themselves have issues.
And based on pure anecdata: I have found people who chose business as their undergraduate program to be less interesting than other people I've met. I'm sure there are exceptions, but it felt like the density of curiosity in that community is lower. And there are certain values and lifestyles which are more prevalent among anyone who works in business as opposed to non-profits or government or the arts. You can't help but be affected by who you're surrounded with. I work with scientists now, and I'm slowly being transformed from a good humanist/social scientist into a full-on empiricist, looking for meta-analyses on what kind of coffee I should drink.
posted by jb at 3:39 PM on May 24, 2018 [1 favorite]
Your values are also changed by your lifestyle: luck (poor) and choices (mixed) have meant that until recently I had a relatively low income, and even now can't afford to invest in property or travel or do a lot of things that people with my level of education and apparent class-presentation do.
Now I have a middle class income (our family is just over the median for our area, so we're actually in the middle-middle!). But I find that my experiences continue to affect how I relate to everything: transit policy, vacation choices, even what I think is reasonable to spend at a restaurant. If I had gotten a job where I had a middle class income in my 20s, and then bought a house in my 30s and drove a car and went on vacations where you don't pitch your own tent - well, I can imagine I'd feel very differently about the world and how it works. I've watch my spouse (who has experienced low income with me) become quite different from his upper-middle class family - who are quite progressive people, but who also experience life from a very privileged position, economically. Poverty has changed him from being a moderate liberal into being a huge pinko (not complaining).
Anyways, the tl;dr is: does business school change people, or does the lifestyle you have to lead to begin an MBA and then after also change people? Or probably both.
posted by jb at 3:49 PM on May 24, 2018 [3 favorites]
Now I have a middle class income (our family is just over the median for our area, so we're actually in the middle-middle!). But I find that my experiences continue to affect how I relate to everything: transit policy, vacation choices, even what I think is reasonable to spend at a restaurant. If I had gotten a job where I had a middle class income in my 20s, and then bought a house in my 30s and drove a car and went on vacations where you don't pitch your own tent - well, I can imagine I'd feel very differently about the world and how it works. I've watch my spouse (who has experienced low income with me) become quite different from his upper-middle class family - who are quite progressive people, but who also experience life from a very privileged position, economically. Poverty has changed him from being a moderate liberal into being a huge pinko (not complaining).
Anyways, the tl;dr is: does business school change people, or does the lifestyle you have to lead to begin an MBA and then after also change people? Or probably both.
posted by jb at 3:49 PM on May 24, 2018 [3 favorites]
If we educate our graduates in the inevitability of tooth-and-claw capitalism, it is hardly surprising that we end up with justifications for massive salary payments to people who take huge risks with other people’s money. If we teach that there is nothing else below the bottom line, then ideas about sustainability, diversity, responsibility and so on become mere decoration. The message that management research and teaching often provides is that capitalism is inevitable, and that the financial and legal techniques for running capitalism are a form of science. This combination of ideology and technocracy is what has made the business school into such an effective, and dangerous, institution.
To me, the business school is more of a "letting the tail wag the dog" scenario, with the b-school existing for the jobs it wants its graduates to get. Few b-school grads of course have an intrinsic interest in accounting (however there are a few of us masochists...). They want jobs, jobs which explicitly or implicitly require credentials to get hired and promoted.
If you look at the post-MBA jobs (industry middle management, consulting, banking) the graduates either A) already have most of the technical skills they need before doing the MBA program or B) go into middle management jobs where subordinates do the technical stuff for them and their job is basically to implement whatever upper management says. In either case the MBA program itself can get its students jobs by reviewing the basic technical stuff and filling the program with the BS Myers-Briggs stuff.
As long as there is this career payoff to the MBA credentialism, I see no reason the schools will be compelled to change. Neither employers nor students are particularly interested in studying "what it is like to be a human being" as the article says. The school is but one cog that would have to be changed, along with the workplace and our culture as a whole.
posted by hexaflexagon at 4:58 PM on May 24, 2018
To me, the business school is more of a "letting the tail wag the dog" scenario, with the b-school existing for the jobs it wants its graduates to get. Few b-school grads of course have an intrinsic interest in accounting (however there are a few of us masochists...). They want jobs, jobs which explicitly or implicitly require credentials to get hired and promoted.
If you look at the post-MBA jobs (industry middle management, consulting, banking) the graduates either A) already have most of the technical skills they need before doing the MBA program or B) go into middle management jobs where subordinates do the technical stuff for them and their job is basically to implement whatever upper management says. In either case the MBA program itself can get its students jobs by reviewing the basic technical stuff and filling the program with the BS Myers-Briggs stuff.
As long as there is this career payoff to the MBA credentialism, I see no reason the schools will be compelled to change. Neither employers nor students are particularly interested in studying "what it is like to be a human being" as the article says. The school is but one cog that would have to be changed, along with the workplace and our culture as a whole.
posted by hexaflexagon at 4:58 PM on May 24, 2018
Another MBA - I call it my Polyfilla degree - I used to fill in the cracks from my undergraduate and professional studies (accounting, economics, law). It was also a massively beneficial innoculation against techno-jargon and showed me how the system could be gamed if I was so inclined. And that as a female, I knew more about hard work.
Which meant that I bailed from the corporate environment as soon as I could, especially after a stint in banking - the original male, pale and stale.
I have my own business, mainly working with other small businesses, and helping them find a niche that allows the business to look after its owners and employees. I explain why "sustainability" is the key to a business - you want to do things over and over, not just once, so EVERYONE must want to come back to the table - so make sure that there is enough on the table (profit) that EVERYONE gets a good share.
posted by Barbara Spitzer at 5:24 PM on May 24, 2018 [3 favorites]
Which meant that I bailed from the corporate environment as soon as I could, especially after a stint in banking - the original male, pale and stale.
I have my own business, mainly working with other small businesses, and helping them find a niche that allows the business to look after its owners and employees. I explain why "sustainability" is the key to a business - you want to do things over and over, not just once, so EVERYONE must want to come back to the table - so make sure that there is enough on the table (profit) that EVERYONE gets a good share.
posted by Barbara Spitzer at 5:24 PM on May 24, 2018 [3 favorites]
No economic security but has an undergraduate and possibly graduate degree. Okay.
Yeah, a philosophy BA and half a masters (in the UK, pre top-up fees) really get you far.
posted by Dysk at 6:09 PM on May 24, 2018 [1 favorite]
Yeah, a philosophy BA and half a masters (in the UK, pre top-up fees) really get you far.
posted by Dysk at 6:09 PM on May 24, 2018 [1 favorite]
the general poor quality of psychology research
It's ridiculous how much we "know" about human psychology is based on the reactions of American college students who need extra credit in their Psych 101 course or want to make a quick $10. Because that's such a representative sample of humanity as a whole, right?
posted by Jacqueline at 10:27 AM on May 26, 2018 [2 favorites]
It's ridiculous how much we "know" about human psychology is based on the reactions of American college students who need extra credit in their Psych 101 course or want to make a quick $10. Because that's such a representative sample of humanity as a whole, right?
posted by Jacqueline at 10:27 AM on May 26, 2018 [2 favorites]
Hah. Bulldoze away! I'm not certain business acumen or analytical skill can "really" be taught at school. I am involved in hiring for our finance department and I believe we get better outcomes from people with engineering or audit background rather than the traditional applicants with a commerce / business background.
It won't surprise you then, to learn that business undergraduates are near the bottom of performers on the GMAT. Some of that is perhaps selection bias -- the business majors not scooped up by businesses have extra incentive to take the GMAT and roll the dice again in grad school.
On the other hand, the last university I worked for had a business school with a policy of no classes on Friday. Ostensibly it was to focus on community activities, but I'm pretty sure it was because of the local bar's Thirsty Thursdays custom.
I recently had to back out a discussion with a business student who was explaining how some people have aggressive humours and that's why they tend towards management positions. Humours.
The humour framing is strange, but aggression is basically the opposite side of the Big 5 Agreeableness dimension, right? So it's not entirely off base. The bigger problem, here is simply the part where aggressiveness is equated with management. Correlation vs causation aside, to the extent that aggressiveness gets one into management, it can also get management fired.
posted by pwnguin at 11:43 AM on May 26, 2018
It won't surprise you then, to learn that business undergraduates are near the bottom of performers on the GMAT. Some of that is perhaps selection bias -- the business majors not scooped up by businesses have extra incentive to take the GMAT and roll the dice again in grad school.
On the other hand, the last university I worked for had a business school with a policy of no classes on Friday. Ostensibly it was to focus on community activities, but I'm pretty sure it was because of the local bar's Thirsty Thursdays custom.
I recently had to back out a discussion with a business student who was explaining how some people have aggressive humours and that's why they tend towards management positions. Humours.
The humour framing is strange, but aggression is basically the opposite side of the Big 5 Agreeableness dimension, right? So it's not entirely off base. The bigger problem, here is simply the part where aggressiveness is equated with management. Correlation vs causation aside, to the extent that aggressiveness gets one into management, it can also get management fired.
posted by pwnguin at 11:43 AM on May 26, 2018
Ostensibly it was to focus on community activities, but I'm pretty sure it was because of the local bar's Thirsty Thursdays custom.
You say that like Thirsty Thursday isn't a community activity.
posted by clawsoon at 12:27 PM on May 26, 2018
You say that like Thirsty Thursday isn't a community activity.
posted by clawsoon at 12:27 PM on May 26, 2018
Aha! I have just discovered my dusty copy of The Red Executive (also available on Amazon, should you be compelled to read sociology from 1960).
In general at that period, most managers at any level had an engineering degree, if they had a degree (of factory managers, especially, slightly less than half had a university degree).
Of those who DID go to business schools in the USSR, most of which also had a strong engineering component, a huge proportion went into regional planning or banking.
Again, this is all as of 1960, and even the stodgy Soviet bureaucracy is likely to have innovated somewhat, even prior to perestroika. But given the notoriously stodgy Soviet bureaucracy, still probably accurate in broad strokes.
posted by ivan ivanych samovar at 10:05 AM on May 31, 2018 [1 favorite]
In general at that period, most managers at any level had an engineering degree, if they had a degree (of factory managers, especially, slightly less than half had a university degree).
Of those who DID go to business schools in the USSR, most of which also had a strong engineering component, a huge proportion went into regional planning or banking.
Again, this is all as of 1960, and even the stodgy Soviet bureaucracy is likely to have innovated somewhat, even prior to perestroika. But given the notoriously stodgy Soviet bureaucracy, still probably accurate in broad strokes.
posted by ivan ivanych samovar at 10:05 AM on May 31, 2018 [1 favorite]
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In a very idealized view of things (which I have to have - leading by example and all that) all Finance is about Stewardship: demonstrate responsibility with small things, and you will be provided more responsibility over greater things, just like the parable. Ultimately, the CFO has stewardship over all the shareholders money: they trust he or she will handle it with integrity and diligence.
The opposite view, of course, flipped on its head, is that you are given people's life savings, and you are tasked with earning the maximum possible return for them - and we call that Greed.
Some retirement savings funds or investment vehicles offer the option to exclude investments in fossil fuels, for example, choosing only "sustainable" and ethical companies. But we're still a long way off from this idealized future, with most people just saying "please maximize my retirement savings".
posted by xdvesper at 2:13 AM on May 24, 2018 [5 favorites]