The Market

Next to ethics sustainability is probably one of the most used buzzwords at many business schools. A growing number of Sustainable or Green MBAs are popping up around the world in an attempt to educate business students on these issues. Now a new book provides information and tips for those interested in this topic.

The 1st European MBA Career Fair takes place in Berlin on April 26 and will include six business schools from wider Europe.

A new report, titled Tomorrow’s MBA, has found that prospective students are still keen on the MBA qualification despite its reputation taking a knock during the banking crisis. However, asked which academic content was important to them as part of an MBA study, respondents put Ethics in the bottom 4 out of 30 possible elements.

When two sexologists brainstormed with a group of MBA students to examine connections between sexuality and leadership the discussions probably got quite heated. However, the results of this experiment are rather lukewarm than hot stuff.

Almost since their inception more than 100 years ago, the death of business schools and MBAs has been predicted to be imminent. Stuck between business that think them academic, in the derogatory not the complimentary sense, and universities that think them unacademic, in an equally derogatory sense, it is not surprising that business schools periodically suffer serious bouts of self‐doubt.

Women today comprise about 37 per cent of the student body at full-time MBA programmes in the US, compared with 33 per cent five years ago and 30 per cent 10 years ago, according to the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB). And while most schools are still far from having an even split, many are closing the gender gap.

The indirect good news of the global crisis has been, somehow, not only to challenge the pillars of the global financial system, but also to question the personal and collective action of those responsible for driving the system, I mean, bank, regulators, governments and, yes, business schools.

When managers study for an EMBA at 50, it’s not usually to boost their careers. François de Belsunce was caught by the global crisis. As a Senior Country Manager and Member of the Executive Board of the German branch of the French investment bank NATIXIS, he aligns and optimizes internal structures almost daily. “I just fancied doing something completely different,” jokes the bank manager.

Climate change and other pressing environmental and social issues urgently require transformational change. 76% of senior executives say it is important that leaders in their organisations have the knowledge and skills they need to respond, but only 7% believe these knowledge and skills are currently being developed very effectively either internally or by business schools more broadly. Are business schools and HR departments up to the challenge?

Common sense suggests it, political programmes promote it, research has proven it: a healthy gender mix, i.e. more women in corporate decision making positions, improves the financial and organisational performance of companies. But despite the evidence and much rhetoric there has not been a substantial upward movement in numbers: in Europe still only 11% of board members of listed companies are women. A good management education is a qualifying element of a successful career path, in particular an executive MBA programme which allows people to keep working during their studies. But here the picture is similar to the corporate world: rarely more than 25% of class members are women.

Microsoft, Virgin, Google - what do these enormously successful entrepreneurial ventures have in common?  Each started in an economic downturn.  Many successful ventures get their break when times are tough: there is less competition from established players in most industries, less stigma attached to failure, and with high white-collar unemployment there is much talent and experience eager to join entrepreneurial teams.  If you are thinking about becoming an entrepreneur, now might be the time to do it.

It is not the performance level of MBA students that determines their capability for management roles, it is what they learn from the experience, finds Robert Wood, management professor at Melbourne Business School in Australia.

Harvard MBAs have proposed that all MBA students sign an oath. It pledges, among other things, to “contribute to the well-being of society” and to “create sustainable economic, social and environmental prosperity worldwide.” I don’t believe that this is a good idea, for three reasons. First, some parts of the pledge are inconsistent with fiduciary duties and ethical standards. Second the oath is a misplaced response to the financial crisis. Third, I don’t believe in pledges as an instrument to guide people’s behaviour.

Business schools have become an easy target as the butt of jokes about the causes of the current economic crisis. A recent segment on ‘The Daily Show,’ an American satirical television programme, explored the theme of MBAs being to blame for the crisis and the MBA oath as a possible remedy. Its presenter feigned surprise that not all students were willing to sign up to an oath that said: “I will act with utmost integrity and pursue my work in an ethical manner.” No doubt the view that MBAs would have difficulty in making such a commitment is more widespread and yet it seems such a straightforward commitment to make. So in answer to the question, ‘why an MBA oath?’, one response surely must be: ‘Why not?’ Why should it be so difficult for MBAs to commit to behaving ethically?

MBAs want a new approach to business according to the new research from the Association of MBAs, in partnership with Durham Business School.

Business schools need to change radically, challenged Angel Cabrera, President of the Thunderbird School of Global Management, at the World Innovation Summit for Education (WISE) in Qatar, where roughly 1,000 education experts from 120 countries met to discuss the future of education.