Discussion: View Thread

I wish to respectfully append further conditions to what Kim said: "I am not
sure that the it matters which courses students take as long as Professors are
committed to giving them valid, reliable, and current information that will
enable them to become self learners and critical thinkers."

Granted, a great thinking teacher of a course that is outside ones "major"
focus is preferable to a mundane one inside the major, but this applies mainly
to electives.

Self-learning and critical thinking are desirable (arguably necessary), but not
sufficient. I see far too many MBA students come into capstone courses who lack
basic quantitative reasoning skills and an evidence an inability to use or show
objective evidence in decisions. Students have asked, "if we have to use
numbers for a breakeven analysis or can we just talk about it conceptually" in
a market entry decision. Others often claim, "consultants cost too much money
and cost more than developing in-house talent". Very few have been able to give
any kind of numbers to back up their beliefs. Yet these leaders are going to
negotiate contracts, solve problems, and make decisions about acquisitions,
market entry, financing, capital projects, etc.

I do not for one moment subscribe to the belief that all decisions can be
portrayed on spreadsheets or other numeric methods (AHP, etc.) and I do believe
that team building, culture, and communication are vital for strategy
formulations and execution (implementation). An educational focus on building
skills (and attitude?) is a necessary precursor to becoming a self learner and
critical thinker. We must equip leaders with a bundle of key skills that will
serve them in the tasks that lie ahead.

--
Prof. John L. Naman naman+@pitt.edu

To my colleagues--

As one who works both sides of the street--academic and business--I'd
like to weigh in on this thread about which John Naman and Kim Boal have
already wisely and cogently commented. My views are strictly anecdotal,
of course, but my sample (from experience) is big enough to support what
I'm about to say.

Ben Oviatt and I wrote a piece for the Academy of Management Executive
in 1989 entitled "Irrelevance, Intransigence, and Business Professors."
In it we used Porter's Five-Forces Model to analyze the
business-education "industry." We explained how the "publish or perish"
reward system in better academic settings tends to reinforce irrelevance
and how tenure promotes intransigence. We predicted the rise of
in-house "corporate universities" that would act as substitutes to
provide the relevance that business education lacked.

As a former CFO (before I became an academic) who is now a full-time
consultant, I have come to believe that undergraduate business education
should be abolished. All of it. I know, I know--that's not going to
happen. But it should, because its major beneficiaries are faculty
members (who remain employed), not students. Business education is too
much training (a la vo-tech) and too little education. We see it in
graduates who don't know how to do anything besides what they're
doing--and don't know how to learn anything different.

I do a slug of teaching of CPAs every year for the AICPA, and I see this
in spades in the CPA community, believe me. Public accounting is in the
throes of a revolution, and the vast majority of CPAs are proof positive
that denial ain't just a river in Egypt. (For what it's worth, I speak
as one who got his degree, not in liberal arts or elsewhere, but in
finance and accounting. I also have an MBA, which I picked up along the
way to a doctorate which I didn't finish.)

Undergraduate business education is too often delivered by folks
w/little or no business experience (they remind me of Catholic priests
dispensing marriage counseling) and who too often have contempt not just
for business in general, but for the system of quasi-free markets which
has produced a higher standard of living for more people than any
competing models. We see evidence of this in the rise of the "crits" on
business faculties. Lawyer friends tell me the crits have have pretty
much made a shambles of some of our best law schools, so I guess
top-tier business schools are next. The crits are entitled to their
views, of course, but there's a difference between a right to speak, on
the one hand, and rigorous empirical support for one's views, on the
other.

Most important, it seems to me, is that undergraduate business education
fails to inculcate rigorous thinking skills. I see strong evidence in
my consulting work that graduate business programs aren't doing any
better. A recent example: A client of ours decided to enter a niche
industry in which the two biggest competitors had merged and, in effect,
created a monopoly. It wasn't a pure one, mind you--but the merged
entity had something over 95% of the market. A young MBA out of the
fine program at Rice University was drafting the business plan. In the
section on strategy, he advocated that the new entrant (his employer)
cut price to win market share.

Seeing that the notion of duopoly had completely eluded him in his
education, I questioned him in Socratic fashion about the implications
of what he was recommending. He's a bright guy and quickly saw the
self-destructive aspects of his ideas in this area. But if I hadn't
done that, none of his superiors would have. They're good people, just
like those on this Listserv. And they have MBAs. But they wouldn't
have made the connection to the theory to which they'd been previously
exposed.

More generally, only a few of the business owners and CEOs w/whom we
work have the slightest grasp of quantitative skills, despite the fact
that many have graduate degrees in business. And that includes
accountants and finance types, who should have some basic skills in
regression, internal rates of return, and DCF. Somehow, they still
equate the tools which they supposedly received in their graduate
education to "theory," as if good theory has no place in business. We
all know better.

It would be a large step up, it seems to me, if more Ph.D. programs
required "x years" of real-world business experience, preferably as a
manager, prior to admitting applicants into doctoral programs in
business. Of course, that might affect employment in those Ph.D.
programs as it would produce a structural downdraft in demand, at least
in the short term. I realize that some schools (Yale, for instance)
already have this as a prerequisite for MBA programs.

I am most assuredly NOT a believer in the so-called "practitioner model"
where all learning comes only from experience. I don't believe that at
all. In fact, I couldn't make the living I make now had I not been
through doctoral course work in strategic management and learned some
great theoretical models. Those models inform all my work today.

But just as assuredly, I believe that business academics who have never
met a payroll, or held an equity position (for which they paid real
money, not obtained through options--Cendant's Henry Silverman is the
textbook case of the owner who thinks and acts like an employee) in the
business where they worked, or been a manager (especially in tough
economic times for a business) ill-serve their student "customers."
When such students are at the graduate level AND have professional
experience, they make quick judgments about which professors are
credible and which are not.

Too often, I believe, they conclude that most are not. (I even have to
fight the credibility battle w/my CPA-students when they find out I'm a
recovering academic!) Hence, we get that chasm between theory and
practice. It's not benefiting any of us.

When we won the Cold War, the economic world as we had known it in the
post-War era changed. That world is a helluva lot more competitive now,
and our country cannot afford the schism that exists between business
academics and business education. Perhaps we could when the world
economy was less efficient, but no longer. Having been one, I believe
that academics bear primary responsibility for that schism due to their
lack of credibility. Therefore, it seems to me, it's up to academics to
eliminate it.

All of us--academics, consultants, executives--need to be on the same
side of the table. That's not to say we can't pound the table in
disagreement. But there's a difference between pounding it, knowing how
to build it, and wanting to blow it to smithereens. When it's all said
and done, we're all in this thing together.

Hope this is helpful--

WDM

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
* Warren D. Miller, MBA, CPA-ABV, CMA *
* Beckmill Research/Lexington, Va. *
* "Research Orientation, Results Mentality" *
* 540.463.6200 (v); 540.463.6208 (f) *
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

So how could those of use with a similar view and academic background get
placed within a Corp. Uni. environment?
______________

Randall W. Kindley The Performance Group
5215 45th Ave. S. "Building High Performance
Minneapolis MN 55417-2334 Organizations by Developing
612-721-6752 People and Processes"

kindley@dialupnet.com www.topleaders.com

.

----- Original Message -----
From: Warren Miller <research@rockbridge.net>
To: <MG-ED-DV@MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU>
Sent: Wednesday, February 24, 1999 7:57 AM
Subject: Re: MBA Management Course Material


>To my colleagues--
>
>As one who works both sides of the street--academic and business--I'd
>like to weigh in on this thread about which John Naman and Kim Boal have
>already wisely and cogently commented. My views are strictly anecdotal,
>of course, but my sample (from experience) is big enough to support what
>I'm about to say.
>
>Ben Oviatt and I wrote a piece for the Academy of Management Executive
>in 1989 entitled "Irrelevance, Intransigence, and Business Professors."
>In it we used Porter's Five-Forces Model to analyze the
>business-education "industry." We explained how the "publish or perish"
>reward system in better academic settings tends to reinforce irrelevance
>and how tenure promotes intransigence. We predicted the rise of
>in-house "corporate universities" that would act as substitutes to
>provide the relevance that business education lacked.
>
>As a former CFO (before I became an academic) who is now a full-time
>consultant, I have come to believe that undergraduate business education
>should be abolished. All of it. I know, I know--that's not going to
>happen. But it should, because its major beneficiaries are faculty
>members (who remain employed), not students. Business education is too
>much training (a la vo-tech) and too little education. We see it in
>graduates who don't know how to do anything besides what they're
>doing--and don't know how to learn anything different.
>
>I do a slug of teaching of CPAs every year for the AICPA, and I see this
>in spades in the CPA community, believe me. Public accounting is in the
>throes of a revolution, and the vast majority of CPAs are proof positive
>that denial ain't just a river in Egypt. (For what it's worth, I speak
>as one who got his degree, not in liberal arts or elsewhere, but in
>finance and accounting. I also have an MBA, which I picked up along the
>way to a doctorate which I didn't finish.)
>
>Undergraduate business education is too often delivered by folks
>w/little or no business experience (they remind me of Catholic priests
>dispensing marriage counseling) and who too often have contempt not just
>for business in general, but for the system of quasi-free markets which
>has produced a higher standard of living for more people than any
>competing models. We see evidence of this in the rise of the "crits" on
>business faculties. Lawyer friends tell me the crits have have pretty
>much made a shambles of some of our best law schools, so I guess
>top-tier business schools are next. The crits are entitled to their
>views, of course, but there's a difference between a right to speak, on
>the one hand, and rigorous empirical support for one's views, on the
>other.
>
>Most important, it seems to me, is that undergraduate business education
>fails to inculcate rigorous thinking skills. I see strong evidence in
>my consulting work that graduate business programs aren't doing any
>better. A recent example: A client of ours decided to enter a niche
>industry in which the two biggest competitors had merged and, in effect,
>created a monopoly. It wasn't a pure one, mind you--but the merged
>entity had something over 95% of the market. A young MBA out of the
>fine program at Rice University was drafting the business plan. In the
>section on strategy, he advocated that the new entrant (his employer)
>cut price to win market share.
>
>Seeing that the notion of duopoly had completely eluded him in his
>education, I questioned him in Socratic fashion about the implications
>of what he was recommending. He's a bright guy and quickly saw the
>self-destructive aspects of his ideas in this area. But if I hadn't
>done that, none of his superiors would have. They're good people, just
>like those on this Listserv. And they have MBAs. But they wouldn't
>have made the connection to the theory to which they'd been previously
>exposed.
>
>More generally, only a few of the business owners and CEOs w/whom we
>work have the slightest grasp of quantitative skills, despite the fact
>that many have graduate degrees in business. And that includes
>accountants and finance types, who should have some basic skills in
>regression, internal rates of return, and DCF. Somehow, they still
>equate the tools which they supposedly received in their graduate
>education to "theory," as if good theory has no place in business. We
>all know better.
>
>It would be a large step up, it seems to me, if more Ph.D. programs
>required "x years" of real-world business experience, preferably as a
>manager, prior to admitting applicants into doctoral programs in
>business. Of course, that might affect employment in those Ph.D.
>programs as it would produce a structural downdraft in demand, at least
>in the short term. I realize that some schools (Yale, for instance)
>already have this as a prerequisite for MBA programs.
>
>I am most assuredly NOT a believer in the so-called "practitioner model"
>where all learning comes only from experience. I don't believe that at
>all. In fact, I couldn't make the living I make now had I not been
>through doctoral course work in strategic management and learned some
>great theoretical models. Those models inform all my work today.
>
>But just as assuredly, I believe that business academics who have never
>met a payroll, or held an equity position (for which they paid real
>money, not obtained through options--Cendant's Henry Silverman is the
>textbook case of the owner who thinks and acts like an employee) in the
>business where they worked, or been a manager (especially in tough
>economic times for a business) ill-serve their student "customers."
>When such students are at the graduate level AND have professional
>experience, they make quick judgments about which professors are
>credible and which are not.
>
>Too often, I believe, they conclude that most are not. (I even have to
>fight the credibility battle w/my CPA-students when they find out I'm a
>recovering academic!) Hence, we get that chasm between theory and
>practice. It's not benefiting any of us.
>
>When we won the Cold War, the economic world as we had known it in the
>post-War era changed. That world is a helluva lot more competitive now,
>and our country cannot afford the schism that exists between business
>academics and business education. Perhaps we could when the world
>economy was less efficient, but no longer. Having been one, I believe
>that academics bear primary responsibility for that schism due to their
>lack of credibility. Therefore, it seems to me, it's up to academics to
>eliminate it.
>
>All of us--academics, consultants, executives--need to be on the same
>side of the table. That's not to say we can't pound the table in
>disagreement. But there's a difference between pounding it, knowing how
>to build it, and wanting to blow it to smithereens. When it's all said
>and done, we're all in this thing together.
>
>Hope this is helpful--
>
>WDM
>
>* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
>* Warren D. Miller, MBA, CPA-ABV, CMA *
>* Beckmill Research/Lexington, Va. *
>* "Research Orientation, Results Mentality" *
>* 540.463.6200 (v); 540.463.6208 (f) *
>* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *