By Lily Lin, EFEC: Christopher Marquis, Professor at Cambridge Judge Business School, has questioned the purpose of business education in his New York Times essay, “I Teach at a Business School. It’s Time to Shut Them Down.”
Drawing on more than twenty years of teaching at Harvard, Cornell and Cambridge, he argues that business schools can change students’ ambitions. He describes students who arrive wanting to improve healthcare or develop clean energy but become increasingly drawn to prestigious employers and financial rewards.
In a later interview with Poets&Quants, he says this can happen within a single term. He accepts that the cost of an MBA plays a part but sees the culture of business schools as just as powerful.
Others disagree. Nicolai Foss, Professor of Strategy at Copenhagen Business School, questions whether problems observed in particular business schools justify conclusions about the institution as a whole. He also points to other explanations, including the possibility that students already have certain career ambitions before enrolling.
The debate raises a question about what institutions can see of their own influence.
Business schools measure graduate employment and salaries. These outcomes matter, especially to students paying for an expensive degree. But they say little about how students’ aspirations change, and even less about how their judgement develops.
A student may learn to produce a convincing answer without becoming equally comfortable acknowledging uncertainty.
Marquis also mentions something relevant to the UK. He praises the Research Excellence Framework (REF), which assesses university research partly on its wider impact. At Cambridge Judge, he says, a new appointment’s likely effect on REF performance comes up in hiring discussions.
Although the REF does not assess students’ development, it shows how an institutional measure can shape what receives attention.
The question extends beyond business schools. Universities and employers want people to develop independent thinking and sound judgement. Their everyday arrangements also serve other purposes. An employer may encourage people to question assumptions while expecting projects to be delivered on schedule.
These aims need not conflict. Where they do, leaders may already recognise the tension but have limited room to change it.
In the 1970s, the researchers Chris Argyris and Donald Schön pointed out a gap between what organisations say they value and what their everyday actions show. They also noticed that this gap is often hard to see from the inside.
Institutions can review their policies and measure their outcomes. Understanding how they influence people’s development is harder. It may depend on what people themselves experience, and on what else could explain the changes.
When people’s ambitions or judgement develop in unexpected directions, what evidence would help an institution understand its own part in that?
Disclaimer: This article reflects the author’s own views.
Image caption: A seminar room, seen through glass. (AI-generated editorial illustration)
