MBA Scepticism III

"The Classical literature projects the image of strategists as managerial professionals, dedicated to their firms, impersonal in their judgements and promoted on their merits. These are the expectations and attitudes embedded in every MBA degree: managerial skill and hard work can take everybody to the top."

 Whittington, R. (2008) What is strategy – and does it matter? Thomson, London. (p. 41)

MBA Scepticism II

It used to be the gods that determined the fate of men and women; now, at least in MBAs, it is the strategists.

For instance, Enron was one of the prime recruiters of MBA graduates from elite North American Business Schools, the organization fostered a competitive environment which encouraged strategists to cut corners and take risks. How are we to make sense of the role that Business Schools have played in this?

Clegg, Steward, Carter, C. and Kornberger, Martin (2004), “Get up, I Feel like Being a Strategy Machine”, in European Management Review, 1: 21-28

MBA Scepticism

...we do not know how effective strategists are made. This is despite huge investments in business education, especially MBA degrees, in which strategic management is typically the central core (Pfeffer and Fong 2003; Pettigrew et al. 2001). If MBA sceptic Henry Mintzberg (2004) is right, this education industry is probably producing the wrong kind of strategists. 

Whittington, Richard (2006), “Completing the Practice Turn in Strategy Research”, Organization Studies, 27(5): 613-634