Are B-Schools To Blame?

Serchuk David, Forbes.com 05/08/09 13:00:06 GMT

Are B-Schools To Blame?

Field Marshall Arthur Wellesley, better known as the first Duke of Wellington (1769-1852), stands astride British history like a colossus. A two-time prime minister, Wellington remains best remembered for his defeat of Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815.

This stirring victory also birthed Wellington's most famous quote: "The battle of Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton." Except Wellington didn't actually say it: As discovered by the seventh Duke of Wellington, this quote didn't circulate until three years after the first duke's death. As for Eton, the seventh duke told Time magazine in 1951: "He had no particular affection for the place." More galling, he didn't care for organized sports all that much, either. What Wellington did say about his most famed victory is appropriately more world-weary: "Nothing except a battle lost can be half so melancholy as a battle won."

Yet despite this debunking the former quote lives on in the public's imagination. And it's easy to see why, as education is such a formative experience in many of our lives. If that is the case, than what sort of leaders are the playing fields of Wharton, Harvard and Stanford business schools turning out? Judging by the most recent financial crisis, it's easy to say that today's business schools are making far more in the way of subprime rib than Beef Wellington.

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According to Jeffrey Pfeffer, of the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University, the leadership skills imparted in business fail to measure up in many obvious ways. His 2009 paper "Leadership Development in Business Schools: An Agenda for Change" shows that although one-third of all chief executives hold M.B.A. degrees, their success is, at best, mixed. For starters, having an M.B.A. didn't result in higher compensation. Another shocker: having an MBA from a ranking school did not correlate to higher performance at the firm level versus having such a degree from a lower-ranked school. Pfeffer also quotes evidence showing that firms lead by CEOs lacking either M.B.A.s or law degrees "had slightly better risk-adjusted market performance."

Why? One possible reason is because graduate-level business schools inculcate values incompatible with long-term firm performance. As noted by the Aspen Institute in 2001, during their two years in typical business school M.B.A. programs, students place more and more emphasis on shareholder returns and less on product quality, employees and customers. As the institute updated the study in 2008, they also found that students cared less about having a positive impact on society the longer they were in MB.A. programs.

But perhaps the most troubling studies reveal that M.B.A. students are more likely to cheat than other students. As found by Donald McCabe, a professor of finance at Rutgers University, and Linda Trevino, a Cook Fellow of business ethics at the Smeal College of Business at Penn State University, 56% of M.B.A. students admitted that they cheated in class, versus 47% of non-business students. McCabe and Trevino compiled data from 2002 through 2004, studying 5,331 students, and published the results in "Academic Dishonesty in Graduate Business Programs: Prevalence, Causes & Proposed Action."

But what can be done? Pfeffer says that business schools can improve their quality by taking their eyes off their rankings, which have become like the sword of Damocles for many. The problem with this, he says, is that the rankings are poor indicators of school quality. Also, schools often rate their faculty by how often and where they publish their academic work, which is again a poor indicator of actual quality of scholarship, let alone what is taught in the classroom. Also, schools need to account for how well their grads do over the lifetimes of their careers, versus the present focus on starting salaries.

But not everyone accepts the idea that business schools are to blame. Anant Sundaram, a professor of finance at Dartmouth University's Tuck School of Business, says that in his classes and the school, real, useful fundamentals are not only taught but emphasized. "What we witnessed in the capital markets violates Finance 101 ideas," he says. "Things like value comes from real assets, not shuffling pieces of paper. If you think arbitrage opportunities are to be had, think again. We teach a lot of skepticism."

If this is so, how can Sundaram account for the spectacular failure of so many former B-school grads? He says that once they graduate, students often get sucked into the murky world of Wall Street, where risk and reward are divorced, and no one cares about anything as long as assets rise. "This is a Wall Street crisis," he says. "It's not chief financial officers that have caused this crisis, this is a small group of paper shufflers." Of course this fails to address the issue of where these paper shufflers came from.

The Forbes Investor Team is also skeptical that business schools are all that much to blame. While noting that recent B-school grads are more arrogant and self-absorbed, Vince Farrell, chief investment officer for Soleil Securities, adds "I don't know if it's the job of B-schools to be responsible for America." As for ways to correct this arrogant mindset, Farrell recommends that M.B.A. grads should do hard volunteer work and also read The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, in order to understand how powerful empires crumble.

Bernie McSherry, senior vice president at Cuttone & Co., says that he doesn't particularly blame business schools, as ethical breaches are tolerated at the business level all the time. He also doubts that a couple of years in grad school will correct whatever ethical problems a student would have.

Michael Ervolini, the head of Cabot Research, which looks at business through a behavioral lens, says that time developing self-awareness and introspection would be valuable for business-school grads, and even lead to better business decisions. Wellington would approve.

A Better B-School?

Forbes: Have business schools failed America? There seems to be a growing sense that B-schools are really passing on the whole moral aspect of business and teaching very little in the way of corporate governance, including the rights and responsibilities of boards.

OK, Deans Ervolini, McSherry and Farrell, what are some of the courses you would make mandatory in your B-schools? What are some things that need to be taught that just aren't being taught right now? What courses would you remove? Give me somewhat of a lesson plan, maybe even a syllabus of texts to read, and a few sample questions you would require your students to know before you allow them to graduate.

Bernie McSherry: Well, for starters, I would require all schools at the high-school level to teach a personal finance course. Too many of our young people are stepping into the world without knowledge of basic consumer finance, and we should recognize that it is in the interests of society that we teach folks the basics about money management and credit.

Michael Ervolini: I guess that I want to start by redirecting the question. We first might ask--how much of the responsibility belongs to the business schools and how much to the companies that hire these M.B.A.s, their boards of directors, and the market (all of us) as a whole? For that matter, where were the nation's journalists as overall debt spiraled out of control, bank leverage grew to great proportions and the credit markets became clogged with poor quality paper?

B-schools serve a purpose to provide talented employees that have received some minimum training for their career. You can not expect too much from a two-year stint, however, even at the most prestigious of programs. This is particularly the case with an average of only 18 months actually on campus.

What courses might help? Taking the behavioral perspective, it seems that some time spent developing self-awareness and introspection might help. Knowing what really motivates you and why you are doing what you are doing seems like a better choice than simply following the crowd. It might lead both to higher career satisfaction and better business decisions.

Vince Farrell: I don't know that it's the job of B-schools to be responsible for America. But over the years, I have found the B-school grads to be increasingly self-absorbed and ego driven. I think that down-in-the-dirt charity work would be a great elective. For the most part, the students are smart and have a history of success. Life will teach them the ups and downs, but some exposure to those less fortunate might be a good start.

I remember a lacrosse coach that made some defensemen practice without sticks. They were too reliant and had to learn how to be successful while at a disadvantage. B-schoolers have had a lot of advantages, and humility would be a good course. From humility could come some understanding and perspective.

Forbes: Where have B-schools fallen down? What do you think they need to do to correct that? What are some books every B-school student needs to read? By the way, these don't have to be business books. In fact, it might be more interesting where they not.

Farrell: They should all read The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. How Nazi Germany grew in arrogance and self-importance and how it came close to destroying the world. And then almost any other history book that would deal with the rise and fall of people one time considered great. Match King is out now, and also House of Cards shows how blind arrogance destroyed Bear Stearns.

McSherry: Governance is becoming a hot topic in business schools. I am currently enrolled in a doctoral program at Pace University, and as part of the program I have recently taken a governance class taught by Professor Jack James. The course addressed most of the current issues in governance and presented a good overview of international corporate governance rules. Professor James is about to propose that Pace offer a major in governance. The school has been a leader in that area, and I hope that it creates that major. Other schools are likely to follow suit.

As far as complaints about ethics go, I am skeptical of the idea that ethics can be taught in school. I recognize that it may be useful to offer students an ethical framework to view the business world through and case studies could provoke some lively discussion, but I am doubtful that many students emerge from those classes with markedly improved ethical practices.

Ethics are most reliably taught in a home setting. Young people often absorb their view of the world from parents and family members, and attitudes regarding honesty and personal integrity tend to be developed during our formative years. Some are lucky to be inspired by a mentor or teacher and may develop better ethical ideals as a result, but most of us are fully formed in that regard long before entering B-school.

Farrell: Bernie, you are so right and what insight. We can't reach into people's homes, but a course should be entitled, "Character is what you do when no one is watching."

Forbes: Hi Mike, let's take this a step further. How should B-students develop self-awareness and introspection?

Ervolini: Developing self-awareness is, of course, a lifelong process. While in business school, students might consider any of the following: Emulate stars of integrity, find a couple of leaders whose approach fits your view of life and learn how they do what they do; read, there are lots of books and papers on the challenges of introspection and personal growth; test yourself, many schools have programs in experimental finance that might offer simulations to help you uncover your tendencies under varying circumstances; and, of course, participate in discussions on topics that challenge your thinking, not so much about facts, but about what decision is right for you.

McSherry: Personally, I don't think that B-schools are doing a particularly bad job. Sadly, ethical breaches are tolerated and, at times, even encouraged by many in the business world. It is hard to believe that taking a class or two in an M.B.A. program will improve people's ability to avoid temptation were they to land in one of those organizations.

Students should be made to understand that our current age is not so different from previous eras, both in good ways and bad. In fact, they may gain a better perspective knowing that some of the unsavory aspects of a free-market economy have long been with us. To that end, I would require that all students read two books:

The Gilded Age by Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner. Written in 1873, the novel satirizes a world beset by greed and political corruption that sounds like it could have been written today. And The Way We Live Now by Anthony Trollope, written in 1875. Also a satire, the novel presents us Augustus Melmotte, a mysterious financier whose schemes will bring Bernie Madoff to mind.

There is not much that is new under the sun.

Forbes: Interesting point. Guys, do you agree with Bernie that ethics are basically baked in by the time students enter B-school, or do you feel there is still time to change behavior for the hopefully better by that stage? If so, how? And what should be taught?

Ervolini: "Baked in" may be a little too strong, but a great deal of our personality is certainly formed well before graduate school. Also of importance is that many studies show that people do behave quite differently as their environment changes. Social norms and expectations are critical. Who are we celebrating, and who are we reprimanding? What stories get the most news coverage? Bernie's point about the family being the origin of ethics and morality is a good one. Similarly, what is expected or demanded of us in a particular environment will affect the choices we make.

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