By Michael Skapinker, FT.com sitePublished: Jan 07, 2008
The three Democratic front-runners in the US presidential primary campaigns are lawyers. Even the spouses of Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and John Edwards are lawyers. Mike Huckabee and John McCain are not lawyers, but Rudy Giuliani and Fred Thompson are.
Business schools have a thing about lawyers. First, they seem to run the US. Of America's 43 presidents, 25 have been lawyers. Only one has been an MBA (Bush).
Law schools seem to have an impact on their own profession that business schools cannot match. When law schools publish journals, lawyers read them. When law schools put on conferences, lawyers turn up. Chief executives, on the other hand, pay little attention to what business schools do or say.
In article after article in the Academy's Journal, the business school professors lament their inability to research and write about their work in a way that real-life business people understand.
The reason that real-life lawyers, doctors and engineers have no problem with their research is not because they are smarter than business people, but because the research assists them in what they do. In contrast, the way people behave in the office is far more mysterious. What works in one company may not work in another.
Managers tend to be practical rather than theoretical, proceeding by trial and error: this works, that doesn't. Rather than building on competitors' achievements, the best often seek to do something different.Business schools can describe what innovative companies have done: Harvard's case study method does just that. But this is, by definition, backward-looking. Business school professors will struggle to tell us what innovators will do next. If they knew, they would surely do it themselves.
Business schools have a thing about lawyers. First, they seem to run the US. Of America's 43 presidents, 25 have been lawyers. Only one has been an MBA (Bush).
Law schools seem to have an impact on their own profession that business schools cannot match. When law schools publish journals, lawyers read them. When law schools put on conferences, lawyers turn up. Chief executives, on the other hand, pay little attention to what business schools do or say.
In article after article in the Academy's Journal, the business school professors lament their inability to research and write about their work in a way that real-life business people understand.
The reason that real-life lawyers, doctors and engineers have no problem with their research is not because they are smarter than business people, but because the research assists them in what they do. In contrast, the way people behave in the office is far more mysterious. What works in one company may not work in another.
Managers tend to be practical rather than theoretical, proceeding by trial and error: this works, that doesn't. Rather than building on competitors' achievements, the best often seek to do something different.Business schools can describe what innovative companies have done: Harvard's case study method does just that. But this is, by definition, backward-looking. Business school professors will struggle to tell us what innovators will do next. If they knew, they would surely do it themselves.
I agree with most of the arguments in this article. Businessmen tend to learn more from their practices rather than B schools. Many great businessmen and millionaires are not business graduates; they are entrepreneurs. They don't even follow business books most of the time. Business graduates, in average, MAY score better in doing business. The dynamics of business world, however, have been changing rapidly due to globalization, sophistication in doing business and cut-throat competition: B education will be more useful eventually.
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