[fergie]

As somebody who has spent a bit of time in academia, I have often been slightly alarmed by some of the research (and opinon) that comes out of business schools. One thing is that it is often unsubstantiated and just plain wrong, another is that it often seems like the authors kind of know it, almost as if they are intentionally pandering to a lowbrow/midwit audience, and they expect everybody else to be in on the game. Its mystifying.

[asplake]

I had the privilege last night of attending a lecture given by Prof Sir John Kay (Obliquity, Radical Uncertainty, etc). He was scathing on two points: 1) the way the world changed in the 1970s from management as responsibility to leadership as prize, and 2) the abject failure of business schools to develop a serious body of knowledge. Taken together, business schools have become cash cows for universities while still being held in disdain by academia. This from the first dean of Oxford's Said Business School.

[AdamN]

There was tremendous resistance to setting up that school both because of where the money came from but more so because of the possibility that the school would not actually be academic but more 'professional' instead. I can't comment on the former as it seems mostly just xenophobic but maybe there are other angles there. The latter is definitely a concern though.

[graemep]

Not xenophobic. Oxford happily takes money from people from anywhere all the time. It might be things such as his involvement in the Al Yamamah arms deal.

[Lionga]

Not at all limited to business schools

[ycombinete]

Business school writing frequently smells like Post hoc rationalisation to me (with some confirmation bias mixed in).

[beezlebroxxxxxx]

I took one class in the business department while I was in university and it felt like basically "business" anthropology without any of the reflection that the field of anthropology has done about its own research and the limits/biases of their claims.

The "scholarly" aspect and the standards were comical compared to other fields (even compared to some standards in other fields that I consider pretty suspect).