Business schools are failing the nation

Luke Johnson, a well-known UK businessman and Sunday Times journalist, asks: “What are business schools for?”

He believes they are ‘generally failing when it comes to researching the field of business’

Apparently, there are 120 members of the UK’s Chartered Association of Business Schools but none ‘defend the achievements of business’ i.e. the merits of the private sector, entrepreneurship, trade, innovation, markets, competition, the profit motive and wealth creation

He asks ‘where are the business professors who argue the case for capitalism?’

The Conversation website that sources thousands of scholarly business articles has none supporting capitalism

Business schools are sited on campuses where most students believe capitalism equates with ‘greed, selfishness and corruption’ lean towards socialism, Jeremy Corbyn, nationalisation, price caps, state expenditure and higher taxes

Hence, they ignore all evidence that high government spending might be ‘inefficient and unproductive’

They also avoid emphasising the positive gains only capitalism, for all its faults, makes possible viz:

  • Grows economies
  • Increases wealth of society
  • Promotes innovation
  • Increases jobs
  • Increases sales
  • Increases the tax-take to pay for more/ better public services

And, worst of all, they offer no courses on productivity, how to measure and improve it, and why

This is despite our leaders constantly peppering us with claims that nothing is more important than productivity improvement if the current generation is to enjoy a better standard of living and quality of life than the last one

How can that be?

According to Johnson: “Business is surely the greatest engine for human progress ever devised”

Business schools thus play a valuable role in offering managers, and millennials/ MBA students, practical courses on the full spectrum of subjects for good business management – all, that is, except the one that pulls them all together – Productivity Improvement

Sadly, the same can be said of most leading management consultancies and management organisations such as the CBI (Confederation of British Industry) and IoD (Institute of Directors) who offer little if anything to help UK managers (and government ministers) focus on making the big productivity improvements the nation needs

This lack of support is the productivity gap that the UK should be seeking to close – not the spurious gaps, which forever make the headlines, said to exist between us and France, Germany or the USA

Quote:

“Those that can, do – those that can’t, teach”

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