Shut Down the Business School (original) (raw)
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This article reviews the critics of business schools from different stakeholder viewpoints—including academia, NGOs, corporations, institutions and public opinion—in regards to their responsibility for the many economic crises and ethical misbehaviours witnessed in the last 50 years and that have led to the escalation of several major world sustainability problems. What emerges is that, despite critics have been risen several times and by multiple stakeholders at different times, such responsibility has never been fully acknowledged and, as a result of this, current business school programmes are still lacking an important focus on ethical behaviour and systemic thinking—identified in this article as two major contributors to possible solutions for the major issues the world is suffering today. Yet, some very encouraging examples of innovative and responsible business education have now started to emerge and gain the attention of the public, academia and other interested stakeholders.
Management Learning, 2021
The aim of this article is both a pronouncement of doom and an offer of hope for the Western business school. Both come from the recognition that business schools are haunted and that the haunting spectre is none other than the capitalist ideology. We ground our thinking in the established rich 'ghostly' academic literature where the metaphor of the ghost is used to reveal the powerful agency of the unspoken-of and the unseen. Using three fictional ghostly tales as interpretive lenses, we make three arguments. First, we argue that capitalism is a ghost in the walls of the business school. Second, we suggest that capitalism's ghostly nature prevents the business school from offering a curriculum that serves more than the growth of financial capital. Third, we propose that naming of capitalism is integral to the exorcism of its ghost and the creation of curriculum that engages with the social and environmental challenges of our times.