Oxford University’s Saïd Business School yesterday hosted a debate over whether MBAs are the group to lead the world out of the current financial crisis. Drawing an audience of more than 200 from business schools from Texas to Scotland, the debate was heated and the final vote was close.
The debate is an annual event of the Association of MBAs, a professional membership organization of MBAs formed in 1967. This year’s debate featured a range of speakers from business, journalism and academia addressing the motion “This House believes that MBAs are best placed to lead us out of the current financial crisis.”
Saïd Dean Colin Mayer, also a professor of management studies, argued in favor of the motion and in defense of the MBA, joined by Phil Walker, senior vice president of Capgemini Consulting, and Kate Jillings, co-founder of BusinessBecause.com. “How can we pay back the debt taken on through the financial crisis?’ Mayer asked. ‘We need MBAs to do this,” he continued. “Management education is central. Welcome to a new age of knowledge and enlightenment.’
Arguing against the motion were Ken Starkey, professor of management and organizational learning at Nottingham University Business School; Victoria Lennox, founder of the National Consortium of University Entrepreneurs; and Philip Delves Broughton, journalist and author of What They Teach You At Harvard Business School: My Two Years Inside The Cauldron Of Capitalism.
For her part, Lennox argued that visionary entrepreneurs, not MBAs, will be the engine of growth for the future. “Business schools do not make leaders but cause paralysis of analysis,” she said. “MBAs don’t believe in their companies but work for bonuses and salaries. Entrepreneurs are better suited to lead us out of this financial crisis,” she continued.
The debate raged on with strong arguments in defense of and against the MBA, but at the end of the day, the motion passed in favor of management education. “By opposing the motion you would be supporting ignorance over knowledge,” Mayer said in closing.
For more on the event and the featured speakers, click here.
