April 7, 2008
Few votes in a Harvard MBA, admits HBS dean
Harvard Business School, the creator of the MBA, celebrates its 100th birthday tomorrow. To mark the occasion, Della Bradshaw, the FT’s business education editor, has produced an authoritative analysis of the MBA’s contribution to business in its first century of existence. While the report card is mixed, there is little doubt that it remains a qualification that can seriously boost one’s salary, while at least 30 of the top 100 global companies are run by MBAs.
One of the most intriguing suggestions in the piece is that HBS graduates no longer out-earn peers at six other top US institutions, such as Stanford and Wharton (see table). A decade ago they did, according to data collected over that period by the FT, which also suggest that leading European schools such as LBS have been catching up. Jay Light, HBS dean, says he is sceptical of the numbers, adding that recruiters still lay siege to his school. But he is perfectly willing to admit that the Harvard MBA is unlikely to guarantee success in one high-octane career choice: politics.
“The Harvard label - particularly the Harvard Business School label - is not particularly helpful in an electioneering sense,” he told Della and me over lunch at The Grill at Brown’s Hotel in London, whose menu of British classics such as spotted dick provoked considerable suspicion in the Ohio native. The school certainly didn’t have much luck in the primaries this year, with Mitt Romney (MBA class of 1974) unable to go the distance with John McCain. Nor did Michael Bloomberg (MBA class of 1966) emerge as the unifying independent candidate some had anticipated.
Prof Light thinks the questionable desirability of the Harvard MBA in the political arena all boils down to a “probably healthy” American instinct to support the scrappy underdog rather than the product of an elite education - a bias that is applied to qualifications from other top US universities too. It can’t help, however, that the most famous owner of a Harvard MBA in power today is one George W Bush (class of 1975), although it is fair to say that he is more closely identified with Yale, where he did his undergraduate degree (this didn’t stop Henry Mintzberg, a professor at McGill University and noted MBA-sceptic, from compiling this j’accuse about HBS’s case study method and its possible influence on the gung-ho style of the future president).
Mr Bloomberg’s success in New York, where he is mayor, shows that a Harvard MBA is not necessarily an election-loser, of course. His alma mater has done well out of its billionaire protegé too. Mr Bloomberg endowed a Harvard professorship in 1996, for instance; more recently, he ploughed an undisclosed sum into the HBS library, which is now called Baker Library/Bloomberg Center. “It’s a big number but we’ve never disclosed just how much it is,” said Prof Light.
I would like to congratulate the HBS with 100th birthday. I know that many FT readers will agree with me that the MBA is a powerful platform, which can help Directors and CEOs to approach and better understand the business problems at local or/and global levels. However, the MBA by itself doesn’t guarantee to provide the optimal solution of problem to its holder. The combination of life experiences, education and creative integrative adaptive collateral thinking can lead to the business success. I am confident that Prof. Jay Light, HBS dean will share my opinion with his students at HBS.
Posted by: Viktor O. Ledenyov | April 7th, 2008 at 3:55 pm | Report this commentAs a proud holder of an alternative MBA to that of either the 6 leading American schools, or the 3 leading European schools (University of Kent, AMBA accredited, Class of ‘93) - I would say that there is one very critical aspect missing from this piece - and that is the role of the self employed. Our earnings probably skew the averages, at both ends of the scale.
What is also missing is the daunting prospect of how to find over $100,000 if you are self financing: the prospect of potential rise in earnings (should you wish to take somebody else’s dollar) doesn’t cut it, if you come from a background where huge loans cause some worry…
If an MBA is peer accredited and professionally, and academically rigorous, then I for one question the perception of “value added” that the leading brands imply…
www.merciar.com
Posted by: Damian Merciar | April 7th, 2008 at 8:48 pm | Report this commentViktor,
Your comments about self-employed are insightful. I think the Harvard MBA is more valuable than ever if you chose that route. Ideally, if I could do it again, I would have gone straight for the venture funds and never looked back.
But if your going to work in a corporation, ask lots of questions before you sign on. Where you come into the organization makes a huge difference on your career. Lots of managers would love to have Harvard Grads working for them but that doesn’t mean you’ll progress. I was inside of HP last year and it was so bad, I couldn’t do enough to get fired fast enough. It was like walking into a solitary confinement room with non-compete and no-IP(Intelluctual Property)rights on the wall and a ball and chain on the desk in your room. When people say the “HP way” I laugh out loud now.
Posted by: George in the US | April 7th, 2008 at 11:53 pm | Report this commentI advise you not to publish your conclusions too early in this case study. George Bush’s fortunes in the political arena are merely his ongoing socialization and preparation for a future role in that super-United States organisation called THE GLOBE.
Posted by: Cornelius (male, 47, consultant) | April 8th, 2008 at 3:38 am | Report this commentThe article is thoughtful and the responses well define but the question will even go beyond the failure in the political arena of this top Grad Schools.Question such as the number of their alumni that are involved in the current financial crisis, the percentage will need to be juxtapose to their counterpart from the “other” schools that were involved.Any way the BRIC economy will start pushing their schools forward as adding more value to their graduate,at least they are succeding economically and politically, which school did PUTIN and LEBED attended? lets add their’s to the top school, they seem to be doing better both ways
Posted by: Osu Akande (Consultant) London | April 8th, 2008 at 11:14 am | Report this commentI actually think it is a vote for HBS. MBA is a unique creation from HBS and the fact other schools are catching up demonstrates the wider appreciation of and increasing demand for MBA graduates. I myself being a LBS graduate and working in London have seen this very change in the UK workplace.
Posted by: Linda Sun-Mattison | April 8th, 2008 at 2:31 pm | Report this commentJust a quick historical note of correction, and a shameless little hurrah, from an alumni (MBA) of the Tuck School at Dartmouth College. Wharton was the first business school in the United States (est. 1881) at the college level. The Tuck School (est. 1900) was the first graduate level business school conferring Master’s degrees (then called Master’s in the Commercial Sciences), not Harvard.
Posted by: Pascal | April 8th, 2008 at 5:14 pm | Report this commentHi Pascal. Thanks for the extra historical detail. Having been dimly aware of the competing claims of rival US business schools, I had just enough sense to write that HBS was the creator of the MBA, rather than suggesting that it invented the b-school master’s degree per se. By the way, have just been given a funky t-shirt by Tuck making a joke of the way some benighted outsiders get its name wrong. ‘Amos Truck School’, it proclaims on the front, over the picture of a juggernaut. On the back: ‘Learn to drive the big rig’ and the school’s phone number for admissions. Very amusing.
Posted by: Adam Jones | April 8th, 2008 at 5:42 pm | Report this comment