I taught advanced English at the MBA level at one of Europe's most prestigious MBA programs and another prep course for a different well known MBA program. When I started the unit on market vocabulary I found that they couldn't explain what a publicly traded company was (towards the end of their MBA specialising in management and finance). I basically had to teach them both English and the fundamentals of economics, business and finance.
When I taught a unit on global warming and its effect on business...my students (most of them from Latin America) were sceptical that there was any evidence of global warming and they refused to do any research on it (I would have failed them for that but I was not effectively able to fail my student. I had to give them a second and third try. By then I realised I would be testing and retesting them (without extra compensation) until they passed. So I just passed them even though they barely studied or spoke English. They still couldn't explain what a share was and how it is publicly traded after teaching it three times in three different ways.
They had no idea what exactly an economic model was. The believed that investing in stocks was a very safe investment. They believed that chance plays almost no role in business and investing success. They believed that economic models (even though they couldn't tell me anything about it) was all the "evidence" one needed to justify any theory (the ones they agreed with such as full on pure free market capitalism).
Many of their teachers were CEOs of successful companies. The teachers did not use many sources of academic standard nor did they critically analyse much of their sources and "evidence" (let alone teach them how to critically analyse anything).
Some of the textbooks were OK in terms of university level material with chapters on how to objectively analyse theories, models, evidence etc. however those chapters were skipped.
Judging by conversations I've had with other students who have done MBA programs ... I have my serious doubts that MBA programs are scientifically sound. Good luck finding any funding to properly investigate this.
...I taught advanced English at the MBA level at one of Europe's most prestigious MBA programs and another prep course for a different well known MBA program. When I started the unit on market vocabulary I found that they couldn't explain what a publicly traded company was (towards the end of their MBA specialising in management and finance). I basically had to teach them both English and the fundamentals of economics, business and finance.
When I taught a unit on global warming and its effect on business...my students (most of them from Latin America) were s
I'm finishing up the first year of my distance-learning MBA, which has been a very confusing experience.
I went into the course partially as insurance against "unknown unknowns", i.e., lacking concepts important to building or running a business because I didn't know about them or underestimated their importance.
The first surprise within the course was the relative lack of explaining the utility of the particular models presented. Apart from the section on financial reporting, which did explain how you'd be able to solve practical problems by using particular budgeting tools or costing methods, concepts where generally presented as "This well-known management thinker came up with this, why don't you play around with it a little".
Analysis and (subjective) discussion of course material was also the main focus of student assessment, which consisted of marked reports on a subject of the students' choice, usually a problem they'd be dealing with in their current position.
There were no quizzes, case studies with objectively correct answers (except for, again, financial reporting) or other problem-solving exercises.
Essentially, students are handed a lot of maps for whatever territory they're trying to analyze, but don't really receive any tool to judge the accuracy, let alone utility of said maps. For instance, I'd consider "Concept useful for describing why A does B well" and "Concept useful for helping A do B well" to be fundamentally different, but the course did not explicitly separate the two. (I've heard similar criticisms of Michael Porter's failed Monitor Group, so this may be a problem of business academics in general)
I fear that there will be a risk of training the stereotypically smug MBA, who has gained more confidence in their management skills even though they haven't proven their ability of making sound decisions.
I'm also starting to understand why so many entrepreneurs are dismissive of MBAs. Manoj Bhargava has a whole talk on the issue and Elon Musk isn't a fan, either. I'm not willing to argue that they're right, but on closer inspection, the field hasn't inspired much confidence in me. Even though I think that business administration should be taught in school, I can't help but feel that we're not quite there yet.
I still can't get the fog to clear completely and this post isn't as lucid as I want it to be, so I'd be happy to hear more arguments on the issue.