1. What is the problem presented?◦ To what extent did the business schools cause the 2008

financial crisis?

2. What are the objectives of the article?◦ To determine the role of the business schools in the 2008

financial crisis.◦ To offer solutions so that the 2008 financial crisis will not

happen again.

B-School BacklashBy Barrett Sheridan and Adam B. Kushner

3. Areas of consideration◦ MBA programs’ purpose

The original purpose was to train professional managers to run American institutions for the social good, not short-term profits.

New ideology is that managers should work only to maximize shareholder value.

◦ Ethics Business schools impart morality to their students through

ethics courses, however, in practice they are abandoned and marginalized.

◦ Corrupt system The incentives of a corrupt system can overcome even the best

training. MBA graduates join an ecosystem with its own regulation and incentives.

B-School BacklashBy Barrett Sheridan and Adam B. Kushner

4. What are the alternative courses of action (ACA)?◦ Provide licensing exams to professionalize management◦ Take a pledge under which future business titans promise

to do no harm◦ Add new courses on regulations and the lessons of the

current crisis.◦ Revise the curriculum◦ Business schools must be punished for their failures.

B-School BacklashBy Barrett Sheridan and Adam B. Kushner

5. Analysis of the ACA as guided by the objectives of the case

◦ Facts: MBA programs rely heavily on statistical (data and financial)

models with the belief that humans can predict and therefore, control financial risks (thereby creating overconfident people).

MBA programs treat ethics an afterthought (lack of moral values).

6. Recommendation◦ ETHICS

B-School BacklashBy Barrett Sheridan and Adam B. Kushner