The New MBAs - Episode 2

When the global economy crashed spectacularly in 2008 it seemed like all those in charge had an MBA from a top business school- from President Bush through his Treasury Secretary to the heads of Lehman Brothers and several others. Many people asked pointedly what Business Schools were teaching their graduates. Harvard students now take a highly regarded 'Leadership and Corporate Accountability' course, but the villains of the Crash all graduated long before that existed. So dismayed were the class of 2009 at the prominence of older Harvard MBAs in the Crash that they devised the 'MBA Oath', intended to be for future business leaders what the Hippocratic Oath is for doctors. MIT's Sloan School of Management uses the novel approach of exploring leadership and values through literature, from children's stories, through classic fiction to plays and movies. The smaller Tuck School in rural New Hampshire offered the first ever graduate business course back in 1900 and has a long-standing reputation for its ethical focus. Even so their Dean feels the Crash showed that business schools have been turning out 'over-confident' MBAs and they are now addressing that. The programme also visits the first ever collegiate business school, Wharton, established in Philadelphia in 1881, and finally Warrington in the University of Florida, where the issues are regularly debated by academics and students over 'ethics lunches'. Contributions from deans, professors, students and classroom sessions, illustrate the range of approaches to - and some of the limitations of ethical education for future business leaders. Producer: Mike Hally A Square Dog Radio Production for BBC Radio 4.