Thursday, June 29, 2006

Defending B-schools


Glenn Hubbard, dean of Columbia Business School, defends B-schools in his column in the Financial Times (the link will go behind the pay-wall soon, so read it now).

Why, then, is the US adding productivity growth when so many other big economies see negative growth in productivity? Those who say the answer is technology have spent too little time in Tokyo, Seoul and Berlin. The fact is, technology is better in many other countries. So US companies did not become more productive by simply buying faster computers. They became more productive by having managers and entrepreneurs who knew how to integrate these investments with new business models to raise productivity. These abilities to think strategically are teachable; and the central classroom for teaching leaders to “pick these locks” is the business school.

The FT link comes via Mark Thoma's Economist's view, which has an extended quote.

Value addition: Check out this great video produced by the students of CBS. Glenn Hubbard is (sort of) featured there! [link via Selva].

0 Comments: