Traditional Values

Traditional Values

Glenn R. Sykes

Managing Director

Europe Campus

University of Chicago

Graduate School of Business

Business schools, which benefited from the spectacular economic growth of the late 1990s, face a more challenging future that raises questions on how the sector needs to respond. 

These days companies and potential business school candidates are scrutinizing more carefully their investments in management education; their strong interest is tempered by a more austere financial environment.  Then there’s the increase in competition.  In Europe, where the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business (GSB) has its campus in Barcelona and offers an Executive MBA program, we’ve seen the arrival of new management programs across the continent.  Lastly, the highly publicized financial and corporate scandals have shaken confidence in capitalism’s basic precepts. 

The combination of factors has led to more than a few experts asking if business schools need to reinvent themselves, radically alter their programs or do something differently to address recent developments.  Real, lasting reform should only occur when the evidence clearly indicates the need.  One shouldn’t make rash decisions simply because of change.

I would argue that it’s precisely now, when there’s a whirlwind of change and uncertainty, that the most elite business schools need to emphasize their traditional strengths to continue focusing on what they do best, producing outstanding business executives capable of succeeding in any economic climate.

In the late 1990s, during the height of the high-tech boom, we often heard the GSB needed to create a program dedicated to the surging “new economy”.   While we adapted the existing curriculum to the Internet and other advances in technology, we resisted the temptation to establish a program exclusively dedicated to the dotcom phenomenon. What professionals needed, regardless of their career goals, was the GSB hallmark approach of a rigorous business education based on the fundamentals.

Our decision proved to be correct.  The Internet economy has integrated itself into the traditional economy and GSB graduates, applying the basics of business, are contributing to the sector’s long-term prosperity.   Our approach is validated by 100 years of history, numerous Nobel Prize laureates and a methodology that has been successfully exported to Europe (Barcelona) and Asia (Singapore) where the school has permanent campuses.

What are the traditional elements that accomplished business executives need? Herewith, the four essential tenets:

1. discipline-based knowledge is a powerful tool for understanding how organizations function and how markets work.
2. Empirical evidence is important for building discipline-based knowledge.
3. Good decisions follow from good analysis.
4. Good business practices follow from good fundamental principles, not the latest fads.

These principles enable professionals to make sound, ethical business decisions.  It permits them to withstand economic downturns and excel in more favorable conditions.  These leaders will ensure that Europe continues to be a growing economic power.

In addition to adhering to the fundamentals, it’s important to note that business schools, like all intelligent customer-focused organizations, need to be in tune with the market and make meaningful adjustments accordingly.  As a sector with responsibility for the world’s business thought leadership, we continue to introduce new courses and provide the knowledge and insights that help professionals adapt to new realities.

Similarly, the growth and popularity of Executive MBA programs and other part-time management courses cater to an increasingly fragmented market in which a growing number of professionals prefer to study while maintaining their jobs, incomes and personal lives intact.

It remains to be seen whether 2003 will mean the return to appreciable economic growth or another “transition year”.  What we can be sure of is the increasing importance of management education based on traditional values.