The Financial Times of London published a “Soapbox” opinion column by David Noer, a professor emeritus in the Martha and Spencer Love School of Business, in its April 12 higher education online edition.
The column “Engage with the Heart” makes the point that for business schools to remain relevant they need to move away from a paradigm of scientific antiseptic methodology and meet the true needs of today’s managers. Noer also comments on the fallacy of populating business schools with faculty members who have only spent time in academia.
From the column (free subscription required):
“To avoid the fate of automobile manufacturers, business schools need to equip their students with the skills and perspectives that will be of value to business organisations. The untenable alternative is to keep their insular, tenured, quantitatively orientated, analytical heads in the sand and not even have the visibility to see the world passing them by.”
The Financial Times work was published online the same day the News & Record in Greensboro, N.C., published Noer’s monthly column. In the column, Noer uses a metaphor of three glasses – one viewed as half empty (pessissim); one viewed as half full (optimism); and the third viewed as too large (downsizing) to illustrate the need to “open-out” and engage in a positive way to deal with our economic problems.