Reframing Professionalism as a Foundation for Business Education
There is much talk about the need for more social consciousness in the engineer, the scientist, and the doctor. Rarely do we see an analysis of why those professionals are not more socially conscious in the first place.
—Schein and Kommers1
Keywords
Business education, higher education, professionalism, precursors of professionalism, academic capitalism, autonomy, expertise, self-concept, social agency
Introduction
Despite much exploration into business education, the discipline may need an overhaul when it comes to graduating students who will be socially responsible managers in the work place. In spite of the efforts by business schools that emphasize ethical practices across all business disciplines, numerous studies show that business students continue to graduate with deficient knowledge when it comes to their role and responsibility in society as business managers.
Arguably, business education is more important than ever in US higher education. Business education is the largest group of undergraduate majors, constituting more than 20 percent of students in four-year institutions, year after year.2 Higher education has many important public purposes, including the education of citizens for their participation in democracy.3 The importance of business education stems from the centrality of business in society. The considerable number of undergraduates who select business for their field of study, and the even greater number who will be employed in business for their entire career, require higher education that will do more than just help students develop technical expertise. Advancing students’ expertise in their chosen field or discipline is an important goal, but business education needs to do more to ensure that students understand their responsibilities as professionals and their influence on society. These preprofessionals must be able to connect their future role in business to the larger world. Business programs can attain these goals by changing their curriculum, and socializing and educating their faculty to teach professional concepts to students during their undergraduate education. Before we jump into the curricular approaches, we first must explain key elements that have influenced the discipline.
History of Business Education and the Need for a New Framework
At the start of the 20th century, when business education entered higher education, it had evolved from industry procedures and practices that were formalized as business theory and textbooks.4 By the late fifties, business education had become a major component of American higher education, and two major research reports—the Pierson study and the Gordon and Howell report—examined the status of the discipline.5 The reports advocated for rigorous curricular content in business school courses, the integration of liberal arts courses, and additional academic training of business faculty to bring them up to the level of other university faculty.6 However, the high demand for business schools to produce an increasing number of graduates set the conditions that allowed these programs to continue using the same methods that were known weaknesses. The educators in business schools were composed of faculty from primarily professional tracks, which substantially influenced the instruction in the classes.7 Given the qualifications and training of the faculty, greater emphasis was placed on teaching the students applied skills over theoretical knowledge, critical thinking, and the integration of theory into practice.
The quality of business schools influenced the courses offered to business students, increasing the emphasis on applied skills while decreasing the attention given to professional training. Khurana indicated that business schools proliferated during a time when there were numerous unresolved questions about the role of business and corporations in society, as well as uncertainty about their willingness to comply with broader societal objectives.8 Khurana suspected that the change in business schools’ focus on professional education occurred subsequent to the publication of Milton Friedman’s doctrine on “business.”9 According to Khurana, Friedman’s doctrine argued that the primary concern of US business should be the maximization of corporate profit and shareholder value, since any other system in his view would become a battleground for the conflicting interests of stakeholders.10 This conflicting arrangement of varying interests would damage corporations and subsequently the economic well-being of society. The impact of this framework reached beyond the policies governing educational practices of the day by shifting attention toward the interests of economic policy, businesses, and stakeholders in the market. This framework also provided business managers with the justification to place the interest of the institutions first, without balancing the other interests of society with business practices and policies.11 As this doctrine permeated the academic field of business, it became the prevailing theory that business schools used to guide business school practices, beginning at the University of Chicago, one of the most prominent business schools of the day.12
The doctrine advanced by Friedman had a major influence on business students and managers’ indoctrination, thinking, and practice in the business world. The failure-to-success ratio in business in the United States has suggested that business students did not fully understand the influence of this doctrine on their business decisions and society.13 Several studies revealed that students vacillate between business values learned in their programs—that emphasize the maximization of shareholders’ wealth—and societal values, which require a balance between the needs of all stakeholders and society.14 As Ehrensal noted, instead of an emphasis on pluralism and cultural sensitivity, the business curricula shifted toward competitiveness, which encourages students to have a competitive mentality and a primary goal of outperforming everyone with little, to no sensitivity regarding the costs incurred by others.15
These historical influences on business education highlighted important trends that influence the curricula and instructional practice in business schools.16 Their effects have continued to impact practices in business education and can be observed at many business schools today. Yet, there were other influences on the business discipline, which we enumerate below.
Practical Knowledge Emphasis in Business Education
The success of business enterprises in the 20th century helped to fuel the growth of business schools.17 During the onset of the globalization of the economy on a large scale, the commercial sector pressured the states, as well as the corporate sector, to introduce educational programs that would fill the demand for a commercial labor force that could compete in a global marketplace. This encouraged institutions to direct their efforts to the development of programs that fulfilled the needs of the market.18 The close ties between business concerns and academia resulted in business schools’ emphasis on the experiential aspects of business education over general education and the values of the business profession.19 As industries demanded more practitioners’ knowledge, business schools increased the emphasis on specialized skills in areas such as marketing, accounting, and finance.20
A consequence of the demand on practitioners’ knowledge resulted in significant changes in the workforce. The percentage of adjunct and professional faculty who worked in business education has consistently remained above 51 percent of the total instructional workforce, an indicator of weak instruction. Of the adjunct and professional educator population, only 11 percent held Doctoral degrees, while the majority taught with only a Master’s degree.21 This teaching workforce, that lacked training in research, influenced business students’ development of professional values in a manner that was not consistent with other undergraduate programs of study.22 In fact, a bachelor in business administration degree rarely requires a research-methods course or a capstone with a research component.
However, the emphasis of business schools on experiential knowledge resulted in higher salaries for students, since this knowledge was responsive to corporate needs. The approach satisfied the desires of both students and business schools. The minimum requirements for a business degree identified by the market were met, which led to complacency in business schools concerning the need to improve the educational standards. Many scholars sought to explore this and in 1983, Hugstad studied business schools’ offerings as compared to industry’s preferences. He aimed to verify whether the industry still preferred practical training to analytical/theoretical training, and whether the attitudes of academicians and industry executives displayed any evidence of convergence. Hugstad surveyed 125 personnel directors, 250 deans of liberal arts schools, and 125 deans of business schools. He found that business personnel directors displayed continued indifference to the inclusion of the liberal arts training in business programs. The preference of businesses for applied skills and its influence on the curricula of business schools was a significant contributing factor to the lack of emphasis on the liberal arts in business schools.23 The result was a myopic training paradigm. These training practices facilitated the development of expertise in students, at the expense of the other domains of the knowledge that business professionals needed to possess in order to develop as professionals. The influence of practical knowledge is a strong factor, but there have been and continue to be, other influences on business education.
Powerful Contemporary Influences on Business Education
Colleges and universities developed as nonprofit organizations that mainly relied on federal and state funding.24 When state and federal funding decreased, these institutions restructured their programs to depend on other sources of funding. Slaughter and Leslie called this phenomenon “academic capitalism.”25 They described the relationship between academia and industry as organized networks that mediated between public and private sectors and utilized academic knowledge in a capitalistic form.26 In these networks, organizations brought different sectors from industry and academia to address common problems that belonged solely to academia. For example, in 1980, corporations and legislators worked together to create individual education accounts (IEAs). The IEAs allowed workers to make tax-free contributions to savings accounts that workers could later use to retrain themselves in professional tracks or special certifications at colleges and universities offering to develop these specialized programs.27 The network of businesses and universities redrew educational boundaries to take advantage of the new markets that were served by the new economy.
Donations to business schools did not stop and often corporations made generous contributions to business programs. One study estimated that there were 14 major donations to US business schools between 1997 and 2003, ranging from $23 million to $100 million.28 These contributions were likely to have influenced the ideology of faculty and administrators at these campuses by encouraging them to customize educational offerings as if it were a “private good.” Slaughter and Rhoades described this phenomenon by saying that the public, the faculty, the students, the corporations, and the state were “actors” rather than passive bystanders in this network that generated social changes.29 The power of this network resided in academic capitalism, which blurred the boundaries between the private and public sector and allowed significant influence from the private sector on education.
In summary, business schools, with their tight connections to the business field, were a prime example of the application of the theory of “Academic Capitalism”.30 They taught management principles that helped corporations, but not society at large.31 Thus, these institutions taught business principles that served the power of the corporation and its shareholders, rather than its societal stakeholders, in order to ensure the survival of their institution.32
Accreditation Organizations
Another influence on business education has been the main accrediting agencies for business programs in the United States, namely, AACSB (The Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business) and ACBSP (The Association of Collegiate Business Schools and Programs). These associations have the most authoritative power to dictate requirements at business schools. While both the major business-accrediting bodies (AACSB and ACBSP) have included business ethics in their accreditation requirements, neither has prescribed how business ethics is supposed to be included in the undergraduate business curriculum. This lack of specificity has led to inconsistent practices amongst business programs, thus leaving business students weakly prepared for the challenges of professional and ethical conundrums.33 In addition, the AACSB often remained silent in response to the growing number of corporate financial scandals affecting the United States. In 2003, the AACSB made a recommendation that all business school curricula include content covering ethical practices as a requirement for accreditation, without recommending how to integrate into various courses.34 As a result, the coverage of professional ethics in business coursework was inconsistent and often superficial.35 Deans from business schools claimed that ethics and professional training were integrated in several courses, such as marketing, finance, operations management, accounting, and strategic management. However, this still failed to address the primary concern of including content specifically focused on ethical development, reflection, and practices. Swanson identified a large number of business professors who found it burdensome to include well-developed case points on ethics.36 Swanson further explained that the professors rationalized their decision based on the desire to cover the required material in the courses and the lack of training to teach these concepts effectively. Not dealing with issues of ethical behavior likely influences the moral development of business students. These influencing factors may have weakened professional skills in business students in various ways.
Viewing Business Education Using the Lens of the “Profession”
Much research and discussion have taken place in the last few decades analyzing professions and professional theory. Most emphasized the special character of the knowledge and skill of the profession, in addition to the special ethical and altruistic orientation toward their clients. The term “Professionalism” used in this study refers to the important factors of professional identity including ethics—the norms of behavior within the framework of Rawls’ behavioral duties.37 Educational institutions and members of the profession are obligated to provide the training and socialization of these norms of ethical behavior to students who are new entrants to a profession.38
Nearly all of the definitions dealing with professionalism reference the key word “profession.” Most scholars identify with Moore and Rosenblum’s definition that a profession involves (a) a full-time occupation; (b) a sense of calling or commitment to the field; (c) a formalized organization; (d) esoteric, useful knowledge and skills based upon specialized training or education of exceptional duration and difficulty; and (e) an autonomy restrained by responsibility.39 Scholars studying professions assume that common characteristics among professionals exist. These include (a) expertise that all professionals develop through rigorous training in higher education; (b) a sense of duty to the public good or the “social-trustee” element that compels individuals to restrain from actions of self-interest; and (c) autonomy in actions which stems from professional responsibility or the practice of independent judgment guided by special knowledge.40
Imse’s work on the professionalization of business management encompassed the aforementioned qualities of professionalism. His work outlined the components of a profession as (a) fund of specialized knowledge; (b) a highly trained membership (intellectual training); (c) a code of ethics; (d) a sense of altruism; and (e) self-organization.41
Other scholars studying “professionals” added another category to the professionalism framework that they called “self-concept”.42 This category predicted readiness for carrying out the responsibilities of a professional role and captured survey participants’ self-confidence in the practice of their profession. For example, a study of nursing professionals measured nurses’ professional self-concept as they graduate and enter the profession. The items tested within the “self-concept” category included self-confidence stemming from expertise, communication ability, leadership, and interpersonal relationships.43
The previous categories of professionalism are appropriate as a framework for business education. Instead of focusing only on the ethical attitudes of business students, this book uses a comprehensive model of professionalism to capture a more robust education of professionalism beliefs. Using a comprehensive model of professionalism is also more consistent with other literature on professionalism, which considers more than ethical attitudes.44 Factors such as “autonomy of judgment” and “self-concept” are critical to enable professionals to perform at higher levels when serving their clients and society.45 For example, professionals who have high “self-concept” will be more likely to defend their position in a situation of ethical conflict in the workplace. Also, professionals exert their “autonomy of judgment” skills to express their professional opinions and avoid compromising external influences.46 Strengthening all of the professionalism components is a necessary requirement to reach higher levels of performance and effectiveness for professionals.47 This is especially important for the education of students who will enter the business world.
Current State of Professionalism
In addition to the components of professionalism described above, several scholars discussed the influence of the industrial revolution and the growth of a market economy on professionals and their behavior within organizations.48 In essence, they examined the influence of capitalism on professionals. Identified were economic and political pressures that influenced professionals to deviate from the ideal type described above.49 These influences allowed professionals to favor elements of professionalism, such as expertise, that draw financial rewards from the marketplace. The emphasis on knowledge and expertise had stronger ties to employment than the social-trustee beliefs that compel professionals to practice their profession while working toward the good of the public.50 Furthermore, Brint noted that professionals wanted to shake free from precapitalist ideals of professionals respecting their “social-trustee” duties.51 These duties compelled members within the profession to view themselves as aggregations of socially significant functions that work on a single important sphere of social life, such as health, education, and business.52 However, professionals in those spheres had responsibilities beyond technical expertise, since they served as moral custodians of knowledge and its function as to how it served the public.53
Other scholars have discussed how the organizational structure of professions diminished the power of the professionals within that structure.54 Influences of capitalism and the focus on generating profits within organizations changed their understanding of professionalism and limited the likelihood of hiring professionals who were interested in serving the public good.
Yet, higher education principles should have prevented economic, political, and structural factors to influence students’ education pursuing professional tracks. Khurana stated that when graduate business education started in the late 19th century, it had the promise of developing graduates as professionals similar to disciplines such as law or medicine.55 Additionally, Drucker stressed that business schools should view themselves as social institutions and not intellectual ones.56 Social institutions have social missions rather than be merely developers of expertise. He expressed disappointment in the direction of business schools becoming more scientific in their applications of business methods, rather than becoming socially relevant.57 Nevertheless, business schools started to align themselves with market organizations, thus training these graduates to fulfill the needs of the market.
Recent discussions about professions have centered on the deficiencies in the performance of professions. The activities of professionals have favored the pursuit of economic interest rather than the common good. Yet, professionals are still recognized as honored servants of public need due to their schooled application of unusually complex knowledge and skill. However, the main change is the growing trend for professionals to be employed in corporations, rather than self-employment as traditionally described for professionals. Employment is an important issue since it implies that the employer—rather than the professional—has the capacity to control work and how it is done, as well as the aim or goal of work. With professionals reporting to superiors in the workplace, literature in the professions reported a marked loss in autonomy, especially due to professionals’ dependence on the dominant powers for their protection, namely job security and compensation.58 Due to this constraint, professionals may become merely a part of the process rather than leading it.59 The end result could be some loss of autonomy, which is a chief characteristic of a professional.
This book advocates educating business undergraduates and graduates using a comprehensive platform of professionalism and nurturing qualities such as autonomy and social agency, understanding that these preprofessionals—since they have not joined their professions—may have to function in a bureaucracy and need to maintain their autonomous thinking and behavior as professionals. In later chapters, we share classroom examples of how to nurture students’ critical thinking skills in order to stimulate autonomous thinking in these preprofessionals. Additionally, we share other techniques focusing on societal issues that allow business students to connect with their communities, thus further developing students’ interest in public good as intended in characteristics of professionals.
In this regard, this research relies on a framework of professionalism as defined by scholars who examined elements unique to professionals that enabled them to exert influential powers in their profession and society.60 This framework highlights characteristics such as “expertise,” “autonomy,” “self-concept,” and “social agency” that allow professionals to function in society as part of a social fabric, rather than as disconnected experts.61 This book advocates an academic approach to classroom education that compels business faculty to become cognizant of professional theory and mechanisms as they educate in the classroom. Business is considered a professional track, and when it is combined with other professional majors, such as engineering, nursing, education, agriculture, and others, the total rises to 68 percent of all undergraduates.62 Considering this large percentage of undergraduates who will practice as professionals in their future careers and considering their influence on society, the call to emphasize professional characteristics in the classroom is urgent.
Notes
1. Schein and Kommers (1972), p. 7
2. Snyder, Dillow, and Hoffman (2009).
3. Tierney (1989).
4. Foundation (1959); Pierson (1959); Porter and McKibbon (1988).
5. Gordon and Howell (1959).
6. Hugstad (1983); Pierson (1959); Porter and McKibbon (1988).
7. Khurana (2007); Martensson, Bild, and Nilsson (2008).
8. Khurana (2007).
9. Friedman (1970).
10. Khurana (2007).
11. Augier and March (2011); Khurana (2007).
12. Augier and March (2011); Khurana (2007).
13. Augier and March (2011); Khurana (2007); Nino (2011).
14. Augier and March (2011); Browning (2003); Khurana (2007); Swanson (2004); Swanson and Frederick (2001, 2003).
15. Ehrensal (2001).
16. Augier and March (2011); Khurana (2007); Swanson and Fisher (2009).
17. Pierson (1959).
18. Slaughter and Leslie (1997).
19. Brint (1996); Khurana (2007).
20. Porter and McKibbon (1988).
21. Cataldi, Bradburn, Fahimi, and Zimbler (2004).
22. Cataldi, Bradburn, Fahimi, and Zimbler (2004); Gordon and Howell (1959).
23. Porter and McKibbon (1988).
24. Slaughter and Leslie (1997); Slaughter and Rhoades (2004).
25. Slaughter and Leslie (1997);
26. Slaughter and Rhoades (2004).
27. Slaughter and Rhoades (2004).
28. Starkey and Tiratsoo (2007).
29. Slaughter and Rhoades (2004).
30. Slaughter and Leslie (1997).
31. Browning (2003); Parks (2005).
32. Augier and March (2011); Khurana (2007); Swanson and Fisher (2009).
33. Swanson and Frederick (2003); Trank and Rynes (2003).
34. Miles, Hazeldine, and Munilla (2004).
35. Miles, Hazeldine, and Munilla (2004); Swanson and Frederick (2001).
36. Swanson (2004).
37. Rawls (1999).
38. Kohlberg (1975); Pascarella and Terenzini (1991).
39. Moore and Rosenblum (1970).
40. Brint (1996); Freidson (1984); Goode (1957); Moore and Rosenblum (1970).
41. Imse (1962)
42. Arthur (1995); Freidson (1984); Haywood-Farmer and Stuart (1990).
43. Hensel (2009).
44. Freidson (2001); Hall (1968).
45. Freidson (2001).
46. Freidson (1984); Hall (1968).
47. Hall (1968); Imse (1962).
48. Brint (1996); Freidson (2001); Krause (1999).
49. Brint (1996); Freidson (1984).
50. Brint (1996); Freidson (1994).
51. Brint (1996).
52. Brint (1996).
53. Freidson (1984).
54. Krause (1999).
55. Khurana (2007).
56. Drucker (1968).
57. Drucker (1992).
58. Schein and Kommers (1972)
59. Freidson (1994).
60. Freidson (2001); Imse (1962).
61. Brint (1996); Freidson (2001); Imse (1962).
62. Colby, Ehrlich, Sullivan, and Dolle (2011); National Center for Educational Statistics (2010); Cowin (2001); Hall (1968); Haywood-Farmer and Stuart (1990); Imse (1962).