Peter Drucker’s Challenge

Although it might appear curious to point out the issue of productivity at a time when the standard of living has never been higher in many developed countries, its importance is not inconsequential. In a cutthroat global marketplace, productivity is the key to remaining competitive, an observation shown in the concern of management guru Peter Drucker when he described the urgency of the productivity challenge as “great. The country that does this first will dominate the twenty-first century economically. Unless this challenge is met, the developed world will face increasing social tensions, increasing polarization, increasing radicalization, possibly even class war” (Drucker, 1991). The noteworthy aspect about Drucker’s remarks is that they were made almost two decades ago, with progress in the productivity stakes since then making little headway.

However defensive one is about business schools, the relevance and quality of established business education is in question. In the United Kingdom, the recent verdict in 2002 by the Council for Excellence in Management and Leadership is that “current management and business leadership development is a dysfunctional system” (Council for Excellence in Management and Leadership, 2002). And in the words of Stanford University’s Professor Jeffrey Pfeffer and Christina Fong’s same-year critical review of business education and its flagship degree: “Possessing an MBA neither guarantees business success nor prevents business failure” (Pfeffer & Fong, 2002). And for business academics James Bailey and C. Ford, “Business schools appeal to one another as scholarly communities through a plethora of academic journals that are utterly divorced from the challenges of everyday management” (Bailey & Ford, 1996). They contend that although a scientific approach may be useful for the study of management, it is not clear that it helps in teaching management: “The practice of management is best taught as a craft, rich in lessons derived from experience and oriented toward taking and responding to action” (Bailey & Ford, 1996). But, as H. J. Leavitt notes, “Business schools have been designed without practice fields” (Leavitt, 1989).