Organizational Behavior

Section 1: The common theme in both the Podolny and Bennis articles is how B-schools have lost their ability to combine the scientific model of teaching with real life business expertise that is essential for future managers and CEOs (us) to survive in the tough business world. This in turn impacts the decisions they make and the trust that the people have on them. Both Podolny and Bennis talk about the importance of integrating the hard and soft disciplines, the former through his suggestions to create trust and eliminate distrust and the latter through his proposed professional model of teaching. Both talk about the importance of qualitative research and play down the scholarly research that gets Professors tenures at B-schools currently. They also focus on the lack of course offerings in humanities (ethics, values etc.) in B-schools and mention that a diverse faculty pool, which collectively holds a variety of skills and interests, can help balance the dysfunctional system currently in existence.

I do agree to the articles' assertions about B-schools losing the ability to impart the right combination of hard and soft skills on the students that are essential for making the tough short term and long term decisions in the current business world. I also agree to the articles' assertion on how a Professor should be offered tenure based on his real life business experiences in addition to his scholastic abilities. But does the buck really stop at the B-schools? I think that the onus is one each and individual student to understand the importance of ethical and moral behavior and its impact on the society. The decisions they take as business leaders, day in and day out, has a wide effect that transcends culture and boundaries. Unless and until a student is interested in learning the qualitative aspects of business, course offerings in humanities would make no difference. It all boils down to the students that the B-schools choose and how well they understand and utilize the knowledge of the diverse faculty pool.

The following are the main reasons why B-school students might cheat more often in college: not enough time, competition and compulsory minimum grade requirements. Once a student enters into the B-school atmosphere, there is a tendency to take too much onto one's plate. Be it through the memberships in various organizations, various case competitions, the heavy course workload, timelines/deadlines that have to be met, and of course the career search. There is just too much to do in the B-schools and so little time to achieve what one wants to. The second main reason is the bragging rights of being the "best" among peers. High levels of competitiveness induce people to take the easy way out and cheat to succeed. Students are just concerned about getting the results and don't really care as to how they achieve them (even cheating!). The third reason and in my opinion the most important is the competitive GPAs that the recruiters mandate students to maintain in a B-school if they are to enter their organization. This presents students with unprecedented pressure to do well in subjects and score high grades that are basic requirements to even land an interview call with the employers. They cheat to succeed.

Section 2: Among Podolny's proposed suggestions for B-schools, the one that I favor the most is for B-schools to stop competing on rankings. By communicating that money is not the only reason to get an MBA, this is the fastest and the best route for B-schools to regain trust and reduce distrust. This suggestion helps schools to regain their professional focus and in the long run help students be much more prepared to tackle the real life problems and business situations. This will ultimately result in better jobs and pay checks for students, which is exactly what the rankings portrayed in the first place to attract the potential students. At the same time by doing away with rankings, B-schools earn respect among the business community, trust among people and develop leaders ready to tackle problems head on in an ethical manner.

The suggestion that I favor the least would be the one that argues about withdrawing degrees for violating codes of conduct. And my reason is not because of the strictness of the punishment but the effectiveness of it. Would the business professional that has violated the conduct worry too much about the paper degree in the first place? He/she would have acquired enough real world business experience to not worry about the MBA degree too much. Since they would be allowed to manage businesses as earlier, whether or not they have a degree against their name would not be a huge matter of concern. This suggestion may not produce the desired results. If the cheating business professionals were prevented from practicing

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