The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at

www.emeraldinsight.com/0040-0912.htm

CEO business
CEO business education and firm education
financial performance: a case for
humility rather than hubris
Margaret Lindorff and Elizabeth Prior Jonson 461
Department of Management, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia

Abstract
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between CEO business education
and firm financial performance.
Design/methodology/approach – An analysis of the relationship between three-year and five-
year shareholder return as measured by dividend and change in share price and CEO educational
qualification was performed.
Findings – No relationship was found between CEO MBA, business, or other qualification and firm
financial performance.
Research limitations/implications – More research, particularly in the form of multinational
longitudinal studies, should be undertaken on the relationship between CEO business and other
qualifications and objective outcomes. A limitation of this study is that it was undertaken in one country
and measured only firm financial performance.
Practical implications – It is possible that business education has been over-emphasized as a
prerequisite to successful management practice. It is also possible that the kind of management
education that students have received is no longer appropriate to leadership at CEO level.
Originality/value – Although many have blamed the GFC on business schools, there has been no
examination of the relationship between CEO qualifications and firm financial performance in
Australia, and little elsewhere. This study therefore fills a research gap.
Keywords MBA, Business schools, Leadership, Firm financial performance, Australia,
Master of Business Administration
Paper type Research paper

This paper is the result of the special issue call for papers on the roles and responsibilities
of business schools. We are particularly interested in the relationship between the business
education of the CEOs of Australia’s top 200 companies and their company performance.
In Australia, university business school programmes can be summarized into five
groups: undergraduate coursework degrees, MBAs, non-MBA graduate coursework
degrees, graduate research degrees and short courses. Specific university education
in business began with the establishment of a Department of Economics at the
University of Sydney in 1920 (Williams, 2002). In 1924 the University of Melbourne
also established a Faculty of Economics, which was later renamed the Faculty of
Business and Economics (MacIntyre and Selleck, 2003). The University of Melbourne
Business School was established in 1963 and was the first to offer an Australian MBA
degree (Williams, 2002). Currently there are approximately 340,500 students enrolled
in Australian university management and commerce programmes (DEEWR, 2010),
which is 28.5 per cent of all enrolled students, although this number is declining
(B-HERT, 2012). Half of these students are from overseas. Within this total number
66 Australian MBA programmes are offered by 37 institutions, and cater to Education þ Training
Vol. 55 No. 4/5, 2013
approximately 35,000 students (Good Universities Guide, 2012). pp. 461-477
r Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Education is Australia’s largest services export, and was valued at $17.7 billion in 0040-0912
2010 (DFAT, 2012). A rough calculation suggests that overseas business students are DOI 10.1108/00400911311326072
ET worth over $2 billion per year to the country. The income generated from international
55,4/5 and business student fees is also as critical to the financial viability of their enrolling
institutions in Australia as it is internationally (Pfeffer and Fong, 2002), and fees from fee-
paying business students are commonly transferred out of business schools and faculties
to replace shortfalls elsewhere in university budgets (Clarke, 2008). Disappointing though
it may be for international students to have to pay more than the cost of their education,
462 and even if universities are promoting business education to potential students to support
their own vested interests, the students and their employing organizations may still be
getting value for money if their courses make them better managers than would
otherwise be the case. But are they? And are business schools adding value for business
and its shareholders? This latter question is the focus of this paper. We acknowledge the
shareholder focus of the paper, but, given that one of the criticisms of business education
is that it holds this focus (Ghoshal, 2005), it seems appropriate to see if it is successful
within this context.
We acknowledge that many academics writing in this area do not see return to
shareholders as the most important role of business. Such critics of the shareholder view
may see return to shareholders as just one among many responsibilities of a business
organization (Evan and Freeman, 1993). This most radical version of stakeholder theory
does not give any priority to shareholder interests. More moderate versions of
stakeholder theory, including the later Freeman (2009), give a high priority to return to
shareholders but demand that this be consistent with satisfying the interests of all other
relevant stakeholder groups (a win-win situation for all parties). Other critics of the
shareholder approach including Stout (2012) and Lazonick (2009, 2010) suggest the
narrow focus on shareholder value has damaged innovation and business development
and that a more balanced approach to investing in sustainable business is required.
We fully acknowledge that there are these different views about the appropriate role
of management, managers and business education. However, our focus in this paper is
on the question of whether CEO education is associated with return to shareholders.
We acknowledge that shareholder return is not the only measure of performance.
However, “it is the fundamental scorecard for CEOs of public companies. And it is the
same scorecard for everyone” (Hansen et al., 2010, p. 107). Within the Australian
context it is doubtful whether those businesses who foot the bill for employee MBAs
would continue to do so if they believed that business education did not contribute
positively to profit. We leave it to other researchers and papers to investigate whether
education in general and business education in particular contributes positively to
managers’ creativity, innovation, environmental responsibility and general social
responsibility. Out task in this paper is simply to investigate whether there is a positive
correlation between CEO education and medium term return to shareholders.

Criticisms of Australian business education

Despite the large proportion of students who graduate with a business degree Australia
has a history of reports criticizing the education of its managers and business leaders.
The Karpin (1995) report provided a comprehensive critique of Australian management.
It argued that Australian management tended to overrate its performance against
international benchmarks, whereas its practices were only slightly above average.
Australian management practice was claimed to be deficient in people management,
particularly as it related to developing human capital to improve performance and add
value. The report also suggested that although individual academics and university
departments might be world class and there was a proliferation of institutions offering
management education, there was no world-class management school in Australia, as CEO business
the leading schools were too small to provide the infrastructure necessary to support education
quality teaching and research.
The report’s policy recommendations highlighted the importance of education in the
non-technical areas of management: leading and managing people, communicating,
negotiating, resolving conflict, fostering creativity and innovation and managing
change. However, its evidence base for these assertions is not clear. It also suggested 463
that Australian business would not be competitively placed unless Australian
management education achieved the standards set by global educational leaders, and a
world-class business school was required to provide leadership to the rest of the
postgraduate management education sector (Karpin, 1995).
At approximately the same time, an OECD (1994) report argued that business may
not have attracted the best talent in Australia. It suggested that although the move to
decentralized bargaining provided new opportunities for raising workplace productivity,
much still depended on improving managerial human resources and bargaining skills.
In 2007, with productivity performance continuing to fall (Green et al., 2009), the
Minister for Innovation set up a panel to review the National Innovation System. The
panel’s report (Cutler, 2008) found that Australian business education continued to lag
world’s best practice in certain key areas, particularly those concerning people
management. It concluded that in an increasingly globalized and competitive business
environment Australian business needed increased and expanded competencies in
strategy, operations and integration. It also challenged the Australian Business Deans’
Council to lead a discussion on “management education and its role more broadly in
education, training and innovation” (Cutler, 2008, p. 57).
The Australian Business Deans Council’s (2011) proposal to the Department of
Education, Employment and Workplace Relations in response to the Cutler Report
used a study of Australian management practices in manufacturing firms (Green et al.,
2009) to argue there is a positive relationship between good management and
productivity. It suggested creating a “national dialogue” between business schools and
stakeholders to create a “vision for management education in Australia” and “trials of
innovative practices”. It also suggested that among the key challenges needing action
are improvements in collaboration and networking between educational institutions,
business and government agencies and provision of educational programmes to meet
the increasing demand for enhanced management, leadership and collaboration skills.

Criticisms of business education

Criticisms of business education have not been limited to Australia, and have seemingly
been made for as long as there has been business education. On the supply side, in the
USA the Ford Foundation (Gordon and Howell, 1959) and Carnegie Council (Pierson, 1959)
reviews accused business schools of being too like trade schools, and offered them grant
money to change. In response, business schools focused on teaching the behavioural
science elements of business such as economics, statistics and operations research.
Perhaps as a consequence the content of many current US MBA courses is strikingly
similar (Datar et al., 2010), and the accreditation of MBA curricula and business schools
by AMBA (www.mbaworld.com/), EQUIS (www.efmd.org) and AACSB (www.aacsb.edu),
and through the Bologna process in Europe (Carduso et al., 2008) has led to further
worldwide standardization of institutions and programmes (Hall et al., 2012).
A recent theme emanating from within the Academy is that business schools are
more about research rigour than practical relevance (e.g. Bennis and O’Toole, 2005;
ET Blass and Weight, 2005a; Hambrick, 2007; Mintzberg, 2004; Porter and McKibbin,
55,4/5 1988). Mintzberg (2004), for example, argues there is an under-emphasis in MBAs on
the art and craft of management involving reflective practice, context and sharing of
experiences, and an overemphasis on the “science”, or analysis, dimensions of
management. Similarly, Rynes et al. (2003) comment that business schools focus too
much on abstract theories and do not give enough time to practical skills. Common
464 deficits are suggested to be in critical thinking, reflection and decision making,
strategic management, risk and regulation, people management and innovation,
creativity, business realities and tradeoffs, organizational politics, integration,
awareness of social issues and corporate social responsibility, leadership,
communication, reflective skills, adaptability, vision and culture and change
management (Almog-Bareket, 2011; Datar et al., 2010; Rubin and Dierdorff, 2009).
MBAs are also suggested to be too “western”, and not transferable to other cultural
regions (Blass and Weight, 2005a), and to both ignore the skills needed for early career
progression (Benjamin and O’Reilly, 2011) and only be suited to those wishing to
undertake a junior management role (Blass and Weight, 2005b). Business school
teaching has also been accused of being too focused on shareholder value and
organizational performance, and failing to respond to wider society needs (Ferlie et al.,
2010; Ghoshal, 2005). Business schools are also held to be responsible for the global
financial crisis (Podolny, 2009), with the financial economics which is taught in MBA
programmes particularly culpable (Currie et al., 2010).
On the demand side, criticisms include that students lack quality and seek to buy a
credential rather than an education (Feldman, 2005; Mintzberg, 2004; Pfeffer, 2005). In
an attempt to build their social and cultural capital (prestige) students are believed to
engage with the networking and work placement dimensions of their MBA courses,
rather than with the academic content (Datar et al., 2010; Mintzberg, 2004). Yet despite
the expressed concerns by business school deans and other academics that students
now are less devoted to coursework than students in the past (Datar et al., 2010),
many business schools emphasize such leisure and networking activities in
their MBA brochures and advertising Moreover, business school rankings such
as The Economist Intelligence Unit’s Which MBA? include criteria such as “potential
to network” in their ranking categories (Bickerstaffe and Ridgers, 2007), thus reinforcing
any credential-seeking bias.
Another criticism is that business education is an industry in which business
schools, universities, consulting firms and other employers are complicit in promoting
the MBA as a premium product (Pfeffer, 2005). Business schools are accused of
focusing on achieving higher rankings for themselves by selecting those students
whose qualifications and experience on entering a course lead to higher graduating
salaries (i.e. they select more experienced students from higher-paying sectors such as
finance and consulting who will enter and therefore leave with higher starting salaries)
and grooming them for selection interviews (Podolny, 2009). Universities are
reproached for using business schools as “cash cows” for their parent university
(Masrani et al., 2011). Management education is therefore accused of being “informed
by the interests of corporations and of managers rather than those of stakeholders in
organizations and wider society” (Grey, 2004, p. 179).
There have also been criticisms with respect to outcomes. Although some have
suggested that a MBA degree leads to higher market value capital and an increase in
salary and career attainment for graduates (e.g. Baruch, 2009; O’Brien et al., 2010),
others (e.g. Pfeffer and Fong, 2002) argue that this effect is exaggerated, and does not
account for those graduates who are unable to find a job. In addition, there is some CEO business
evidence that there is no relationship between competency development during MBA education
studies and wage after graduation (Camuffo et al., 2009). Any salary effect may also be
largely confined to graduates from particular schools (O’Brien et al., 2010), and, if there is
an effect, it may be declining (Connolly, 2003). Moreover, although Hay and Hodgkinson
(2005) found that many MBA graduates believe that the MBA had helped their career,
this was largely in terms of internal career attainment – that is, achieving one’s own 465
perception of career success, perhaps in terms of self-fulfillment, challenge or satisfaction,
rather than through achievement of an external position, salary or managerial level.
Similarly, there are criticisms that completion of an MBA does not result in
increased skills. For example, Shipper (1999) reports that although possession of a set
of management skills is associated with managerial performance, the level of skill in
these areas is no different for managers with a MBA and those with another master’s
degree or an undergraduate degree. Boyatzis and Renio (1989) also found that although
graduating MBA students’ self-reported skills in some areas are higher than the self-
reported skills of beginning MBA students, there is no difference between the groups in
many other areas. Similarly, although Boyatzis and Saatcioglu (2008) and Camuffo et al.
(2009) indicate that MBA students generally report improved competencies from
programme start to completion, the absence of a comparison group in both studies
means it is not clear if the results reflect a maturation effect which would have been as
strong (or stronger) for those who have not undertaken an MBA.
There are also criticisms of programmes based on the failure to find clear
relationships between possession of a MBA and the scholastic or intellectual capital
(knowledge) which is the core content of many programmes. For example, although
Baruch and Leeming (2001) indicate that many graduates believe their MBA studies
increase their business understanding, Pfeffer and Fong (2002, p. 80) argue “there is
little evidence that mastery of the knowledge acquired in business schools enhances
people’s careers”. Nor does there appear to be a consistent relationship between
possession of an MBA or other business degree and the other forms of capital that
business schools are now expected to provide their graduates: personal or inner value
capital (confidence and self-understanding) intercultural capital (a global mindset),
ethical capital, developmental capital (responsiveness to change), collateral capital
(creativity), temporal capital (ability to manage time so that performance is enhances)
and the ability to integrate all their capital (Boyatzis and Renio, 1989; Kretovics, 1999).
This may be due to at least three factors. The first is that although some of these forms
of capital such as intellectual or social capital may be associated with participation in
business school programmes, others may be a consequence of factors which cannot be
taught in business school. The second alternative is that their attainment may be due to
factors which can be taught, but are not taught by business schools. Thus the course
content may need to be changed. The third alternative is that the factors can be taught in
business schools, but can also be obtained via other sources, leaving business schools
with little unique that they can offer – although this also means that business
schools cannot be held solely responsible for the supposed failures of their graduates.
In this paper we are not directly interested in personal capital. Rather, we are
interested in a broader area: whether a business degree held by a CEO adds to the value
of their employing organization. Many of the criticisms of Australian management
provided above highlight the need for increased competitiveness. This requires
efficient, profitable corporations. The MBA Guide promises that “well-directed MBA
programs can improve managerial competence in terms of innovation, flexibility, and
ET other managerial qualities needed for the contemporary business environment”
55,4/5 (Baruch, 2009) – but do they actually translate into the vision, strategic and human
resource management which results in corporate growth and wealth creation, a better
return to shareholders and international competitiveness?
Internationally, more than half the CEOs of large companies have a MBA (Baruch,
2009). However, there is evidence that there are now significant declines in business
466 school enrolments in Australia (B-HERT, 2012), Europe and the USA (Schlegelmilch
and Thomas, 2011), particularly in full-time enrolments in lower-ranked schools (Datar
et al., 2010), and consulting and financial firms are increasingly recruiting non-MBA
graduates (Datar et al., 2010). Our question is whether a MBA provides employees with
a competitive advantage at the most senior level; is there a reason for promoting to
organizations the development of their staff through participation in a MBA or other
business programme, or the recruitment of executives with a business qualification?
In a recent paper on the 2000 best-performing CEOs in the world Hansen et al. (2010)
report that those CEOs whom they could identify as having an MBA rank on average 40
places better in terms of shareholder return (country adjusted return, industry adjusted
return and change in market capitalization) during tenure than do CEOs without an
MBA. On the face of it there seems a case for appointing a CEO with a MBA over a CEO
without a MBA. However, it is unclear whether that difference applies only at the “best-
performing” level and is statistically significant, or merely a random variation.
We wish to examine this issue further, and review the relationship between CEO
qualification and company performance. Our methodology is different, in that it deals
only with Australian companies and we will examine one outcome – shareholder return
as measured by dividend and change in share price. We acknowledge that shareholder
return is not the only measure of performance and certainly ignores the various
contributions individuals and companies may make to other stakeholder groups.
However shareholder return is a consistent and objective measure of company
performance, and firm productivity is used as a desired outcome in the above reviews of
Australian management. Additionally, in the modern world CEOs are normally judged in
the marketplace on their firm financial performance, and companies that fail seriously on
this parameter usually cease to exist or at least cease to exist as independent entities.
We have looked at the company performance over both a three and a five-year
period. The five-year period includes the 2008 economic downturn, and is an
appropriate indicator of management capability in bad times. The three-year period
excludes this downturn, and is an objective indicator of performance in better times.

Method
Measures
Return to shareholders. Data were collected on firm five-year and three-year return to
shareholders from the FinAnalysis (Aspect Huntley, 2012) database. The database
provided the return for the three and five financial years to 30 June 2011. This
information contains both dividend and share price change over the time period.
CEO education. Information on CEO education was collected from company annual
reports, company web sites and biographical information available on other web sites.
Company sector for each firm was taken from the FinAnalysis (Aspect Huntley, 2012)
database. This measure was criterion scaled for later regression analysis (Beaton, 1969;
Gocka, 1973, 1974). In criterion scaling all those in a particular category of the categorical
predictor variable are given a score on a new variable which is equivalent to the mean
score on the dependent variable of all those in that category. Thus to test the influence of
company sector on firm return a single criterion scaled variable was created with ten CEO business
groups (one for each category of company sector), and the value for each of those in each education
category was the mean firm economic return for the entire category. This way the overall
effect of industry sector can be determined, whereas with effect or dummy coding only
the comparison between different categories of the categorical variable and a nominated
comparison category can be assessed (Blair et al. 1980).

Sample
467
The final sample consisted of 183 organizations which were in the ASX200 in May 2012
and had CEO details and return to shareholders recorded for five years. Return to
shareholders ranged from 49.2 to 80.8 per cent with a mean return of 2.93 per cent for
five years, and 49.8 to 193.5 per cent with a mean return of 12.41 per cent for three years.
The majority (26 per cent) of firms were in the materials sector, with 18 per cent in
financials, 15 per cent in industrials, 13 per cent in consumer discretionary, 10 per cent
in energy, 6 per cent in health care, 4 per cent in utilities, 3 per cent in consumer staples
and 2 per cent in each of information technology and telecommunications sectors.
Three-year and five-year returns for each sector are shown in Table I.
Only seven of the CEOs were female. Thirty four had an MBA, 14 an undergraduate
arts degree, 55 an undergraduate business degree, 32 an undergraduate engineering
degree, eight an undergraduate law degree, 39 an undergraduate science degree and
five a medical degree. Three had completed graduate studies in arts or education,
seven in business (other than an MBA), ten in engineering, three in law, nine in science
and five in another area. Many had more than one qualification. Thirty six had no
university degree, and 40 had professional recognition, most frequently in accounting.
For further analysis the graduate and undergraduate arts and law (n ¼ 24) and
graduate and undergraduate engineering, science and medicine (n ¼ 77) groups were
combined into two new categories. All those with a business qualification (n ¼ 86) were
also combined for some analyses. Because several CEOs had degrees in more than one
discipline area a single variable representing qualification with a category for each
discipline area could not be used. Several independent variables were therefore created
for analysis, each representing the presence of a particular qualification.
Results
The relationship between CEO qualification and firm performance over five years
A simple scan of the qualifications of the CEOs in the 25 organizations with the poorest
return to shareholders over five years showed that three hold an MBA, ten have a

Sector 3-year return 5-year return

Consumer staples (n ¼ 6) 7.78 1.10

Consumer discretionary (n ¼ 23) 2.09 8.40
Energy (n ¼ 19) 12.73 5.36
Financials (n ¼ 33) 8.87 10.49
Healthcare (n ¼ 10) 21.2 6.03
Industrials (n ¼ 28) 16.56 4.82
IT (n ¼ 4) 4.55 3.80
Materials (n ¼ 48) 14.18 1.04
Telecoms (n ¼ 4) 26.18 7.60 Table I.
Utilities (n ¼ 8) 20.24 2.30 Return to shareholders
Mean 12.41 2.93 by industry sector
ET science, medicine or engineering qualification, two have an arts or law degree and eight
55,4/5 have no university qualifications. Ten have some business qualification, including
three of the worst-performing six. For the 25 best-performing organizations over five
years two of the CEOs hold an MBA, 12 have a science, engineering or medical degree,
none have an arts or law degree, and seven have no university degree. Eleven,
including five of the top six, have some formal business qualification. There seems no
468 clear association between CEO qualification and firm performance.
A series of ANOVAs showed type of degree had no relationship with firm
performance. Those organizations whose CEO had a MBA were no more profitable
(mean return ¼ 3.19 per cent) than those whose CEO had another business
qualification (mean return ¼ 1.71 per cent) or no business qualification (mean
return ¼ 3.45 per cent), F(2, 181) ¼ 0.17, p ¼ 0.84. Those firms with a CEO with an arts
or law degree (mean return ¼ 7.73 per cent) were no more successful than those whose
CEOs did not have such a degree (mean return ¼ 2.26 per cent), F(1, 181) ¼ 1.74,
p ¼ 0.19. Similarly, those with a CEO holding an engineering, science or medical degree
(mean return ¼ 1.19 per cent), were no more profitable than those whose CEOs did not
hold a degree in those areas (mean return ¼ 4.19 per cent), F(1, 181) ¼ 1.29, p ¼ 0.26,
and those organizations whose CEO did not hold a university qualification (mean
return ¼ 6.13 per cent) were no worse off than those whose CEOs held a university
qualification (mean return ¼ 2.14 per cent), F(1, 181) ¼ 1.49, p ¼ 0.23.
Comparisons were next made by assessing whether firm performance had been
positive (n ¼ 73) or negative (n ¼ 110) over the five years. A series of w2-tests were
undertaken to see if possession of any particular CEO qualification was likely to result
in a positive return to the firm. No more CEOs holding a MBA (41.2 per cent) or other
business degree (36.5 per cent) than without any sort of business degree (41.2 per cent)
had a positive organizational return, w2(2) ¼ 0.34, p ¼ 0.84. No more CEOs with an arts
or law degree than those without an arts or law degree lead their organization to a
positive return (25.0 per cent compared to 42.1 per cent), w2 ¼ 2.55, p ¼ 0.12. No more
CEOs with an engineering, science or medicine degree than without such a degree
(48.1 per cent compared to 34.0 per cent) lead their organization to a positive return,
w2 ¼ 3.69, p ¼ 0.06. Nor did it help to have any university qualification; those firms with
a CEO with a qualification were no more successful in gaining a positive return
(41.5 per cent) than those without a qualification (33.3 per cent), w2 ¼ 0.80, p ¼ 0.50.
To examine the joint effect of qualification and industry sector on firm performance a
multiple regression was run using as predictors the presence/absence of an arts/law,
business including MBA (combined because of the absence of significant differences in
the ANOVAs given above), science/engineering/medicine degree, no degree and a
criterion scaled variable indicating company sector. The regression was significant,
R2 ¼ 0.11, F(5, 177) ¼ 4.31, p ¼ 0.001. Results are shown in Table II. The only significant
predictor was company sector. An examination of the mean return for each sector
showed that firms in the telecommunications, health care and energy sectors performed
the best, and those in the consumer discretionary and financial sectors performed worst.

Relationship between CEO qualification and firm performance over three

years
A scan of the qualifications of the CEOs in the 25 organizations with the poorest return
to shareholders over three years shows that only three hold an MBA, 15 have a science,
medicine or engineering qualification, three have an arts or law degree, and ten have no
university qualifications. Eight have some business qualification, including two of the
 b Significance
CEO business
education
5 years
Engineering, science or medicine 0.09 0.36
Arts or law 0.06 0.51
Any business qualification 0.03 0.79
No degree 0.12 0.27 469
Sector 0.32 0.00
3 years
Engineering, science or medicine 0.06 0.54
Arts or law 0.05 0.53
Any business qualification 0.01 0.92 Table II.
No degree 0.12 0.58 Predictors of return
Sector 0.20 0.01 to shareholders

worst-performing three. For the 25 best-performing organizations over three years

three of the CEOs hold an MBA, 13 have a science, engineering or medical degree, two
have an arts or law degree, one has an arts or law degree and seven have no university
degree. Nine, including four of the top five, have some formal business qualification.
There appears to be no clear association between firm better performance and CEOs
MBA or business degree.
A series of ANOVAs also showed type of degree had no relationship with firm
performance. Those firms with a CEO with a MBA (mean return ¼ 12.00 per cent)
performed no better than those whose CEO had another form of business degree (mean
return ¼ 14.11 per cent), or did not have a business degree (mean return ¼ 11.64 per cent),
F(2, 180) ¼ 0.13, p ¼ 0.88. Those firms with a CEO holding an arts or law degree (mean
return ¼ 7.95 per cent) were no more successful than those whose CEO did not hold
such a degree (mean return ¼ 13.08 per cent), F(1, 181) ¼ 0.66, p ¼ 0.42. Similarly, firms
whose CEOs held an engineering, science or medical degree (mean return ¼ 13.66 per cent),
were no more successful than those whose CEOs did not have qualifications in these
areas (mean return ¼ 11.50 per cent), F(1, 181) ¼ 0.25, p ¼ 0.62, and firms who had a
CEO without a university qualification (mean return ¼ 9.00 per cent) were no worse off
than those who had a CEO with a university qualification (mean return ¼ 13.24 per
cent), F(1, 181) ¼ 0.63, p ¼ 0.43.
Comparisons were again next made on by assessing whether firm performance had
been positive (n ¼ 128) or negative (n ¼ 55). A series of w2-tests were undertaken to see if
possession of any particular CEO qualification was likely to result in a positive return to
the firm. An MBA or business degree was again not associated with a positive return;
73.5 per cent of those with a MBA, compared to 73.1 per cent of those with another
business degree and 67.0 per cent of those without any business qualification had a
positive return to shareholders, w2(2) ¼ 0.85, p ¼ 0.65. In all, 75 per cent of CEOs with an
arts or law degree lead their organization to a positive return, compared to 69.2 per cent
of those without an arts or law degree, w2 ¼ 0.34, p ¼ 0.64. No more CEOs with an
engineering, science or medicine degree than without such a degree (74.0 per cent
compared to 67.0 per cent) lead their organizations to a positive return, w2 ¼ 1.05,
p ¼ 0.33. However, it does help to have some university qualification. Businesses with a
CEO with a university qualification were more likely than businesses whose CEO did not
have a university qualification to have a positive organizational return over three years
(74.1 per cent compared to 52.8 per cent), w2 ¼ 6.28, p ¼ 0.02.
ET To examine the joint effect of qualification and industry sector on firm performance
55,4/5 a multiple regression was run using as predictors the presence/absence of an arts/law,
business including MBA (combined because of the absence of significant differences in
the ANOVAs given above), or science/engineering/medicine degree, and a criterion
scaled variable indicating company sector. The regression was not significant,
R2 ¼ 0.04, F(5, 177) ¼ 1.59, p ¼ 0.165. Results are shown in Table II.
470
Discussion
The findings suggest that, at least in Australia in the period tested, a CEO’s business or
other specific education has no effect upon their organization’s financial performance.
This could suggest several things. The first is that the CEO may have limited influence
on company financial performance. Firm success may be due to a good management
team, or a knowledgeable Board. It may be due to environmental factors – a mining
firm which finds gold, for example, luck (or unexplained factors; see Parnell et al., 2012
for a discussion), or being in the right place at the right time. This view is held by
scholars who highlight the romance of leadership – the tendency for observers to over-
emphasize the effects of leadership and attributes and behaviours of the leader, and
de-emphasize the influence of other factors (Haslam et al., 2010; Meindl et al., 1985).
This is an extension of the view that leadership as an attribution based upon
descriptions of firm or group performance (e.g. Agle et al., 2006); that is, if a person
believes a firm is performing well they are more likely to attribute this to excellent
leadership than to other factors, and to report that the leader has positive qualities.
The reliance on attributions is perhaps responsible for the findings in the
Management Matters (Green et al., 2009) report that was used as an evidence base in
Australia’s Australian Business Deans Council (2011) proposal. Green et al. argued a
link between management practices and productivity. They based this upon
qualitative interviews with managers in which the managers were asked to respond to
questions about management “best practice” in their firm, and correlations of these
assessments with measures of productivity. The most likely explanation for the
suggested relationship is that those interviewed took their firm’s productivity and used
it to describe the firm’s managerial performance in the same way that organization
performance is associated with subsequent perceptions of CEO charisma; that is, high
performing firms have a charismatic leader (Agle et al., 2006; Shyns et al., 2007). In this
case the high performance of the organization was attributed to good leadership
practice. The assessments of management performance are therefore no more than
attributions based upon organizational performance. We therefore need more research
to determine the link between CEOs and firm performance, and the potential for
performance to be attributed to, rather than caused by, leadership behaviours.
If CEO leadership does make a difference to firm financial performance, the second
possibility for the lack of a relationship between CEO business education and such
performance is that CEO characteristics other than those received solely through a
business or other education are associated with such success. Firm performance may
either be due to CEO factors which are difficult to develop externally, such as
intelligence or personality, or to knowledge or skills which are either not taught in
business schools, which are taught without success, or which are available through a
business education but are also available from other sources.
This does not mean that an Australian business school education is ineffective in all
areas. It may provide graduates with the scholastic or intellectual capital needed for
lower level management, the social capital (contacts and networks) which assist in
navigating the career ladder, personal cultural capital (prestige) and inner value capital CEO business
(confidence and self-understanding), and even market value capital (higher education
remuneration). It may even provide intercultural capital (a global mindset), ethical
capital, and developmental capital (responsiveness to change). But the set of
knowledge, skills, and personal characteristics needed for successful firm financial
leadership at CEO level may not be those taught or learned only in business schools.
This may be either good or bad news. It is potentially good news for those critics 471
who argue that MBA programmes create a “profit first” mentality and that this is
ethically wrong; at least in Australia, they do not appear to have successfully achieved
this end. It may be bad news for those who believe that firm financial performance is
important, and one which business schools should emphasize and attempt to develop
in their students.
A great deal of literature exists on the supposed deficits of business education and the
MBA (e.g. Bennis and O’Toole, 2005; Mintzberg, 2004; Pfeffer and Fong, 2002; Pfeffer,
2005). Given that many Australian business schools are accredited through AMBA,
EQUIS or AACSB, and that accreditation requires standardization of programmes, such
criticisms are as likely to apply to Australian MBAs and business courses as they are to
those in other countries. Many of these criticisms are based on the perceived “overly
scientific” nature of MBA programmes, and the lack of learning in the softer, “art”
elements of management and leadership. It is suggested an “ideal” MBA curriculum
contains multidisciplinary integration, experiential learning and soft-skill development,
has a global perspective and an information technology focus, and highlights ethics and
corporate social responsibility (Navarro, 2008), and that universities should change their
current programmes to include these elements (Clinebell and Clinebell, 2008).
However, it is unclear whether this current emphasis on soft skills, ethics and CSR
(Schlegelmilch and Thomas, 2011) will result in better financial outcomes for firms. It
may be that despite criticisms of business schools being too rigorous, they are teaching
the skills (and developing values) most appropriate for entry- (Clinebell and Clinebell,
2008) and middle-level jobs, and overlooking those content areas which are likely to
assist CEOs in achieving better firm financial performance. If so, business schools may
be losing their relevance; the economy is going through hard times. Will potential
CEOs who have the “soft” characteristics now emphasized be selected by Boards and,
if they are, be able to successfully steer their firms through difficult times?
With regard to the content of business school programmes, it also needs to be asked
whether school programmes should focus on core competencies needed by all who hold
managerial roles (as advocated by Rubin and Dierdorff, 2009), or whether such a silver
bullet approach is not appropriate. The business environment is complex, as are
organizations. The models of organizations taught in business schools cannot reflect the
“lived complexities” of management practice (Ford et al., 2010). There is no consensus
on the requisite body of knowledge for effective management. Managers also operate
at many levels, from supervisory to CEO. Adopting a “core competency” approach may
have at least three outcomes. The first is that programmes may be forced to focus on the
“lowest common denominator”, and not provide the finely nuanced assistance which one
would wish to be provided for participants with different experiences, qualifications,
knowledge, skills, achievements, career aspirations, interests and positions. The second is
that this approach does not differentiate business school offerings from those of other
providers, although the unique location of business schools within university settings
should allow high-quality inputs which cannot be duplicated by other providers. For
example, business schools could act as “intellectual hubs” with links to other university
ET social science departments (Samuelson, 2006). The third is that the core competency
55,4/5 approach inflates the potential influence of a business school education on business
performance. Little is certain. Organizations do not run according to universal laws, and
are suffused with context, interpretation, expectation, roles, temporality and
relationships (Jelinek et al., 2008). The best we may be able to do is to help students
“understand business and society as a complex, dynamic, and interdependent system
472 and to carefully explore theory, [and] use frameworks” (Samuelson, 2006, p. 357). A “core
competency” approach, with its implicit assumption of a core body of knowledge, seems
antithetical to this.
Moreover, who should make the decision about relevant course content? Whereas
some, such as Bennis and O’Toole (2005), Rubin and Dierdorff (2011) advocate business
practitioners taking a governance role in deciding business school course content and
strategy, others such as Fowler (2005) disagree, suggesting that business involvement
in education should be in the nature of a consultancy, in the same way that academics
consult to business, as employers do not have sufficient theoretical understanding to
determine educational strategy. Similarly, some have suggested that successful
managers should be brought in to teach into business schools (Hawawini, 2005) – but is
this appropriate? Can they not provide the same knowledge and skills from outside the
tertiary education system, leaving the business schools to carve out a niche market in
the scientific and theoretical dimensions of business? And do their presence in a
university compromise the status of business schools within the university and give
them vocational status (Trank and Rynes, 2003)? Such questions are practical, but they
are also value-laden. As Grey (2004) suggests, all judgements about what we teach and
what is worth studying are based on commitment to a normally unstated set of values.
Another explanation of the failure to find a relationship between firm financial
performance and CEO qualification is that, at its core, any educational programme is
about changing attitudes. One could argue that the teaching of economics or finance,
for example, is about “facts”. But as Kanter (2005) and critical management scholars
such as Grey (2004) remind us, students need to be receptive to the ideas promoted.
Attitudes are important, as they predict behaviour (see Hart et al. 2009, for a meta-
analysis of this area). The large amount of literature on attitude change suggests that
people seek out, and pay closer attention to, information which confirms existing
attitudes, and avoid information which might contradict these attitudes (Hart et al.,
2009). The stronger a person’s attitude on an issue, the more likely they are to select
attitude-congruent information (Brannon et al., 2007). Business school students are not
“blank slates” who absorb and reproduce the information given to them. As Kanter
(2005) says, scientific, analytic and econometric theories are difficult – but so are
people-oriented practices. Others have complained that MBA students are resistant to
learning generic skills (Rubin and Dierdorff, 2009), dislike people-focused coursework
(Rynes et al., 2003) and show a decline in engagement in the curricula over time (Datar
et al., 2010). This may be because the material presented is not consistent with already-
held attitudes about what is important, and the course material is not easy to
assimilate into existing cognitive schema. Perhaps it is too much to expect that the
material presented in MBA and other business courses will be automatically taken up
and influence the life-long behaviours of former graduates.
In addition, business schools do not have a mandate on management and executive
education. For example, in the USA approximately $50 billion per year is spent on
employee learning and development, of which approximately one-quarter is dedicated
to leadership development (O’Leonard, 2010). Knowledge and skills can be gained
through programmes run by other providers, including professional development CEO business
programmes within employing organizations. The current findings suggest that a education
university business education may not be providing a non-substitutable benefit to its
graduates. It needs to be asked whether there is value added by a MBA or other
business qualification above presentation of the same material in another setting. In
most commentaries on MBA and business education little consideration is given to the
alternative; that is, that the supposed deficits of MBA programmes may be filled by 473
alternative courses, programmes or development opportunities, and these do not need
to be offered by universities.

Conclusion
In this study we found no relationship between CEO education and firm financial
performance. Life, learning and business are complicated. It is perhaps not realistic
to assume that a business or other educational experience can change the attitudes,
values and behaviours of adult students, and provide them with knowledge which is
unavailable elsewhere and which will benefit them throughout their careers – just as
it is not realistic to blame business school teachings for the global financial crisis or
the failure of ethics in business. Perhaps we, as scholars, first need humility, and
should acknowledge that no matter how hard we try to teach the “right things” in the
“right way” we will not be able to have more than a superficial effect upon the lives
and actions of our students. Perhaps we are suffering from a “romance of business
school influence” that is similar to the “romance of leadership” mentioned above. We
are mostly working in environments in which business schools are seen as “cash
cows” for universities (Thomas and Wilson, 2011), and for strategic reasons the
potential positive outcomes of business qualifications are heavily marketed. But we
know students come to us with different levels of intelligence, motivation,
knowledge, skills and experience, and their career paths will be different once they
leave. We know that they need to be receptive to our teaching and have a certain level
of intelligence in order to learn, and that some want a credential more than they want
knowledge. We also know that despite our content knowledge, subject passion and
teaching innovations, our students do not learn all that we teach. Perhaps we should
therefore turn our hubris into humility, and accept that our influence is limited. For
some, the attainment of a business qualification can indicate the attainment of
knowledge and skills that will be career- or life-enhancing, or will lead to better
managerial performance. It may even lead to actions which benefit society. But we
cannot expect this as a consistent set of outcomes from all students. And, as this
research shows, at least in Australia there does not appear to be a relationship
between CEO business or other education and a firm’s financial performance.

References
Agle, B.R., Nagarajan, N.J., Sonnenfeld, J.A. and Srinivasan, D. (2006), “Does CEO charisma
matter? An empirical analysis of the relationships among organizational performance,
environmental uncertainty, and top management team perceptions of CEO charisma”,
Academy of Management Journal, Vol. 49 No. 1, pp. 161-174.
Almog-Bareket, G. (2011), “The missing component in MBA programs”, Management Decision,
Vol. 49 No. 10, pp. 1600-1611.
Aspect Huntley (2012), FinAnalysis, available at: www.aspecthuntley.com.au (accessed October 4, 2012).
Australian Business Deans Council (2011), The Future of Management Education in Australia,
Australian Business Deans Council, avaibale at: www.abdc.edu.au (accessed October 6, 2012).
ET Baruch, Y. (2009), “To MBA or not to MBA”, Career Development International, Vol. 14 No. 4,
pp. 388-406.
55,4/5
Baruch, Y. and Leeming, A. (2001), “The added value of MBA studies – graduates’ perceptions”,
Personnel Review, Vol. 30 No. 5, pp. 589-601.
Beaton, A.E. (1969), “Scaling criterion of questionnaire items”, Socio-Economic Planning Science,
Vol. 2 Nos 2/4, pp. 355-362.
474 Benjamin, B. and O’Reilly, C. (2011), “Becoming a leader: early career challenges faced by MBA
graduates”, Academy of Management Learning and Education, Vol. 10 No. 3, pp. 452-472.
Bennis, W. and O’Toole, J. (2005), “How business schools lost their way”, Harvard Business
Review, Vol. 83 No. 5, pp. 96-104.
B-HERT (2012), The Future of Management Education, Business/Higher Education Round Table
Report on Consultation Workshops, B-HERT, avaibale at: www.bhert.com/ (accessed
October 6, 2012).
Blair, R.C., Higgins, J.J. and Smitley, W.D.S. (1980), “On the relative power of the U and Jt-tests”,
British Journal of Mathematical and Statistical Psychology, Vol. 33 No. 1, pp. 114-120.
Bickerstaffe, G. and Ridgers, B. (2007), “Ranking of business schools”, Journal of Management
Development, Vol. 26 No. 1, pp. 61-66.
Blass, E. and Weight, P. (2005a), “The MBA is dead – part 1: god save the MBA!”, On The
Horizon, Vol. 13 No. 4, pp. 229-240.
Blass, E. and Weight, P. (2005b), “The MBA is dead – part 2: long live the MBL!”, On The
Horizon, Vol. 13 No. 4, pp. 241-248.
Boyatzis, R. and Renio, A. (1989), “Research article: the impact of an MBA program on
managerial abilities”, Journal of Management Development, Vol. 18 No. 5, pp. 25-39.
Boyatzis, R.E. and Saatcioglu, A. (2008), “A 20-year view of trying to develop emotional, social
and cognitive intelligence competencies in graduate management education”, Journal of
Management Development, Vol. 27 No. 1, pp. 92-108.
Brannon, L.A., Tagler, M.J. and Eagly, A.H. (2007), “The moderating role of attitude strength in
selective exposure to information”, Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, Vol. 43 No. 4,
pp. 611-617.
Camuffo, A., Gerli, F., Borgo, S. and Somia, T. (2009), “The effects of management education
on careers and compensation”, Journal of Management Development, Vol. 28 No. 9, pp. 839-858.
Carduso, A.R., Portela, M., Sa, C. and And Fernando, A. (2008), “Demand for higher education
programs: the impact of the Bologna process”, CESIfo Economic Studies, Vol. 54 No. 2,
pp. 229-247.
Clarke, T. (2008), “The business schools: 50 years on”, Education þ Training, Vol. 50 No. 1, pp. 52-54.
Clinebell, S.K. and Clinebell, J.M. (2008), “The tension in business education between academic
rigor and real-world relevance: the role of executive professors”, Academy of Management
Learning and Education, Vol. 7 No. 1, pp. 99-107.
Connolly, M. (2003), “The end of the MBA as we know it?”, Academy of Management Learning
and Education, Vol. 2 No. 4, pp. 365-367.
Currie, G., Knights, D. and Starkey, K. (2010), “Introduction: a post-crisis critical reflection on
business schools”, British Journal of Management, Vol. 21 No. S1, pp. S1-S5.
Cutler (2008), Venturous Australia: Building Strength in Innovation, Cutler and Company, Melbourne.
Datar, S.K., Garvin, D.A. and Cullen, P.G. (2010), Rethinking the MBA: Business Education at a
Crossroads, Harvard Business School Press, Boston, MA.
DEEWR (2010), “Full year student summary tables”, available at: www.deewr.gov.au/
HigherEducation/Publications/HEStatistics/Publications/Pages/2010StudentFullYear.aspx
(accessed October 2, 2012).
DFAT (2012), “The composition of Australian trade in services”, available at: www.dfat.gov.au/ CEO business
trade/negotiations/services/overview_trade_in_services.html
education
Evan, W. and Freeman, E. (1993), “A stakeholder theory of the modern corporation: Kantian
capitalism”, in Beauchamp, W. and Bowie, N. (Eds), Ethical Theory and Business, 3rd ed.,
Prentice Hall, NJ, Upper saddle River New Jersey, pp. 97-105.
Feldman, D. (2005), “The food’s no good and they don’t give us enough: reflections on Mintzberg’s
critique of MBA education”, Academy of Management Learning and Education, Vol. 4 475
No. 2, pp. 217-220.
Ferlie, E., McGivern, G. and De Moraes, A. (2010), “Developing a public interest school of
management”, British Journal of Management, Vol. 21 No. S1, pp. S60-S70.
Ford, J., Harding, N. and Learmonth, M. (2010), “Who is it that would make business schools
more critical? Critical reflections on critical management studies”, British Journal of
Management, Vol. 21 No. S1, pp. S71-S81.
Fowler, G. (2005), “Never mix business with education”, The Times Educational Supplement,
October 7, p. 4.
Freeman, E. (2009), “Managing for stakeholders”, in Beauchamp, W. and Bowie, N. (Eds), Ethical
Theory and Business, 8th ed., Pearson, NJ, pp. 56-68.
Ghoshal, S. (2005), “Bad management theories are destroying good management practices”,
Academy of Management Learning and Education, Vol. 4 No. 1, pp. 75-91.
Gocka, E.F. (1973), “Stepwise regression for mixed mode predictor variables”, Educational and
Psychological Measurement, Vol. 33 No. 3, pp. 319-325.
Gocka, E. (1974), “Coding for Correlation and Regression Educational and Psychological
measurement”, Vol. 34 No. 4, pp. 771-783.
Good Universities Guide (2012), “The MBA today”, available at: www.gooduniguide.com.au/
Postgraduate-Students/The-MBA/What-is-an-MBA (accessed October 1, 2012).
Gordon, R.A. and Howell, J.E. (1959), Higher Education for Business, Columbia University Press,
New York, NY.
Green, R., Agarwal, R., Van Reenen, J., Bloom, N., Mathews, J., Boedker, C., Samson, D., Gollan, P.,
Toner, P., Tan, H., Randhawa, K. and Brown, P. (2009), Management Matters in Australia –
Just how Productive Are We? Department of Innovation, Industry, Science and Research,
Canberra.
Grey, C. (2004), “Reinventing business schools: the contribution of critical management
education”, Academy of Management Learning and Education, Vol. 3 No. 2,
pp. 178-186.
Hall, R., Agarwal, R. and Green, R. (2012), The Future of Management Education Scoping Paper,
Australian Business Deans Council, available at: www.abdc.edu.au (accessed October 6,
2012).
Hambrick, D.C. (2007), “The field of management’s devotion to theory: too much of a good
thing?”, Academy of Management Journal, New York, NY, Vol. 50, pp. 1346-1352.
Hansen, M.T., Ibarra, H. and Peyer, U. (2010), “The Best performing CEO’s in the World”, Harvard
Business Review, Vol. 88 Nos 1/2, pp. 104-113.
Hart, W., Albarracı́n, D., Eagly, A.H., Brechan, I., Lindberg, M.J. and Merrill, L. (2009), “Feeling
validated versus being correct: a meta-analysis of selective exposure to information”,
Psychological Bulletin, Vol. 135 No. 4, pp. 555-588.
Haslam, S.A., Reicher, S.D. and Platow, M.J. (2010), The New Psychology of Leadership, Identity,
Influence and Power, Psychology Press, London.
Hay, A. and Hodgkinson, M. (2005), “Exploring MBA career success”, Career Development
International, Vol. 11 No. 2, pp. 108-124.
ET Hawawini, G. (2005), “The future of business schools”, Journal of Management Development,
Vol. 24 No. 9, pp. 770-782.
55,4/5
Jelinek, M., Romme, A.G. and Boland, R. (2008), “Organization studies as a science for design:
creating collaborative artifacts and research”, Organizational Studies, Vol. 20 No. 3,
pp. 317-329.
Kanter, R.M. (2005), “What theories do audiences want? Exploring the demand side”, Academy of
476 Management Learning and Education, Vol. 4 No. 1, pp. 93-95.
Karpin (1995), “Enterprising nation – report of the industry task force on leadership and
management skills, available at: www.voced.edu.au (accessed October 1, 2012).
Kretovics, M. (1999), “Assessing the MBA: what do students learn?”, Journal of Management
Development, Vol. 18 No. 2, pp. 125-136.
Lazonick, W. (2009), “The new economy business model and the crisis of US capitalism”, Capitalism
and Society, Vol. 4 No. 2, doi:10.2702/1932-0213.1054, available at: www.bepress.com/cas
Lazonick, W. (2010), “Innovative business models and varieties of capitalism: financialisation of
the US corporation”, Business History Review, Vol. 84 No. 4, pp. 675-702.
MacIntyre, S. and Selleck, R. (2003), A Short History of the University of Melbourne, Melbourne
University Press, Melbourne.
Masrani, S., Williams, A.P.O. and McKiernan, P. (2011), “Management education in the UK: the
roles of the British academy of management and the association of business schools”,
British Journal of Management, Vol. 22, pp. 382-400.
Meindl, J.R., Ehrlich, S.B. and Dukerich, J.M. (1985), “The romance of leadership”, Administrative
Science Quarterly, Vol. 30 No. 1, pp. 78-102.
Mintzberg, H. (2004), Managers Not MBAs, Prentice Hall, Harlow.
Navarro, P. (2008), “The MBA core curricula of top-ranked US business schools: a study in
failure?”, Academy of Management Learning and Education, Vol. 7 No. 1, pp. 108-123.
OECD (1994), Economic Surveys, OCED, Paris.
O’Brien, J.P., Drnevich, P.L., Crook, T.R. and Armstrong, C.E. (2010), “Does business school
research add economic value for students?”, Academy of Management Learning and
Education, Vol. 9 No. 4, pp. 638-651.
O’Leonard, K. (2010), The Corporate Learning Factbook: Statistics, Benchmarks, and Analysis of
the US Corporate Training Market, Bersin and Associates, available at: www.bersin.com
(accessed October 6, 2010).
Parnell, J.A., Dent, E.B., O’Regan, N. and Hughes, T. (2012), “Managing performance in a volatile
environment: contrasting perspectives on luck and causality”, British Journal of
Management, Vol. 23 No. S1, pp. S204-S228.
Pfeffer, J. (2005), “Mintzberg’s unasked question”, Organization Studies, Vol. 26 No. 7, pp. 1093-1094.
Pfeffer, J. and Fong, C.T. (2002), “The end of business schools? Less success than meets the eye”,
Academy of Management Learning and Education, Vol. 1 No. 1, pp. 78-95.
Pierson, F.C. (1959), The Education of American Businessmen: A Study of University-College
Programs in Business Education, McGraw Hill, New York, NY.
Podolny, J.M. (2009), “The buck stops (and starts) at business school”, Harvard Business Review,
Vol. 87 No. 6, pp. 62-67.
Porter, L.W. and McKibbin, L.E. (1988), Management Education and Development, McGraw Hill,
New York, NY.
Rubin, R.S. and Dierdorff, E.C. (2009), “How relevant is the MBA? Assessing the alignment of
required curricula and required managerial competencies”, Academy of Management
Learning and Education, Vol. 8 No. 2, pp. 208-224.
Rubin, R.S. and Dierdorff, E.C. (2011), “On the road to Abilene: time to manage agreement about CEO business
MBA curricular relevance”, Academy of Management Learning and Education, Vol. 11
No. 1, pp. 148-161. education
Rynes, S.L., Lawson, A.M. and Ilies, R. (2003), “Behavioral coursework in business education:
growing evidence of a legitimacy crisis”, Academy of Management Learning and
Education, Vol. 2 No. 3, pp. 269-283.
Samuelson, J. (2006), “The new rigor: beyond the right answer”, Academy of Management 477
Learning and Education, Vol. 5 No. 3, pp. 356-365.
Schlegelmilch, B.B. and Thomas, H. (2011), “The MBA in 2020: will there still be one?”, Journal of
Management Development, Vol. 30 No. 5, pp. 474-482.
Shipper, F. (1999), “A comparison of managerial skills of middle managers with MBAs, with
other masters’ and undergraduate degrees ten years after the porter and McKibbin
report”, Journal of Managerial Psychology, Vol. 14 No. 2, pp. 150-163.
Stout, L. (2012), The Shareholder Value Myth, Berrett-Koehler, New York, NY.
Shyns, B., Felfe, J. and Blank, H. (2007), “Is charisma hyper-romanticism? Empirical evidence
from new data and a meta-analysis”, Applied Psychology: An International Review, Vol. 56
No. 4, pp. 505-527.
Thomas, H. and Wilson, A.D. (2011), “ ‘Physics envy’, cognitive legitimacy or practical relevance:
dilemmas in the evolution of management research in the UK”, British Journal of
Management, Vol. 22 No. 4, pp. 443-456.
Trank, C.Q. and Rynes, S.L. (2003), “Who moved our cheese? Reclaiming professionalism in
business education”, Academy of Management Learning and Education, Vol. 2, pp. 189-205.
Williams, B. (2002), Liberal Education and Useful Knowledge: A Brief History of The University of
Sydney 1850-2000, University of Sydney, Sydney.

Further reading
Adler, N.J. and Harzing, A. (2009), “When knowledge wins: transcending the sense and nonsense
of academic rankings”, Academy of Management Learning and Education, Vol. 8 No. 1,
pp. 72-95.
Business Council of Australia (2011), Lifting the Quality of Teaching and Learning in Higher
Education, available at: www.bca.com.au/ (accessed October 1, 2012).
Glasman, L.R. and Albarracin, D. (2006), “Forming attitudes that predict future behaviour:
a meta-analysis of the attitude-behavior relation”, Psychological Bulletin, Vol. 132 No. 6,
pp. 778-822.
Montgomery, D.B. and Ramus, C.A. (2011), “Callibrating MBA job preferences for the 21st
century”, Academy of Management Learning and Education, Vol. 10 No. 1, pp. 9-26.
Neubaum, D.O., Pagell, M., Drexler, J.A., MeKee-Ryan, F.M. and Larson, E. (2009), “Business
education and its relationship to student personal moral philosophies and attitudes toward
profits: an empirical response to critics”, Academy of Management Learning and
Education, Vol. 8 No. 1, pp. 9-24.

Corresponding author
Margaret Lindorff can be contacted at: [email protected]

To purchase reprints of this article please e-mail: [email protected]

Or visit our web site for further details: www.emeraldinsight.com/reprints
Copyright of Education + Training is the property of Emerald Group Publishing Limited and
its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the
copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email
articles for individual use.