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The reorientation of companies, driven by MBA conventional wisdom, into shareholder-centric, stock-price optimizing machines has come at the detriment of build

by ethbro 7y ago

The reorientation of companies, driven by MBA conventional wisdom, into shareholder-centric, stock-price optimizing machines has come at the detriment of building long term value and delivering better products to customers. Rebuttal? And let's center our conversation on the average MBA graduate. I'm sure there are schools with different approaches, but no true Scotsman doesn't seem like it would be productive.

airstrike 7y ago
> has come at the detriment of building long term value and delivering better products to customers. Sent from my iPhone
- ryanmercer 7y ago
  *Sent from my iPhone John Jones Smith III, MBA CSSGB/CSSBB BLT USA PB&J Office: 555-555-5555 Cell: 555-555-5556 Fax: 555-555-5557 Secretary: 555-555-5558 Random Latin Quote INSERT Professional head shot/INSERT Company Website INSERT Company logo /INSERT
jevgeni 7y ago
@airstrike is pretty on point, but here's some more. A private business is always shareholder centric. Anything else would be schizophrenic. Non-profits and government organisations are different, but thinking that people start a business NOT because they want to earn money is insane. What you are talking about is the agency problem where CEOs manipulate financials of a company to reach their bonus targets. That's only possible for public traded companies and it's a well-known problem in organisational behaviour. Thing is, there is no connection with an MBA degree. It would be great if people needed an MBA before they would be corrupted by power, but unfortunately it's not the case.
- clairity 7y ago
  yup, and further, the effects of the mba degree are washed out by larger order movements in the culture and the polity. like the cultural backlash that led to reagan and trickle-down economics. the lessening importance of agriculture, and labor migrating to cities. the emboldenment of the military-industrial complex. the export of manufacturing with the rise of globalization. the financialization of mortgage and insurance (especially health). these have all been driven (at least in part) by the chase for wealth, without regard to academic pedigree (or lack thereof). you'd be closer to the target if you pointed your finger at large financial institutions like goldman sachs and the world bank/IMF. but even these can't singularly explain the business and economic trends we've seen in the past 50 years, much less the "rise of the MBA".
- ethbro 7y ago
  By shareholder centric, I'm specifically referring to this: https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/maximizing-shareholder-value-the-goal-that-changed-corporate-america/2013/08/26/26e9ca8e-ed74-11e2-9008-61e94a7ea20d_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/maximizing-s... Tl;dr - Academic economic theories in the 1970s, as implemented by MBAs in the 1980s, represented a sea change in how a publicly listed company was expected to behave. Previously, it had been a balance (to taste) of "fairness", "return to workers", "social good", and "shareholder profit." Post, shareholder profit was weighted above all else. The argument was that this would result in better managed, more efficient, more productive companies. I'm not sure history has born that out...

by ethbro 7y ago

airstrike 7y ago

> has come at the detriment of building long term value and delivering better products to customers. Sent from my iPhone

ryanmercer 7y ago
*Sent from my iPhone John Jones Smith III, MBA CSSGB/CSSBB BLT USA PB&J Office: 555-555-5555 Cell: 555-555-5556 Fax: 555-555-5557 Secretary: 555-555-5558 Random Latin Quote INSERT Professional head shot/INSERT Company Website INSERT Company logo /INSERT

jevgeni 7y ago

@airstrike is pretty on point, but here's some more. A private business is always shareholder centric. Anything else would be schizophrenic. Non-profits and government organisations are different, but thinking that people start a business NOT because they want to earn money is insane. What you are talking about is the agency problem where CEOs manipulate financials of a company to reach their bonus targets. That's only possible for public traded companies and it's a well-known problem in organisational behaviour. Thing is, there is no connection with an MBA degree. It would be great if people needed an MBA before they would be corrupted by power, but unfortunately it's not the case.

clairity 7y ago
yup, and further, the effects of the mba degree are washed out by larger order movements in the culture and the polity. like the cultural backlash that led to reagan and trickle-down economics. the lessening importance of agriculture, and labor migrating to cities. the emboldenment of the military-industrial complex. the export of manufacturing with the rise of globalization. the financialization of mortgage and insurance (especially health). these have all been driven (at least in part) by the chase for wealth, without regard to academic pedigree (or lack thereof). you'd be closer to the target if you pointed your finger at large financial institutions like goldman sachs and the world bank/IMF. but even these can't singularly explain the business and economic trends we've seen in the past 50 years, much less the "rise of the MBA".
ethbro 7y ago
By shareholder centric, I'm specifically referring to this: https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/maximizing-shareholder-value-the-goal-that-changed-corporate-america/2013/08/26/26e9ca8e-ed74-11e2-9008-61e94a7ea20d_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/maximizing-s... Tl;dr - Academic economic theories in the 1970s, as implemented by MBAs in the 1980s, represented a sea change in how a publicly listed company was expected to behave. Previously, it had been a balance (to taste) of "fairness", "return to workers", "social good", and "shareholder profit." Post, shareholder profit was weighted above all else. The argument was that this would result in better managed, more efficient, more productive companies. I'm not sure history has born that out...