Rethinking the MBA

Srikant M. Datar, David A. Garvin and Patrick G. Cullen examine the state of the master of business administration (MBA) degree, touching on the nature of education, on higher education as an institution and a culture, and on the conceptual and practical demands business places on education and on its employees.

As the public’s expectations of business leaders have risen, so, too, have the accompanying calls for broadening the scope of business training.Srikant M. Datar, David A. Garvin, Patrick G. Cullen

This worthwhile, detailed report, though a bit dry, offers an excellent overview of MBA programs in 2010, the year of the book’s publication, and it offers some lessons for the future. The authors shared an inside perspective from positions at the Harvard Business School: Datar, now dean of the school, was and still is the Arthur Lowes Dickinson Professor of Accounting. The late David A. Garvin was the C. Roland Christensen Professor of Business Administration, and Patrick G. Cullen was a research associate.