Question

8. Business schools have historically had syllabuses that, according to Willman (2014), are ‘opportunistic, eclectic, fragmented and derivative’.
Explain what Willman means by this statement.
Critically assess the value of such a syllabus for the business school student.

Answer 1

Historically Business schools had syllabuses that are ‘opportunistic, eclectic, fragmented and derivative’ as per Willman.

Willman means the following:

Opportunistic: Syllabus that caters to the management fads of the time and catering to the industries that are Syllabus at the time. For example during the dot com bubble, flourishing graduates were being taught about internet applications and how to exploit Internet in all aspects of management. While some of it was useful , it was also not long lasting from the point of view of managing if internet bubble burst (which it did), managing black swan events, or building long lasting company by focussing on culture, values, and systems and processes.

Eclectic: the syllabus of various subjects like economics, finance and organizational behaviour was drawn from too many sources which while being good from the point of view of learning various view points was also lacking in details of thought process.

fragmented: Drawing from the previous point since the syllabus covered various knowledge sources so they did not cover a topic in detail and briefly touched upon various topics which did not give indepth analysis of topics.

Derivative: Business schools were not teaching from the fundamentals or principles of business manage but the theories and tools derived from them which again can be applied only in certain situations and management students do not realize the assumptions behind those approaches and to see the fallacies when confronted with realities which are complicated.