The devil's advocate responds to an MBA student’s claim that research harms learning

Book review of Snapshots from hell by Peter Robinson. Published by Warner Books (New York), 1994. Comments Postprint version. Published in Journal of Marketing, published by the American Marketing Association, Volume 59, Issue 3, July 1995, pages 101-106. The author has asserted his/her right to include this material in ScholarlyCommons@Penn. This other is available at ScholarlyCommons: http://repository.upenn.edu/marketing_papers/27 This review is reprinted with permission from the Journal of Marketing, published by the American Marketing Association, J. Scott Armstrong, July 1995, Vol. 59, pp 101-106. Book Reviewed: Peter Robinson, Snapshots from Hell, New York: Warner Books, 1994. The Devil’s Advocate Responds to an MBA Student’s Claim that Research Harms Learning Snapshots from Hell describes a first-year student’s experience in the Stanford Master of Business Administration (MBA) program in 1989. Peter Robinson, formerly a speech writer for President Reagan, tells about his experiences in applying to business schools, living with other MBA students, taking courses, interacting with faculty, and interviewing for summer jobs. The experience was a hellish one for Robinson for a number of reasons. He found the transition from the White House to business school wrenching. He was, at first, quite lonely. And he was a poet (weak mathematically) which made him feel vulnerable in the quantitative courses. But Robinson also lays a degree of the blame for the uglier aspects of his business school experience on Stanford Business School and, in particular, on the faculty. Much of the teaching was mediocre, Robinson says, and some of it was appalling. The reason? Robinson suggests that the faculty was paying too much attention to research. Snapshots from Hell has been recommended for MBA applicants, alumni, and professors so that all can learn more about MBA students’ experiences. The book is well written. It compares favorably with One-L, Scott Turow’s 1977 book about his first year at Harvard Law School and Peter Cohen’s 1973 book about the Harvard Business School. This reply is shaped by my life as a former MBA student from Carnegie-Mellon and a professor who has taught MBA students for the last 27 years. I feel like one of Satan’s workers after reading Snapshots from Hell. What a person learns from this book will largely depend on that person’s assumptions about business schools. Of particular relevance are assumptions about the marketing concept: Who is the producer, who is the consumer, and whose needs are being served? Peter Robinson assumes that he is the consumer, professors are the producers, and the primary need is certification. These assumptions have been common in the redesign of business schools over the past two decades. They are also used in much of the research on education (e.g., Schneider et al. 1994). I first discuss the implications of these assumptions and then turn to my own assumptions, which are that the student is the pmducer as well as the consumer and the need is learning. My assumptions lead to different conclusions than thosc reached by Robinson. In short, I recommend that leading business schools emphasize what they do well, that is, research. The existing evidence suggests that, in addition to contributing to the common good, knowledge gained from research will also contribute to learning and will not harm students’ happiness. Faculty as Producers Robinson’s view seems to be that the professors are responsible for telling him what to do and ensuring that he does it. Learning is not an explicit goal. Nowhere does Robinson address the issue of what he wants to learn. All he knows is that the faculty are not capable of telling him what to learn. I imagine having the following conversation with Robinson: