Busisiwe Raphuthing, MBA participant and Stellenbosch Business School winner of the CoBS 2023 student CSR article competition, uses her background in medical studies to highlight a very real paradox to address – that of business schools’ good intentions to produce leaders to reduce inequalities, while using pricing policies that allow only the wealthier to access studies.
Business schools: Intentionally but Mistakenly Unequal by Busisiwe Raphuthing.
“Common things occur commonly” – famous words from the mouths of senior medical doctors to the ears of naïve medical students. Medical school graduates may be permitted to forget many concepts, but this is one of those non-negotiable lessons that were imparted unto us and are to be kept in our memories forever.
Present a patient with pathology as a case to a group of students and allow them to ask leading questions, probe strategically and test their analytical and problem-solving skills by evaluating if and how they arrive at a particular diagnosis – do this often enough and you will find an inherent flaw in most of these young, intelligent minds and that is the failure to identify the most common problem!
This is a blind spot which is prevalent in more of us than we dare to admit, and its footprints have found a way into our immediate environment, leading us to misdiagnose and mismanage the inequality that plagues the social, economic, cultural, and educational environments which we are inhabitants of.
The self-perpetuating plague
Business schools have gained the reputation of being the place where responsible leaders are “made”, almost like a uterus – if one were to liken it to the human body. The nature of this expectation is an honourable one and appreciated by society, similar to how mothers are celebrated as life-giving people. In the real world – specifically in the marketplace – there is an expectation that such schools would showcase an annual emergence of graduates and future leaders who are thoroughly equipped to branch out into society and implement long awaited solutions to global challenges.
Unfortunately, business schools have found themselves as a topic of debate as critics have suggested that they do not successfully create competencies which are critical for future leaders to possess (Lloyd, 2015). According to Lloyd, business schools have failed at linking the theoretical aspects of education to the practical implications and applications thereof, focusing on subjects for the sake of theory without translating this into practice, be it in the workplace or in society – where they are actually needed (2015).
Business schools have mastered the art of developing modules which address the failing sectors in society as well as providing students with well researched methodologies on how to tackle social, economic, and environmental challenges in their own environments as well on a global level. But after all of these advances in higher education and business in society as a whole, we still live in a world that is plagued with inequality to such an extent that this unfortunate state of imbalance has become normal to us.
As society and particularly as academic institutions, at what point did we convince ourselves through our modules, programmes, publications, and international ratings that we have done the utmost best to eliminate the plague of inequality? Business schools have created healthcare leadership programmes to equip future leaders to fight inequality to healthcare access; business in society modules to tackle the climate breakdown agenda; leadership programmes to hand out tools for those who will address gender-based violence and other similar displays of inequality – but have we realised that despite these efforts inequality still continues to reinforce itself at a rate that is concerning to businesses in our societies?
Masking the symptoms or treating the cause?
One of the most important skills young medical graduates learn in medical school is the process of how to identify a list of possible diagnoses when attending to a patient who is ill. It goes without saying, that a doctor cannot prescribe the correct intervention for a patient and thus relieve them from their long suffering if the cause has not been identified – there has to be an identifiable diagnosis in order for an appropriate cure to be administered. When it comes to matters of inequality, business schools have attempted to play their part in solving this through programmes which we agree are exceptional – however if one would care to zoom in closer while asking some key questions, the mystery of persistent inequality despite constant surges of graduates into the economic sectors would be solved.
Higher education has been viewed as the key to unlocking a better future for one, a status in society which is comparably higher than that of one’s predecessors (Brown, 2018). However, as Brown points out, these universities have become a place where socio-economic status is a factor in the acceptance of a student in the methods of selective entry (2018). It is known to many that business schools being the elite institutes of higher education charge tuition fees which are not affordable to the same individuals in society whom it is claimed require deliverance from the disadvantages they face due to inequality. How is it possible then, that programmes in such institutions are prepared with so much due diligence yet they miss that they are simply an example of those who offer the correct teachings, but they teach it to the wrong audience? One would argue that the efforts may in fact be incorrectly directed and the sense of having contributed toward social responsibility emanating from this is only but an illusion.
Business schools have actually seemingly inherited the agenda of attempting to uproot inequality while unsuspectingly perpetuating the spread of this plague. Has it become an acceptable reality, that unless one has the financial means to finance their own business degree, they will remain a victim of the imbalance of access to opportunities seen in the marketplace? Business schools have increased the costs of higher education as a response to economic insults and in this process, they have created a vicious cycle that reinforces the very same problem which they have pledged to solve.
Level the playing ground
The topic of inequality has to be carried with a different approach in business schools going forwards, and this begins with the transformation of the mindset of the very lecturers, academics, and managers at these institutions. This is not a lecture to be allocated two hours within a leadership module, but rather a cry for change that needs to take place beginning at the core. Many elite business schools display a lack of transformational intentions in their recruitment processes, having employed lecturers and senior management who do not display an equal proportion of Black individuals.
This unfortunately creates the assumption that those who are Black and previously disadvantaged, yet managed to obtain academic credentials, are still not as widely considered for influential positions as compared to their white counterparts. Some business schools have made efforts to incorporate more Black guest lecturers; however, this addresses the superficial symptoms of inequality and does nothing else to solve it in the long run.
Business school tuition fees are extremely expensive, and this communicates a silent, closed-door policy stating that such places of education are not for the individual who has managed to complete their undergraduate degree, living in an informal settlement with poor sanitation, depending on public transport and carrying the responsibility of looking after seven unemployed family members financially on one average income.
Mirror, mirror… on the lecture hall
Business schools applaud themselves when they successfully send large numbers of graduates out into the big world, with weapons to fight poverty, inequality, and many other social and economic injustices. Yet they continue to prepare, groom, and celebrate those who were financially healthy enough in the first place to afford a place in their institution of learning. Taking into consideration all that has been explored, it seems that when it comes to the topic of inequality, business schools have become a forceful, influential, and powerful tool to multiply, highlight and intellectually advance pre-existing inequalities in our society.
References:
> Roger Brown (2018) Higher education and inequality, Perspectives: Policy and Practice in Higher Education, 22:2, 37-43, DOI: 10.1080/13603108.2017.1375442
> Lloyd, A. (2015, The 50+20 agenda: Fulfilling the needs of business students. Global Focus, 9, 56-59. Retrieved from http://ez.sun.ac.za/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/magazines/50-20-agenda-fulfilling-needs-business-students/docview/1761065307/se-2.
Useful links:
- Link up with Busisiwe Raphuthing on LinkedIn
- Read a related post: The making of a good business school – distinguishing purpose from profit
- Discover Stellenbosch Business School
- Apply for the Stellenbosch MBA.
Learn more about the Council on Business & Society
The Council on Business & Society (The CoBS), visionary in its conception and purpose, was created in 2011, and is dedicated to promoting responsible leadership and tackling issues at the crossroads of business and society including sustainability, diversity, ethical leadership and the place responsible business has to play in contributing to the common good.
Member schools are all “Triple Crown” accredited AACSB, EQUIS and AMBA and leaders in their respective countries.
- ESSEC Business School, France-Singapore-Morocco
- FGV-EAESP, Brazil
- School of Management Fudan University, China
- IE Business School, Spain
- Keio Business School, Japan
- Smith School of Business, Canada
- Stellenbosch Business School, South Africa
- Trinity Business School, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland
- Warwick Business School, United Kingdom.
