Educating managers
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EDITORIAL
Educating managers The past few years have seen an ever-increasing concern about the need to educate managers in the UK. Compared with Germany, Japan and the USA, UK companies appear to provide considerably less training for their employees. I ncreased education and training of managers is an important way of increasing organizational performance, yet various surveys have found a disturbing level of complacency and ignorance about management training. There are, of course, some notable exceptions, but most firms are in need of considerable improvement. This is the worrying conclusion of David Hussey in his recent book, Management Training and Corporate Strategy, subtitled "How to improve competitive performance. Hussey's book describes research undertaken by Harbridge House Consulting Group to investigate the state of management education and training in the UK. lt also draws on a number of Government-sponsored surveys of management education and training. Hussey's theme is that management training and education can be a powerful tool to achieving competitive success. He argues that not only is British business failing to use training for this purpose, but that much of the resources devoted to management training are wasted, while the activity as a whole is under-resourced.
The MBA Two chapters of Hussey's book are directly concerned with the role played by educational institutions in educating managers. Not surprisingly, discussion is focused on the impact and perceived roles of the MBA. There is some interesting information here on the experience and motivations of MBA students, the business schools and company perceptions of the MBA. For example, many firms, particularly in the manufacturing sector, show little interest in
employing MBA graduates. This lack of interest may be interpreted as merely another symptom of a complacent attitude to management education. However, alternative explanations have more to do with the nature of MBA programmes and the nature of MBA graduates themselves. Ascher puts it like this:
"Some have argued thatpeople with MBAs are over-ambitious and overtly agressive, often relying on theoretical rather than practical approaches to problems, and thus provide a source of friction within the managerial ranks oflarge corporations. Others maintain that theproblem is one oftaioring business education to meetthe needs ofBritish industry, and suggest that the business schools are notproviding the appropriate training for effective performance in the UK commercial environment.' Undoubtedly, many MBAs are motivated primarily by prospects of financial gain. Salary expectations are high, and, because the supply of MBAs is limited, heavy demand from consulting and financial service firms means that such expectations are often justified. Other business sectors may find it difficult to compete in terms of salaries offered. However, Hussey argues that salary expectations of MBA graduates are often out of line with their own abilities, and that too few are sufficiently interested in workin
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