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Nothing Succeeds Like Failure: The Sad History of American Business Schools
Do business schools actually make good on their promises of "innovative," "outside-the-box" thinking to train business leaders who will put society ahead of money-making? Do they help society by making better business leaders? No, they don't, Steven Conn asserts, and what's more they never have.
In throwing down a gauntlet on the business of business schools, Conn's Nothing Succeeds Like Failure examines the frictions, conflicts, and contradictions at the heart of these enterprises and details the way business schools have failed to resolve them. Beginning with founding of the Wharton School in 1881, Conn measures these schools' aspirations against their actual accomplishments and tells the full and disappointing history of missed opportunities, unmet aspirations, and educational mistakes. Conn then poses a set of crucial questions about the role and function of American business schools. The results aren't pretty.
Posing a set of crucial questions about the function of American business schools, Nothing Succeeds Like Failure is pugnacious and controversial. Deeply researched and fun to read, Nothing Succeeds Like Failure argues that the impressive façades of business school buildings resemble nothing so much as collegiate versions of Oz. Conn pulls back the curtain to reveal a story of failure to meet the expectations of the public, their missions, their graduates, and their own lofty aspirations of producing moral and ethical business leaders.
280 pages, Kindle Edition
Published October 15, 2019
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
May 22, 2020
Conn looks at the central dilemma in the history of US business schools: by any typical academic standards, they've failed miserably - yet they've kept gaining in influence, power, and number of students majoring in it.
Conn notes that by the over the century-plus of their existence, business schools have justified their existence with a series of officially stated goals and standards - and haven't shown any ability to deliver on any of them. They initially spoke about showing how business can be good for individuals and society. Any social goals have been jettisoned since the rise of Milton Friedman's brand of economics. They've declared that they'll lead to innovation and better business ideas. They've never been a center of any innovation or new ideas. In fact, Conn points out how the schools historically trail behind events. They don't see crises coming before they hit (even when others do), and most frequently cheerlead the latest fads. Business schools have never really been able to articulate any sense of what a professional business education is supposed to be about, haven't been able to develop any clear body of knowledge. They claimed they were going to professionalize business the way that law and medicine were professionalized - but there is no clear standards for that as there is in law or medicine. Business schools tend to be places that discourage original thinking. They often see their flaws (such as not knowing what to do about the 1970s stag-flation or the 2008 Great Inflation) merely as marketing/image problems, not a sign that there is something fundamentally wrong with the schools themselves. There's a lot of self-satisfaction and complacency instead of intellectual girth.
Yet, Conn also notes, they've continually gained in popularity and power. Conn largely argues it's less that they're good at their job, and more a combination of greed and anxiety. Since the 1970s, people have been increasingly concerned of how to monetize their college education, and this major promises an easier path to getting hired. Even some businessmen who support business schools say it's more about networking there than anything you get out of classrooms.
Conn also argues that the current supremacy of business schools comes from their alignment with Wall Street and the finance industry. They've tied themselves to these institutions that are incredibly powerful - but also increasingly divorced from the rest of society. The entire nation has increasingly fallen under the influence of financialization - including higher education, which talks in the same language as investment bankers.
Conn generally does a good job making his points, but some parts are repetitious.
Conn notes that by the over the century-plus of their existence, business schools have justified their existence with a series of officially stated goals and standards - and haven't shown any ability to deliver on any of them. They initially spoke about showing how business can be good for individuals and society. Any social goals have been jettisoned since the rise of Milton Friedman's brand of economics. They've declared that they'll lead to innovation and better business ideas. They've never been a center of any innovation or new ideas. In fact, Conn points out how the schools historically trail behind events. They don't see crises coming before they hit (even when others do), and most frequently cheerlead the latest fads. Business schools have never really been able to articulate any sense of what a professional business education is supposed to be about, haven't been able to develop any clear body of knowledge. They claimed they were going to professionalize business the way that law and medicine were professionalized - but there is no clear standards for that as there is in law or medicine. Business schools tend to be places that discourage original thinking. They often see their flaws (such as not knowing what to do about the 1970s stag-flation or the 2008 Great Inflation) merely as marketing/image problems, not a sign that there is something fundamentally wrong with the schools themselves. There's a lot of self-satisfaction and complacency instead of intellectual girth.
Yet, Conn also notes, they've continually gained in popularity and power. Conn largely argues it's less that they're good at their job, and more a combination of greed and anxiety. Since the 1970s, people have been increasingly concerned of how to monetize their college education, and this major promises an easier path to getting hired. Even some businessmen who support business schools say it's more about networking there than anything you get out of classrooms.
Conn also argues that the current supremacy of business schools comes from their alignment with Wall Street and the finance industry. They've tied themselves to these institutions that are incredibly powerful - but also increasingly divorced from the rest of society. The entire nation has increasingly fallen under the influence of financialization - including higher education, which talks in the same language as investment bankers.
Conn generally does a good job making his points, but some parts are repetitious.
March 19, 2025
Nice history of business schools, their struggle to define what the curriculum should entail, and how they have never fulfilled their initial missions, but continue to thrive on campuses especially as the business of universities adopt more and more corporate structures.
May 7, 2025
Steven Conn, a history professor at Miami University of Ohio, takes the discarded furniture donated by the business school to the humanities departments as his prompt to write a critical history of business education in the United States. Business schools originated among the larger boom of higher education in the late 19th-century with the Wharton School at University of Pennsylvania in 1881 being the first. Conn's central questions throughout the work are whether business schools have ever been able to define their purpose, and if business schools serve a greater public good. (Spoiler: Conn makes it pretty clear throughout this book that the answer to both is "No!").
There's a seed of a good book here and I particularly found the historical details of how business schools first emerged and their spread over a century and a half to be interesting. Conn makes some good points comparing to business schools unfavorably to medical and law schools which actually provide a credential process and malpractice regulations for their fields that business lacks. The success of "self-made business men" tests the necessity of business schools since it's generally regarded as a positive in a way that a "self-made surgeon" would not. The book also explores the failure of business schools to create a consistent curriculum, the strained relationship of business with the discipline of economics, and how business schools have perpetuated business as a white man's field. Conn also cites the business school adoption of Milton Friedman's ethos of the primacy of shareholder value as key to major corporate scandals, recessions, and rise of right-wing populism.
There's a lot in this book that I agree with on the surface. But I also find that Conn's research feels incomplete. Conn dismisses the case study method of education out of hand saying it was simply borrowed from law schools but does no analysis of how it's actually used at business schools. In a chapter on how business schools respond to crises, he says they were largely indifferent and ineffective regarding the Great Depression, the post-war urban crisis, and the economic malaise of the 1970s. However, I know that Harvard Business School responded to World War II by completely retooling education to train military officers in statistics and logistics. It would be interesting to see whether or not Conn felt these wartime schools were a good response to a crisis, but he doesn't even mention them.
The gaps in research as well as the big chip Conn clearly has on his shoulder make this a lesser book than it could've been.
Favorite Passages:
There's a seed of a good book here and I particularly found the historical details of how business schools first emerged and their spread over a century and a half to be interesting. Conn makes some good points comparing to business schools unfavorably to medical and law schools which actually provide a credential process and malpractice regulations for their fields that business lacks. The success of "self-made business men" tests the necessity of business schools since it's generally regarded as a positive in a way that a "self-made surgeon" would not. The book also explores the failure of business schools to create a consistent curriculum, the strained relationship of business with the discipline of economics, and how business schools have perpetuated business as a white man's field. Conn also cites the business school adoption of Milton Friedman's ethos of the primacy of shareholder value as key to major corporate scandals, recessions, and rise of right-wing populism.
There's a lot in this book that I agree with on the surface. But I also find that Conn's research feels incomplete. Conn dismisses the case study method of education out of hand saying it was simply borrowed from law schools but does no analysis of how it's actually used at business schools. In a chapter on how business schools respond to crises, he says they were largely indifferent and ineffective regarding the Great Depression, the post-war urban crisis, and the economic malaise of the 1970s. However, I know that Harvard Business School responded to World War II by completely retooling education to train military officers in statistics and logistics. It would be interesting to see whether or not Conn felt these wartime schools were a good response to a crisis, but he doesn't even mention them.
The gaps in research as well as the big chip Conn clearly has on his shoulder make this a lesser book than it could've been.
Favorite Passages:
“Notice how many Americans think the nation’s economy ought to be run like an individual business (though one wonders which” and think that government ought to be run by businessmen (though one wonders who). Notice as well how many economists try to remind us that making a profit and managing an entire economy have little in common.”
“However much business schools preached – or agonized – about the importance of social responsibility in the private sector, the education on offer remained primarily designed to serve the needs of a business world where the profit motive reigned supreme.”
“U.S. business schools had little to say about the economic crisis of the 1970s, just as they had had little to offer during the Great Depression, just as they had little to offer to their own urban neighborhoods as many of those neighborhoods imploded. Even while the steel industry collapsed in Pittsburgh and automakers in Detroit found themselves looking at ruin, U.S. business education became a major export product. Across the twentieth century, business schools failed to anticipate crises, and they had little by way of solutions to them. But they did demonstrate an ability to turn these crises to their own advantage.”
“...the question business schools have avoided perhaps more than any other: Just how accountable should they be for the performance of their graduates?”
January 19, 2023
Interesting to learn the derivations from the late 1800s, how the US schools borrowed the research models from German institutions. Also the struggles to define the business profession and curriculum in the first 40 years of the last century. However today’s data driven, metric collecting, technical world of nuance, there may be use for study and the author comes across as a frustrated history professor in lieu of an advocate to studying our modern world’s complicated systems. I did enjoy the chapter on defining curriculum and the differing outlooks of economists versus business school deans. I good primer to learn some of the weak aspects of today’s business school models.
January 12, 2025
Conn argues that modern business schools struggle with their basic purpose on the same level they did when they were founded a century ago. Do they teach ABOUT American business? Or FOR American business? Are they a truly academic enterprise or merely a training ground for U.S. corporations? While he raises some interesting questions, I think it's also worth noting the role confirmation bias may play in the premise.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews