Ethics Playing Roll in B-school Rankings

The Wall Street Journal published its WSJ/Harris Interactive Business School Year 7 Survey yesterday. The survey was based on the opinions and behaviors of 4,430 MBA recruiters who hire full-time business school graduates. Based on the perception of the recruiters, it seems that ethics is playing a big role in determining the ranking of a business school.

Dartmouth College's Tuck School of Business has risen to the top of the national ranking pushing University of Michigan's' Ross School from number one to number seven. Why? "When asked which schools' graduates demonstrate strong ethics standards, recruiters named Dartmouth most often, followed closely by Brigham Young," writes the Wall Street Journal. Dartmouth students embodied the values of teamwork, personal integrity, communication skills, and a good work ethic.

Meanwhile, Michigan has fallen several places because, "More Michigan students are demonstrating a, 'what's in it for me attitude' attitude than in the past." Fortunately for society, I guess Gordon Gekko is no longer the roll model. NYU Sloan School students were also praised for being team players and collaborators. Moreover, one of the factors putting the search for talent into overdrive is that younger people want to work for a company with a good image.

Two schools that did well are grappling with difficult issues like ethics in business in their curricula--Yale School of Management and the London Business School, which was profiled recently on its ethics coverage in the Wall Street Journal in an interview with a London Business School scholar. Yale moved from number nine to eight in the national rankings, while London moved from four to three in the international rankings. Yale's slogan is "educating leaders for business and society."

From Hybrid SUVs to Hybrid MBAs

All the world loves greener, more socially-responsible hybrids.

Now Harvard Business School is following an emerging trend among graduate schools of offering a hybrid degree incorporating parts of an MBA with a public affairs degree--to prepare students for careers in the ever-overlapping private, public, and nonprofit sectors. The Harvard degree will launch in 2008.

The Fletcher School at Tufts earlier launched its Master of International Business (MIB) as another public-private-nonprofit degree:

"How is the Fletcher MIB different from an MBA?

The Fletcher MIB is a hybrid international business/international relations degree. It was founded on the principle that business professionals today must be well-versed not only in business management and strategy but also the complex reality of external governmental, legal, social, and environmental factors that influence business."

Johns Hopkins SAIS and University of Pennsylvania Wharton School have for 20 years offered a dual MA-MBA degree to prepare students "to lead in today’s globalized environment, in which both managerial acumen and international comprehension are essential, and in which knowledge of both business and public policy are vital for success."

The premise behind these initiatives is that the world's problems encompass all sectors. Harvard's Kennedy School Dean David Ellwood put it this way:

"Every interesting public problem in the world today crosses the boundary between business and government. Frankly, I think that for too long there have not been enough connections."