Cheating on the GMAT. It’s being called a “controversy.”
More like a RUSH, I’d say. Heck, isn’t that what it’s supposed to be about: Getting ahead by whatever means work best? How does cheating on your entrance exam in any way decrease shareholder value?
The bigger rush, though, i being able to cheat in your ethics class: now THAT’s Corporate Social Responsibility!
University of Chicago GSB treats us to a podcast with alum Brady Dougan, now the head of CSFB (Credit Suisse First Boston), giving a speech on how much change there is in banking — how the numbers of deals and complex deals and so on goes from eight in a year to eight in a finger snap. And he tells the students they should get into banking because it’s so exciting and they’ll see so much change.
Some of that change, of course, being that the grads who go to work for a major bank will get laid off and lose their jobs. Or go through the equal stress of having to lay off others. (Unless they’re trained not to stress out — as good MBA students are, of course, of course — because if all accrues to “shareholder value,” the economy grows and there are opportunities to trade the one job for another.)
Search for the Chicago GSB series on iTunes if you want to find it. Or, you can get it at this URL from the iTunes store (it’s free — you need iTunes software). Be prepared to also listen to Dougan drop the names of countries he’s been in the way some people drop the names of famous people they’ve dined with. Hard to say if it’s unassuming or trying to get all these GSB newbies to sign up for jobs at CSFB.
In the movie Trading Places the Eddie Murphy character catches on quickly to the concept of stock broking, likening it to bookies who make money off both ends. We’re led to believe by the popular press and a bunch of self-aggrandizing books that the highest value on Wall Street is creating value. Unh hunh. Then how come stock brokers make a fortune whether your money goes up or down? (Do they teach THAT in business school, that the best way to make a fortune is to collect fees off both sides?)
Why are so many professors in business school — training people to be capitalist captains of friggin’ industry — Lefties (as one prominent b-school prof confided to me).
How come we don’t see “Nudity as a Marketing Tool” as a course in every biz school catalog? When I was an exchange student in France, I remember seeing a TV ad with a naked woman who walked across the screen, and stood next to a TV that was supposed to be the must-have device of the day. Sex sells, and for some reason nudity seems to, too. (But would it in a culture where clothes are not the norm?) It’s not clear that seeing a naked woman would increase my desire for an electronic box, but someone clearly thought so.
People in various states of undress sell everything from TV to underwear to social causes. Why should getting undressed get so much attention? It just does. So nudity is a powerful weapon. Does anyone teach it, though?
