MBA Finance Education vs. Economic Crises

Since August 2007, the words like ‘Economic’, ‘Financial’ and ‘crisis’ manage to appear somehow in every business and finance related news printed in any English newspaper. High frequency of printing of these terms in newspapers interprets one thing very clearly that any sort of such crisis’s impact is pretty upsetting.

The history of indulging and then coming successfully out of economic or financial crisis of man is not new. Dealing with Panic of 1792 and seeing in eye to days like Black Monday and Black Wednesday are evidences to this fact. So why so much hype this time? One of the many reasons is a widespread effect of current crisis. The effect of this crisis is not only extensive but it’s also quite dissimilar in its consequences to earlier ones. Why so? Stagflation i.e. rising of inflation and unemployment is a characteristic of every economic crisis. Particularly when we talk about unemployment, during the existence of all the previous economic crises, the world has witnessed a simple harsh rule in this regard: the less skillful you are, the more chances of getting unemployed you hold. What different has happened in present economic crisis, makes it more cruel, as it has reversed the earlier rule and made it harsher. In this crisis, people who have been a cream for their organizations had to lose their jobs much earlier than their front-level colleagues. Significant portion of such cream comprised of people with MBA Finance degrees.
MBAs are people whose existence in any organization is not conditioned with bringing in business to that organization. They are facilitators and way-pavers, and are always and should be hired to sophisticate any organization’s business practices. Supposedly, they are never expected to play the role of front-line troops. While working at the back-end of organizations, they fully justify their jobs by making organizations a prominent part of success stories. Their roles have always been very effective, but unfortunately the start of financial crisis of 2007-to-present, has changed the priorities of top managements of businesses. The goal of any firm is no more to transform their business into a triumph; it has become to bring in the business first. Shift in business running precedence has led to a situation where MBAs have become vulnerable in defending their case.
Still worsening situation of unemployment has obviously created negative effects on business education; especially MBA Finance degree is under strong attack of criticism. The reasons could be endless, but one of them is attention-seeking one. Though MBA gives a lot to the person in the name of professional growth, but what it takes away from him or her, are ethics and social responsibility. Teaching and educational models of business schools are more directed towards making people inclined to achieve self-interests which puts a moral question mark at MBA Finance education.
Due to its inability to handle existing financial crisis well, some valuable amendments have been made in MBA curriculum. Courses like Business Ethics, Leadership, Corporate Social Responsibility, Teamwork and Risk Management have been introduced to enable MBAs to become partners with the society and work for a greater good. This suggests that, the effect of economic crisis on MBA pass outs might have been very negative, but its influence on MBA Finance education has been proved blessing in disguised, as business education has become more institutionalized by producing contributors of businesses and society at the same time.