A Devil's Advocate View Of MBA Rankings

Dennis Gioia, a professor at Penn State’s Smeal College of Business, admits that he both hates and loves rankings

DESPITE THEIR FLAWS, RANKINGS OFFER ‘SOME VERSION OF A FIRST APPROXIMATION TRUTH’

Third, the rankings have forced continuous improvement and frequent course and program redesigns (and modern MBA grads are better prepared to deal with technology and change than any generation that preceded them).

Fourth, the rankings have compelled B-schools to be more strategic (another ironic example, as we teach that stuff too)

Fifth, the rankings have forced everybody to benchmark everybody else, which has raised everbody’s games.

Sixth, rankings offer some version of a 1st-approximation “truth”. The rankings are not absurd. If they were absurd, most schools would ignore them. They don’t. As flawed and idiosyncratic as they might be, they nonetheless generate a rating (if not necessarily an accurate ranking) system of B-school programs.

CIRCE CAN PROVIDE SOME GREAT GIFTS

Seventh, rankings are useful to prospective students, who previously had to navigate a lot of cleverly managed translucency on the part of business schools. Coarse-grained as they might be, rankings usually focus on some important aspects of programs and program quality.

All these examples show that Circe can provide some great gifts. Those whom she favors – e.g., the top 20 – derive immense benefit from heeding her song (quality applicants, higher quality recruiting visits, alumni donations, etc.). Those she disfavors usually need to do some rethinking about their place in the pecking order and make some decisions about changes they might need to make.

John Byrne is here. Not sure what he will say “Stop your complaining!? It is what it is for a lot of reasonable reasons. Deal with it.”

DON’T MISS: CONFESSIONS OF A RANKINGS GURU or THE MOST RELIABLE AND VALID MBA RANKING?

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