In 1907 Charles W. Eliot, president of Harvard University, addressed the institution's general education board in an attempt to obtain funds for establishing a business school, arguing that such a school ‘would soon demonstrate a great capacity for public usefulness’. Others warmed to this theme, and justified the case for the new initiative in terms of ‘public service and business’. The rest is history. Today, Harvard Business School is a very prestigious part of what most consider the world's leading university, and regularly tops the league tables. It espouses a trifold mission: to train able men and women to become competent and responsible general managers; to prepare doctoral students for careers in teaching and research or in academic administration; and to contribute to the body of knowledge about management and business through leading-edge research.

Eliot is credited with the modernisation of Harvard during his four decades in office, and the creation of the business school was an important component of this process. Whether the Harvard school or, indeed, any other has fulfilled Eliot's ambition concerning ‘public usefulness’ is still very much open to question, however. Our previous chapters have demonstrated that – as the critics suggest – the business school business is by no means all sweetness and light. In particular, we have shown that

• business schools are currently experiencing extreme institutional pressures (with hyper-competition an unwelcome and unforgiving fact);

• business school teaching is, to some extent, flawed, ossified around a limited and somewhat partisan model of capitalism;

• […]