Even the most cursory perusal of this book will reveal that it deals with an industry that, if not actually in crisis, is certainly suffering from a bad case of existential angst. The industry in question is the education of managers and the subjects are business schools, the main purveyors of management education.

As this book attempts to explain, business schools are in the line of fire of many critics and stakeholders for many reasons. It is an odd position for them to be in. Business schools are in the main fairly august institutions that can trace their origins back a long way (many celebrated their centenary just a few years ago, though with remarkably little external fanfare).

So what are they allegedly doing so wrong? Well, according to their critics, just about everything.

For example, they are said to be far too driven (for an academic institution) by the need and the desire to make a profit. They are accused of pursuing a spurious academic rigour that leads to esoteric research that has little relevance to the real practice of management. Indeed, it is argued that attending a business school programme never actually made anyone a better manager. Some maintain that management is an art and not a science and is not even a profession since it has no widely accepted body of knowledge that has to be mastered, unlike in ‘real’ professions such as accounting, medicine and law.