Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-dnltx Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-16T09:16:01.729Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Executive Education and the Managerial Revolution: The Birth of Executive Education at Harvard Business School

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 March 2017

Rolv Petter Amdam
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The managerial revolution drove the rise of business schools in the United States and business schools contributed by graduating professional managers. Before World War II, however, the effect of an MBA degree was modest, causing great concern to leading business schools. Harvard Business School—in order to increase this impact—began in the mid-1920s to develop nondegree programs for potential top executives. In 1945, by drawing on the experiences of certain short-lived programs and the extraordinary situation during the war, Harvard Business School launched its Advanced Management Program, which became a global role model for executive education.

Type
Research Article
Information
Business History Review , Volume 90 , Issue 4 , Winter 2016 , pp. 671 - 690
Copyright
Copyright © The President and Fellows of Harvard College 2017 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 See, e.g., Sedlak, Michael W. and Williamson, Harold F., The Evolution of Management Education: A History of the Northwestern University J. L. Kellogg Graduate School of Management, 1908–1983 (Urbana, Ill., 1983)Google Scholar; and Sass, Steven A., The Pragmatic Imagination: A History of the Wharton School, 1881–1981 (Philadelphia, 1982)Google Scholar.

2 Engwall, Lars, Mercury Meets Minerva: Business Studies and Higher Education—The Swedish Case (Oxford, 1992)Google Scholar.

3 Locke, Robert R., The End of the Practical Man: Entrepreneurship and Higher Education in Germany, France, and Great Britain, 1880–1940 (Greenwich, Conn., 1984)Google Scholar; Locke, Robert R., Management and Higher Education since 1940 (Cambridge, U.K., 1989)Google Scholar; Engwall, Lars and Zamagni, Vera, eds., Management Education in Historical Perspective (Manchester, U.K., 1998)Google Scholar; Amdam, Rolv Petter, “Business Education,” in The Oxford Handbook of Business History, ed. Jones, Geoffrey and Zeitlin, Jonathan (Oxford, 2008)Google Scholar.

4 Locke, Robert R., The Collapse of the American Mystique (Oxford, 1996), 26Google Scholar. See also Augier, Mie and March, James G., The Roots, Rituals, and Rhetorics of Change: North American Business Schools after the Second World War (Stanford, 2011)Google Scholar.

5 The first time “executive education” was used in a title of an article is, to our knowledge, in Sonnabent, Roger, “Executive Education,” Advanced Management—Office Executive 1, no. 9 (1962)Google Scholar.

6 On academic and experiential knowledge in business schools, see Augier and March, The Roots, Rituals, and Rhetorics of Change, 190–215.

7 See, e.g., Wilson, John F., The Manchester Experiment: A History of Manchester Business School, 1965–1990 (London, 1992)Google Scholar; Palmer, Tracey et al. , MIT Sloan: Celebrating Our Past, Inventing the Future (Cambridge, Mass., 2014)Google Scholar; Sedlak and Williamson, Evolution of Management Education; Sass, Pragmatic Imagination; Epstein, Sandra, Business at Berkeley: The History of the Haas School of Business (Berkeley, 2016)Google Scholar; and Cruikshank, Jeffrey L., A Delicate Experiment: The Harvard Business School 1908–1945 (Boston, 1987)Google Scholar. One exception is Kipping, Matthias, “The Hidden Business Schools: Management Training in Germany since 1945,” in Management Education in Historical Perspective, ed. Engwall, Lars and Zamagni, Vera (Manchester, U.K., 1998)Google Scholar.

8 To take one example, HBS's revenue in 2015 from executive education was $168 million, compared to $120 million from degree programs. Harvard Business School, “Statement of Activity & Cash Flows,” FY15 Financial Report, 8, http://www.hbs.edu/about/financialreport/2015/Documents/HBS-Financial-2015.pdf.

9 On the function of the MBA degree as a symbol, see, e.g., Vaara, Eero and Fay, Eric, “How Can a Bourdieusian Perspective Aid Analysis of MBA Education?” Academy of Management Learning and Education 10, no. 1 (2011): 27–39 Google Scholar.

10 On HBS's search for legitimacy, see Khurana, Rakesh, From Higher Aims to Hired Hands: The Social Transformation of American Business Schools and the Unfulfilled Promise of Management as a Profession (Princeton, 2007)Google Scholar, chap. 1.

11 Crotty, Philip T., Professional Education for Experienced Managers: A Comparison of the MBA and Executive Development Programs (Boston, 1970), 2Google Scholar.

12 Harvard Business School Bulletin, selected issues 1945–1970, Baker Library, Harvard Business School.

13 Palmer et al., MIT Sloan; Cruikshank, Delicate Experiment. The two HBS programs lasted for some years; the Sloan program still exists, but it changed from a nondegree executive program to a degree program in 1938.

14 It is a story of businessmen, as women were not accepted at HBS's AMP program until 1963.

15 Chandler, Alfred D. Jr., The Visible Hand: The Managerial Revolution in American Business (Cambridge, Mass., 1977)Google Scholar.

16 Berle, Adolf A. and Means, Gardiner C., The Modern Corporation and Private Property (New York, 1933)Google Scholar.

17 Whittington, Richard, “Introduction: Comparative Perspectives on the Managerial Revolution,” Business History 49, no. 4 (2007): 399CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

18 Chandler, Visible Hand, 467.

19 Khurana, Higher Aims to Hired Hands.

20 Galambos, Louis, “The Role of Professionals in the Chandler Paradigm,” Industrial and Corporate Change 19, no. 2 (2010): 386–87Google Scholar.

21 Sass, Pragmatic Imagination, chap. 5.

22 Copeland, Melvin T., And Mark an Era: The Story of the Harvard Business School (Boston, 1958), 21–27 Google Scholar, 42–46.

23 Galambos, “Role of Professionals,” 387.

24 Taussig, Frank W. and Joslyn, Carl S., American Business Leaders: A Study in Social Origins and Social Stratification (New York, 1932)Google Scholar. See also Friedman, Walter and Tedlow, Richard, “Statistical Portraits of American Business Elites: A Review Essay,” Business History 45, no. 4 (2003): 89–113 Google Scholar.

25 Friedman and Tedlow, “Statistical Portraits,” 95–99. See also Gordon, Robert A., Business Leadership in the Large Corporation (Washington, D.C., 1945)Google Scholar.

26 Newcomer, Mabel, The Big Business Executive: The Factors that Made Him, 1900–1950 (New York, 1955)Google Scholar, table 24.

27 Ibid. Newcomer's study was based on 284 executives in 214 corporations in 1900, and 319 executives in 238 corporations in 1925.

28 Daniel, Carter A., MBA: The First Century (Lewisburg, Pa., 1998), 71Google Scholar.

29 Knepper, Edwin G., History of Business Education in United States (Bowling Green, Ohio, 1941)Google Scholar, esp. 43; Michael Whitney Sedlak, “The Emergence and Development of Collegiate Business Education in the United States, 1881–1974” (PhD diss., Northwestern University, 1977).

30 Sedlak and Williamson, Evolution of Management Education, 21–30.

31 Khurana, Higher Aims to Hired Hands, 46.

32 Ibid., 177.

33 For example, Mayer, Michael and Whittington, Richard, “Euro-Elites: Top British, French and German Managers in the 1980s and 1990s,” European Management Journal 17, no. 4 (1999): 403–8Google Scholar; Locke, End of the Practical Man; Kvålshaugen, Ragnhild and Amdam, Rolv Petter, “Stability and Change in Managerial Elites: The Institution of Management Education in Norway from 1936 to 2009,” Management and Organizational History 9, no. 3 (2014): 272–87Google Scholar.

34 Crotty, Philip T. and Soule, Amy J., “Executive Education: Yesterday and Today, with a Look at Tomorrow,” Journal of Management Development 16, no. 1 (1997): 4–21 Google Scholar.

35 Sass, Pragmatic Imagination, 165.

36 Drucker, Peter F., “Executives Are Made Not Born,” Nation's Business 40, no. 10 (1952): 34–37 Google Scholar.

37 Galambos, Louis and Pratt, Joseph A., The Rise of the Corporate Commonwealth: U.S. Business and Public Policy in the Twentieth Century (New York, 1988)Google Scholar.

38 Crotty, Professional Education for Experienced Managers.

39 Harvard University, HBS Annual Report, 1933–1934, 175.

40 Copeland, Mark an Era, 328.

41 Clinton P. Biddle, assistant dean, letter to firms, 30 Jan. 1928, Summer School: 1928–1930, Executive Education Printed Material, HBS Archives, Baker Library, Harvard Business School (hereafter, HBS/EEPM).

42 Harvard Business School Bulletin 13, no. 3 (May 1937): 234Google Scholar.

43 Draft for dean's report, 25 Sept. 1928, Special Session for Business Executives—1928, HBS/EEPM.

44 Harvard Business School Bulletin, May 1937, 234.

45 John C. Baker, assistant dean, letter to companies, n.d. [1931], Special Summer Session for Business Executives, Course Outlook etc. 1931, Malcom P. McNair Papers, HBS Archives, Baker Library, Harvard Business School (hereafter HBS/McNair).

46 Catalogue 1930, Special Sessions, HBS/EEPM.

47 Andrews, Kenneth R., The Effectiveness of University Management Development Programs (Boston, 1966), 17Google Scholar.

48 Catalogue 1936, Special Sessions, HBS/EEPM.

49 Andrews, University Management Development Programs, 17.

50 Palmer et al., MIT Sloan.

51 Obituary, “Philip Cabot,” Bulletin of the Business Historical Society 16, no. 3 (1942)Google Scholar.

52 W. B. Donham to Charles D. Jackson, 2 Dec. 1927, Summer Sessions: 1927, 1928, Philip Cabot Papers, HBS Archives, Baker Library, Harvard Business School (hereafter, HBS/Cabot).

53 Harvard Business School Bulletin 11, no. 2 (Feb. 1935): 114Google Scholar. See also Cruikshank, Delicate Experiment, 187–90.

54 Cabot quoted in Andrews, University Management Development Programs, 20.

55 Monthly Discussion Group Meeting, notes dated 16–17 Feb. 1935, Apr. 1935, Apr. 1936, and Dec. 1936, Business Group, HBS/Cabot.

56 Cabot to Mr. Conant, 3 Dec. 1934, Business Men's Group: Jan. to Apr. 1935, HBS/Cabot.

57 Note, 13 Sept. 1938, General Motors Corp. Talk to Executives, HBS/Cabot.

58 Barnard, Chester I., The Functions of the Executive (Cambridge, Mass., 1938), 7Google Scholar.

59 Ibid., 8.

60 Smith, Robert M., The American Business System and the Theory and Practice of Social Science: The Case of Harvard Business School, 1924–1945 (New York, 1986)Google Scholar; Roethlisberger, Fritz J., The Elusive Phenomena: An Autobiographical Account of My Work in the Field of Organizational Behavior at the Harvard Business School (Boston, 1977)Google Scholar.

61 Roethlisberger, Elusive Phenomena, 86–87.

62 Smith, American Business System, 223–37.

63 Parvin M. Russel to Cabot, 19 Dec. 1939, 1939–40 Business Executive Discussion Group Speakers, HBS/Cabot.

64 Cabot to E. Farrington Abbot, 23 Jan. 1941, Correspondence A: 1941, HBS/Cabot.

65 Cabot to John F. Foster, 9 Dec. 1940, Letters re: New Group 1941, HBS/Cabot.

66 Cabot to Albert M. Chandler, 10 Apr. 1941, and Albert M. Chandler to Cabot, 8 Apr. 1941, Correspondence C: 1940–41, HBS/Cabot.

67 Khurana, Higher Aims to Hired Hands, 198–201.

68 Harvard University, HBS annual reports 1943–1945.

69 Donald K. David, “Speech, Petroleum Club, Dallas, Tex., March 1943,” Petroleum and Executive Speech, Donald K. David Papers, HBS Archives, Baker Library, Harvard Business School (hereafter, HBS/David).

70 Harvard University, HBS Annual Report, 1944–1945, 212.

71 Khurana, Higher Aims to Hired Hands, 198.

72 Cruikshank, Delicate Experiment, 209–13, 223–63.

73 Harvard University, HBS Annual Report, 1940–1941, 239–50.

74 Harvard University, HBS Annual Report, 1941–1942.

75 Harvard University, HBS Annual Report, 1942–1943, 173–89.

76 Donald K. David, speech, ACSB meeting, Chicago, 27–29 Apr. 1944, American Collegiate Schools of Business Meeting, HBS/David; see also Donald K. David, speech, Education for Full Employment, Alumni Club, May 1945, HBS/David.

77 Harvard University, HBS Annual Report, 1943–1944, 207–8.

78 “War Production Retraining Course, Announcement for the course starting February 1, 1943,” War Production/Industry Training, HBS/EEPM.

79 Roethlisberger, Elusive Phenomena, 110–11.

80 Brochure, “Announcing the Eighth Session Advanced Management Program; September 19 to December 19, 1945,” HBS/EEPM.

81 Harvard University, HBS Annual Report, 1944–1945, 215.

82 “Announcing the Eighth Session Advanced Management Program; September 19 to December 19, 1945,” HBS/EEMP.

83 Stettinius, Edward R. Jr., “The Selection and Development of Executives in American Industry,” Harvard Business School Bulletin 12, no. 1 (1936): 50Google Scholar.

84 Winton Alva Scott, “The Need for a Basic Approach in Executive Development” (master's thesis, University of Texas, 1957).

85 Sedlak and Williamson, Evolution of Management Education, 163.

86 Drucker, “Executives Are Made,” 34.

87 Locke, Management and Higher Education.