Which students cheat the most? Surprise! MBA students.

[NNadir]

Cheating and corruption make for a failed society, and we are seeing our culture fail as increasingly it relies on denial and fraud.

This business about business should hardly be surprising given the performance of our "MBA President" and his cronies, men of the ilk of the late Ken Lay.

Of course, cheating and fraud is sadly not limited to MBA's, but unsurprisingly the MBA pack leads the charge into disaster:

Careers
M.B.A.s: The Biggest Cheaters
MarketWatch
By Thomas Kostigen

Graduate business students take their cue from corporate scandals

The corporate scandals that have plagued Wall Street in recent history are setting a fine example for young students looking to make their mark in the business world: They are learning to cheat with the best of them.

Students seeking their masters of business administration degree admit cheating more than any other type of student, from law to liberal arts.

"We have found that graduate students in general are cheating at an alarming rate and business-school students are cheating even more than others," concludes a study by the Academy of Management Learning and Education of 5,300 students in the U.S. and Canada.

Many of these students reportedly believe cheating is an accepted practice in business. More than half (56%) of M.B.A. candidates say they cheated in the past year. For the study, cheating was defined as plagiarizing, copying other students' work and bringing prohibited materials into exams.

"To us that means that business-school faculty and administrators must do something, because doing nothing simply reinforces the belief that high levels of cheating are commonplace and acceptable," say the authors of the academy report, Donald McCabe of Rutgers University, Kenneth Butterfield of Washington State University and Linda Klebe Trevino at Penn State University.

http://biz.yahoo.com/weekend/mbacheat_1.html

[pitohui]

1. it just makes sense

getting an MBA is not about learning anything real, it is about jumping hoops, by comparison, if you are studying literature, science, history, there is a core of something real that you care about and actually wish to discover -- in those fields, cheating is just cheating yourself

by contrast, the ability to cheat is actually a plus for the MBA candidate, since surely part of the education has to be learning how far you can go and what you can get away with in the world of business

[sarge43]

2. Well, at least they learned something

We need a cynicism icon.

[wain]

3. Shoot, the top MBA schools hire ex-cons to teach!!

The Stanford University MBA program hired Michael Milken of the 80s junk bond scandal fame to be a guest lecturer soon after he got out of jail.

[querelle]

4. Well............I am an MBA

I wound up working in the public sector in the diplomatic corps. Don't ask how that happened. It just did it in a round about sort of way that involved a drunken bet. My education was excellent. I don't recall being taught how to cheat or to be corrupt. My favorite course was actually "Business Ethics."

Not all MBA's are Ken Lay style scumbags and I don't appreciate being painted with the same brush.

Q

[NNadir]

6. The article does not say that all MBA's are cheats.

Neither does it say that all chemistry majors are honest or that all people majoring in English Literature are honest.

Instead it speaks to rates of incidence, noting that this rate is highest for MBA's.

It is an element of critical thinking to make such distinctions.

From my perspective, the incidence of all cheating in all fields is too high. Dishonesty is a serious drain on our cultural, moral and economic well-being across all disiplines. If you misrepresent, eventually you fail.

That said, many of the MBA's I have known, but not all, have been more or less useless. In general they are not interested in the core business. From my perspective this is why pharmaceutical companies for instance are far more interested in "erectile dysfunction," than say, malaria. There are few things quite so bad as an MBA with a degree in history or economics running a scientific company. I've seen it too many times.

I'm sure you are a very fine person, but in general, I am deeply suspicious of the MBA culture.

[querelle]

14. Thank You

Your patronage is very much appreciated. I am an MBA and very proud of the fact. I am not a greedy businessman nor a nihilistic banker. I work for an NGO that promotes the removal of landmines all over the globe. I could have made major bucks going to work for any investment bank or international financial institution. I chose not to do that.

I love what I do and still have time to love the people in my life. Can you say thatgc

[barb162]

15. With all the grade inflation there is these days

I wonder why anyone has to cheat. Hell, you show up in class, that's a B.

I am an MBA and most MBAs don't cheat. I agree with you that MBAs shouldn't necessarily be running companies. HP comes to mind. It was better for the engineering types to run it. However, marketing types shouldn't be running companies either re your malaria example. I have met usless MBAs; I have worked for a few who spent their afternoons snoring. But I have also worked for non-MBAs who snored their afternoons away.

[YankeyMCC]

5. Amazing isn't it how

people will rail all day long that politicians are liars, but barely say a word about businessmen and CEO even as they go to jail.

Just like the same people complain about the government taking their money (via taxes) but have no complaints about corporations that sink to deception and other unfair practices to take their money.

[Xipe Totec]

7. This is actually a misleading statement

it is more accurate to say that MBA students are the ones that get CAUGHT cheating the most.

We will never know which students really cheat the most.

Doesn't say much about the smarts of the MBA students, does it?

[NNadir]

8. The method does not seem to involve being caught.

It involves confidential surveys.

[Xipe Totec]

9. A good cheater never confesses

he would lie on the survey too...

[NNadir]

12. The cheating MBA who told you that was trying to cheat you.

[TheBaldyMan]

10. they even have cheatey calculators, with single press buttons for 'complex' calculations

the dumb fucks don't have the mathematic skills to work out percentages (simple interest/compound interest/mortgage repayments) This wouldn't be a big deal if the halfwits weren't the 'financial geniuses' laying off almost half the workforce and squeezing the remaining workers so the company can post record profits.

When it comes to using spread sheets they can stick the numbers into the boxes but only a handful of them have the slightest clue how the numbers are crunched.

[barb162]

16. Certain schools shouldn;t be giving out MBAs

I know a well-regarded MBA program with a course called Finance where there is no math or formulae.

[TheBaldyMan]

19. Bush has an MBA from Harvard Business School ... need I say more ?

[barb162]

18. Well, he got in because of daddy and he got a pass on all his

classes for the same reason, IMHO. If his last name were Kowalski, he would have been flunked.

[querelle]

17. That Is Veryt Hurtful!

I am an MBA and I know how to use a spreadsheet! I don't have a secretary, or an assistant! Your assumptions are based on ignorance and a lack of education Therefore, I will give you a pass until you graduate from high school.

Q

[TheBaldyMan]

13. Dude, I know how to derive the equations of a Scholes-Black box

in fact I have read their original paper.

Do not presume that the sun shines out of anybody's backside because they have a few letters after their name. HRH Prince Charles somehow managed to get into Cambridge, you can try and tell me that he was accepted because of his sparkling intellect and he really deserved his first class honours degree but I will always maintain that he was given a free ride because he was the son of privilege.

The parallels between HRH and W are startling, both men have extremely rich and influential blue-blooded families. Both received degrees from distinguished universities despite an obvious lack of academic talent. You really think Harvard would fail one of its most fortunate sons ?

If MBAs were awarded solely on a merit basis, as I suspect your hard won MBA was, there would be no problem. Unfortunately there always has been advancement on the basis of connections, even at the cost of good money driving out bad. How many of the Pope's bastard sons made it to Cardinal ?

[swag]

11. MBAs nurture distribution channels for undergrad biz students' hard drug needs.

Capitalism: the Unknown Ideal!