The business of business schools

The number of MBA applicants fell 22% in 2012 [in the US] - the fourth consecutive year of decline. P. 29.

That is from this paper by Robert Simons (Capitalism and Society, January 2013). He argues:

Business school curriculums have increasingly downplayed the importance of competition in favor of extolling benevolence and virtue. P. 31.

From the abstract:

As business leaders worry about the decline of American competitiveness, business schools are responding by changing their curriculums. But are the topics and approaches taught in today's business schools part of the solution or part of the problem? In this paper, I explore the possibility that four trends in current MBA curriculums - theory creep, mission creep, doing well by doing good, and the quest for enlightenment - are teaching students to be uncompetitive in today's global markets. If this hypothesis is true, I argue that business school curriculums should be re-centered around the tough choices needed to compete - and to win.

[The influence of social-entrepreneurship?]