The Empire Builders: Power, Money, and Ethics Inside the Harvard Business School.

The Empire Builders: Power, Money, and Ethics Inside the Harvard Business School

In his book The Empire Builders: Power, Money, and Ethics Inside the Harvard Business School, J. Paul Mark asserts, "Those who care about the course of business scholarship in this country agree . . . that keeping Harvard Business School strong is in all our best interests" (p. 265). This is a dubious proposition, but it is the central one underlying The Empire Builders. Given this assumption, Mark (a former staffer at the Harvard Business School) has important things to say about academics as businessmen and the business of education as it is practiced at Harvard. He communicates his message through sketches of key personalities and lively anecdotes, and he also offers prescriptions for marginal change. Mark's criticism is only marginal, however, because of the assumptions of the self-importance of its subject. Mark's criticism is well-meaning and often well-aimed, but it fails to cut deeply because it is governed by a kind of reverence. Thus, what could have been a …