Published online by Cambridge University Press: 06 March 2017
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.
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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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30 Sedlak and Williamson, Evolution of Management Education, 21–30.
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32 Ibid., 177.
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54 Cabot quoted in Andrews, University Management Development Programs, 20.
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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.
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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.