Harvard Business School Mumbo Jumbo

Bob Lutz, Contributor
I'm a car guy, and that's (mostly) what I write about.
A UTO S | 6/20/2012 @ 4:01PM | 671 views
Harvard Business School Mumbo
Jumbo
In my book, “Car guys Vs. Bean
Counters,” I devote an entire chapter
to the deliberate and largely useless
intellectualizing of business, foisted
on America by the nation’s famous
business schools. Using selfdeveloped pseudo-scientific jargon,
these learned Ph.D.s in business
manage to repackage the most glaring
examples of common sense and the
obvious in so much math and
psychology mumbo jumbo that the
uninitiated are actually, if only
temporarily, fooled into thinking that
something profound is going on.
My radar is ever scanning for examples.
Imagine my joy when it locked onto this promo piece for a paper published by
Harvard Business School:
“
A new research paper, Competition and Illicit Quality, suggests that many organizations in
highly competitive markets are likely to bend the rules if doing so will keep their customers
from leaving for a rival firm.
Competition is generally thought to be good for economies because it keeps prices low and
quality high. But when meeting customer demand is bad for society at large, then
competition has a flip side,” says Victor Bennett, an assistant professor at the USC Marshall
School of Business, who cowrote the paper with Lamar Pierce of Washington University Olin
Business School, Jason A. Snyder of the UCLA Anderson School, and Michael W. Toffel of
Harvard Business School.
What a paper this must be! What a blinding flash of revelation the conclusion
brings! How unbelievably insightful the laser-like intelligence of the authors!
Thanks to their keen analytical skills, they have unearthed the business
equivalent of one of nature’s primordial laws:
“Too much of a good thing can be harmful.”
Whoa! I never knew it could apply to business or competition!
Let’s see if there any other areas for potential academic bombshells:
Stuff like: “New Study Shows too much Oxygen can be Harmful! A paper by a
group of esteemed scientists points to the possible dangers of oxygen. The
substance, while vital to all life, can, if inhaled in pure form by humans, cause
dizziness, disorientation and even unconsciousness.”
Or: “Leading nutritionists warn of food danger. Food, long believed to be vital
to sustaining life, may also have a darker side, according to a recently released
study. While food is generally thought to be beneficial, the authors maintain
that, if eaten to excess, food can actually be harmful, causing such healthrobbing problems as acid reflux, obesity, diabetic syndrome, lack of mobility
and, in extreme cases, cancer, cardio-vascular disease or even death.”
“Excessive rain can cause flooding, scientists warn.”
“Long-haired cats prone to shedding, new study finds.”
Come on, guys! This isn’t what your parents thought you’d do with your
expensive education. Find something real.
Solve the euro crisis. Eliminate insider trading. Do a study on whether
recycling plastic bottles is worth the effort.
Anything but conventional wisdom fraudulently misrepresented as new and
profound knowledge.
This article is available online at:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/boblutz/2012/06/20/harvard-b-school-mumbo-jumbo/