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Professor Ken Starkey speaks at AMBA Oxford Business Debate
23/09/2009

Oxford Business Debate 2009

The current economic and financial crisis has not done the reputation of MBA programmes much good – to put it mildly!

Many of the world’s most famous financiers and business people have MBAs from the most prestigious schools. And, the lay person might ask, what good has that done us?

So, is the global downturn, exacerbated by the credit crunch, all the ‘fault’ of MBA courses? If so, is it all MBA courses, or just some of them? And are the business schools tweaking their courses to respond to this sort of criticism?

The topic for the Association of MBAs (AMBA) regular business debate this year is –

‘This House believes that MBAs are best placed to lead us out of the financial crisis.’

Four speakers, two to propose the motion, and two to oppose it, will be drawn from business, journalism and academia.

The debate is being hosted by Said Business School in the Nelson Mandela Hall on 15th October 2009, starting at 6.30pm for buffet/networking followed by the debate itself at 7.30pm.

Two senior academics have signed up as speakers at the Association of MBAs Business Debate to give the academic perspective on the topic:

They are the Dean and Professor of Management Studies at Said Business School, Professor Colin Mayer and Ken Starkey of Nottingham University Business School. They will debate their view on whether the global downturn and credit crunch can be in some way attributed to MBA courses.

Mayer has been at the Saïd Business School since its inception in 1994 and was its first professor – the Peter Moores Professor of Management Studies. He has built an international reputation in the field of finance and has published widely on corporate finance, taxation and governance.

He has served on the editorial boards of several leading academic journals. He has held visiting fellowships at Stanford, MIT and Brussels University (ULB), where he was the first Leo Goldschmidt Visiting Professor of Corporate Governance. He is a Fellow of the European Corporate Governance Institute and an Honorary Fellow of St Anne’s College, Oxford.

Opposing him is Ken Starkey, the Professor of Management and Organisational Learning at Nottingham University Business School. Ken is the author of 12 books and numerous academic papers, a Fellow of the Sunningdale Institute of the National School of Government, a Fellow of the British Academy of Management, and author of reports on the future of management research and management education.

He has written a number of papers and provocations on the role of the business school and his most recent book is The Business School and the Bottom Line.

Also speaking for the motion will be Phil Walker, the COO from Cap Gemini. Phil has a wide variety of experience in business as well of employing MBAs in lots of consultancy and business roles so he has a lot of knowledge in this area.

This event is organised by AMBA.
To register
http://www.mbaworld.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=290&Itemid=68

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