Indeed, this is an old question. As early as 1914, Justice Louis Brandeis [of the US Supreme Court] wrote that “the recognized professions reject the size of the financial returns as the measure of success. To them success involves pursuit of excellence and service to the community”. Rakesh Khurana and Nitin Nohria [professors at Harvard Business School] wrote in 2005 “Our criteria for calling an occupation a bona fide profession are as follows: (1) a common body of knowledge resting on a well-developed, widely accepted theoretical base; (2) a system for certifying that individuals possess such knowledge before being licensed or otherwise allowed to practice; (3) a commitment to use specialized knowledge for the public good, and a renunciation of the goal of profit maximization, in return for professional autonomy and monopoly power; (4) a code of ethics, with provisions for monitoring individual compliance with the code and a system of sanctions for enforcing it.”
Professors cannot agree on what is ‘good’ management, nor can managers; so, the first criterion is not met. If we assume the MBA degree is the equivalent of a bar exam, then we know that there are many ‘good’ managers who do not have an MBA; that means second is not met either. The 3rd criterion straight away contradicts the objective of the firm which is to earn profits for investors by providing goods and services to customers, using means consistent with prevailing laws. As regards the 4th criterion i.e. code of ethics, the manager has no existence outside the business entity and in the event of conflict between any such code and the priorities of the business entity, there is only Hobson’s choice.
In 2008, these two professors advocated that it is time to make management a true profession. They somehow believe that professionalizing management would greatly curb misconduct. Alas, regulatory failure cannot be compensated by attempts to make management a profession.
In 2010, Richard Barker of the Said Business School at Oxford, argued that management is not a profession at all, and can never be one. He argued “we must not try to make it one”. Business Managers rely on the ability to integrate knowledge and information [including intangible and inconclusive inputs] from different domains, to make decisions. Such integration and decision making constitute the purpose of the business manager.
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