Lessons university-based business schools should learn vicariously-rather than through experience-from university athletics

Abstract

University athletic programs at times engage in cheating, dishonesty, and other practices which embarrass the university. They can promote policies that compromise the academic integrity of their universities. Much of the root cause of this trouble is based in a desire for prestige and the need for money to support that quest for prestige. The university-based business school also seeks prestige and desires increased funding in order to support achievement of that prestige. This essay outlines four pitfalls that have beset university athletics that could well happen to business schools. Some of these pitfalls seem hopelessly irreversible. University business schools would do well to learn the lessons of these pitfalls vicariously rather than suff ering through them by direct experience.