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What do business professors do?

Is it a conflict of interest for business school professors to be paid as consultants at financial service and consulting firms?

  • Business school professors, including those at Harvard and Columbia, are often paid over 10x their academic salaries by working as consultants for Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and leading consulting firms.  Doesn't this perpetuate an instability in financial services by providing a disincentive for these professors to research and teach without bias?

  • Answer:

    You're playing in some pretty tall grass if you get 10X your salary. But a CEO I know did explore proferring a speaking engagement to a professor at and the quoted fee came back at $75,000. It's good work if you can get it. I had a colleague at my school that made about 3X his salary testifying largely in personal injury trials. Could tell  a jury in easily understandable terms what you right hand might be worth in net present value. Now, at my institution consulting is viewed with suspicion by some, while others recognize it has a role in developing and expanding professional expertise. But, as Aristotle might say, "Nothing too much." Our rule-of-thumb is that 1 day out of 5 for consulting is permitted or, to put it otherwise, about 20% of your time. If you want to see an academic get absolutely skewered for his consulting work, I recommend you watch Charles Ferguson take aim at Glenn Hubbard (now Dean of the ) in the Oscar-winning documentary .

James Fisher at Quora Visit the source

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Let's get real here.... Why are people willing to pay $$$$ for an MBA?  It's not to get a professor that is unbiased or has some desire to find objective truth.  This isn't the philosophy department.  This is business.  You pay $$$$ for an MBA so that you can get 10X$$$$ at a job in an investment bank, and if the professors have friends in such a bank, he will help you get the job.  If nothing else he can teach you what to say and what not to say. Now the fact that paying paid $$$$ *does* bias the research (which is why most people in the industry don't take business academic research seriously), but if you cared about the abstract pursuit of truth, you would be studying religion or French literature and not business.

Joseph Wang

I don't see the problem--unless they aren't open about possible biases or relationships.  The same could be said for mentors at an incubator--I wouldn't want to exclude mentors to incubators or accelerators simply because of the possibility of bias.  Their previous experience is overwhelmingly an asset--not a liability. I think the best policy is one of transparency and honesty about possible biases.  (ie. I've done previous work for them)  As a student I would hope it would be both in the syllabus (ideally in list form) and in the class session. The only time I get really worried about these types of biases with federal appointments (agency, Supreme Court, legislature, etc...)

Nathan Ketsdever

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