ABSTRACT
Leading business schools have become important paradigms of excellence. Some failures and mistakes cannot hide the basic fact that the effects of business schools in developing professionals and through them fostering job creation, investment, innovation and new firms has been impressive. The positive experience of both alumni and companies was key in funding business school endowment, particularly in America — an effect that was vitally important to building financially solid educational institutions. The current financial crisis and the eroding of corporate reputations have given rise to strong criticisms of business schools and their role in those events. These criticisms fall into two categories. The first is related to factors external to business schools, mainly the financial crisis, globalisation, and the notion of the firm and its reputation. The second category has to do with internal deficiencies or deficits in business schools themselves.
