Re-imagining student learning in the house of neo-liberalism: Amazon and the contemporary business school

Importance and Key Contribution While the financial crisis has prompted some critical evaluation of business schools, this has not been in direct proportion to their dominant position in the creation and dissemination of... [ view full abstract ]

Importance and Key Contribution
While the financial crisis has prompted some critical evaluation of business schools, this has not been in direct proportion to their dominant position in the creation and dissemination of business ‘knowledge’ (Flemming & Oswick, 2014; Mingers & Wilmott, 2013). Often the case studies students explore as part of their learning experience are laden with assumptions related to profit maxmisation and self-interest (Khurana, 2007). The instrumental nature of such knowledge means that it is rarely subject to questioning and critique. A consequence is that students often conflate the interest of multiple stakeholders with shareholders, while glossing over ethical dilemmas in the interest of finding the ‘optimal’ solution. This problem is enabled, and perpetuated, by the dominant economic logic underpinning much business research and teaching (Ghoshal, 2005). This paper takes the case of Amazon and recent criticisms of its working conditions as a means to illustrate this tendency, also suggesting how the case can serve to illuminate the workplace dynamics and tensions inherent to the capitalist system. The contribution is to the important, but neglected, domain of how we explore and expand the issues presented to students in order to foster a more reflexive mode of understanding.

Theoretical Base
Business schools represent the most dominant institution shaping the future of business leadership (Thorpe & Rawlinson, 2013). It is therefore and logical and appropriate that their key modes of learning and dissemination are subject to conceptual scrutiny and empirical critique. Important commentary has emerged concerning the narrowing of scholarship as driven by journal rankings and the pressure to publish, with this being equated to a form of Taylorization (Grey, 2010; Mingers & Wilmott, 2013). Commentators have also noted the colonizing role of business school accreditation agencies which serve to normalize content as a soft but persuasive form of regulatory control (Wilmott, 2011). There is an inevitable interdependence between these dimensions and the way that knowledge is disseminated to students of business. Harvard Professor Rakesh Khurana (2007) laments the lack of a higher purpose in management education, noting that notions of values and ethics have been muted by dominant assumptions of self-interest and economic maximisation. The critique directed at economic logic is a longstanding one. For example, Polanyi similarly bemoaned the loss of statesmanship from the minds of the educated elite, blaming “the corrosive of a crude utilitarianism combined with an uncritical reliance on the alleged self-healing virtues of unconscious growth" (1944, p. 33). Ghoshal (2005) communicated the dangers of dominant economic assumptions in absolving decision making of ethical and moral considerations, warning with masterful foresight of the risk that such bad theories were in turn likely to deliver bad practice. In studies of the employment relationship, Godard (2014) warns of the impact of psychologisation, that is dehumazing employees and abstracting them from any sense of purpose or agency. As such the emphasis is on rational, predictive behaviour understood exclusively in the service of maximizing organisational performance.

To the pressures informing the way organisations are understood, the impact of financialization is perhaps the contemporary capstone. Kochan (2012) documents the ascension of finance to the extent that the shareholder maximization thesis overrides all other modes of understanding in the culture of business school education. In sum, there appears to be a consensus based orientation founded on instrumental knowledge and technicism which frames and informs how students of business learn about organisations and what they learn. Borrowing from Burawoy (2005) this dominant mode of professional sociology clearly serves a purpose as the mainstream academic enterprise, but is one which needs to be counterbalanced by alternative, more reflexive approaches to knowledge, including critical sociology. This can be ably demonstrated via an analysis of the Amazon case and recent controversy surrounding its work practices and how these can inform teaching approaches.

Methods
For the purpose of this paper Amazon is used as a case vignette to illuminate the broader argument concerning dominant modes of understanding and teachings in business schools. Amazon is a publicly quoted company and so there is a wealth of resources and insights about the organisation available. However, most of these deal with the evolution of the company from a stereotypical Silicon Valley garage start-up to an internet giant. There has also been significant commentary on Amazon’s business model, Jeff Bezo’s leadership and more recently its tax affairs. By contrast, the internal operations of Amazon are something of a mystery. The company is very restrictive in its means of communication (largely through a PR department), whilst employees are subject to confidentiality and non-disclosure agreements. In this context first hand access to explore employment issues is unlikely, and so it is appropriate to rely on secondary resources. The use of Amazon is timely given insights from the New York Times report ‘Inside Amazon: Wrestling Big ideas in a Bruising Workplace’ published in August 2015. This report was based on data from 100 Amazonians (current and former) and offers a significant resource to explore the themes of work and employment in this context. In addition to this main report, we explored follow up materials from mainstream media (e.g. Financial Times, New York Times, Guardian, Forbes) in the period since its publication. This includes well reported details of Amazon’s response and various stakeholder reactions.

Amazon was the first company to leverage on-line platforms for selling and distribution, making its first book sale on-line in 1995 before diversifying to ultimately become the ‘everything store’. As Google is to internet search, Amazon is to e-commerce, practically inventing this category of shopping. Amazon’s overriding goal is “to be Earth's most customer-centric company, where customers can find and discover anything online”. CEO Jeff Bezos is continuously ranked highly in rankings of the world’s best CEOs. As a consequence the Amazon forms an exemplary case study with brand recognition that facilitates student learning of what constitutes success and best practice. Yet at the height of its most successful financial year, Amazon encountered its most severe criticism for being a bullying and bruising place to work. Allegations included severe work pressure with workers crying at their desks, aggressive and confrontational managerial styles including inhumane treatment of those suffering personal traumas such as miscarriages and cancer, and a culture of constant ‘anytime feedback’ encouraging employees to undermine one another. This dynamic of strong corporate performance coupled with questionable employment practices offers a clear entry point for student debate and exploration.

Summary
Exploring the case of Amazon and its controversy as a tool of critical learning opens up important conversations as to what constitutes appropriate learning about performance in a business school environment (Dundon, 2014; Harney, 2009). The paper explores the Amazon case via the logic of multiple frames of reference (Heery, 2016). By way of example the instrumental, unitarist view reflects the professional sociology of the establishment and is reflective of mainstream thinking. A consequence is that key tensions and ethical considerations are glossed over in the celebration of success. Lacking are considerations of the input and interests of key stakeholders, beyond those privileged by financial influence. By contrast modes of learning founded on greater reflexivity serve to bring a different mode of analysis to bear on how and whether strong corporate performance might be reconciled with questionable working conditions, including analysis drawing on the wider social structural conditions (Burawoy, 2005). In presenting varying frames of reference the point is to offer anchors for discussion as opposed to rigidly prescribing or judging ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ answers. In this vein we also provide an attempt to overcome the pathological form, frequently characteristic of a singular mode of understanding (Buroway, 2004). Overall, a key implication of our argument is that successfully ‘re-imagining business and the role of ethics’ must by definition involve a re-imagining of business school education.

References
Burawoy, M. (2005). 2004 Presidential Address For Public Sociology. American Sociological Review, 70, 4-28.
Dundon, T. (2014, 6th of May). So what is the value of that expensive MBA? Irish Times, Tuesday, Irish Times.
Flemming, P., & Oswick, C. (2014). Educating consent? A conversation with Noam Chomsky on the university and business school education. Organization, 14(4), 568-578.
Ghoshal, S. (2005). Bad management theories are destroying good management practices. Academy of Management Learning and Education, 4(1), 75-91.
Godard, J. (2014). The psychologisation of employment relations? Human Resource Management Journal, 24(1), 1-18.
Harney, B. (2009). Critical reflection needed for business schools, Irish Times, p. 12.
Khurana, R. (2007). From higher aims to hired hands: The social transformation of American business schools and the unfulfilled promise of a management profession: Princeton University Press.
Kochan, T. (2012). A jobs compact for America's future. Harvard Business Review, March 64-72.
Mingers, J., & Wilmott, H. (2013). Taylorizing business school research: On the 'one best way' performative effects of journal ranking lists. International Journal of Human Resource Management, 66, 1051–1073.
Polanyi, K. (1944). The Great Transformation: The political and economic origins of our time (1957 edition ed.). Boston: Beacon Hill.
Wilmott, H. (2011). Governing employability. In P. Blyton, E. Heery & P. Turnbull (Eds.), Reassessing the Employment Relationship. London: Palgrave MacMillan.

Teaching & Learning, Business Schools, Amazon, Modes of learning, Critical Theory [ view full abstract ]

Teaching & Learning, Business Schools, Amazon, Modes of learning, Critical Theory