THE MANAGEMENT AND LEADERSHIP FERMENT IN SOUTH AFRICA AND THE IMPERATIVE TO PROFESSIONALIZE THE MBA AND OTHER RELATED MANAGEMENT QUALIFICATIONS: A CATALYTIC IDEA WHOSE, TIME HAS NOT ONLY COME BUT REQUIRES SERIOUS CONSIDERATION FROM BOTH THE PRIVATE AND PU

Abstract

This article attempts to place the cat among the pigeons, in an attempt to open up a debate and discussion hitherto, narrowly approached by South African Business Schools. Business Schools in South Africa have historically shirked their responsibilities, in placing this issue on the agenda and discourse of MBA degrees and other related management qualifications to professionalize.
The question arises will such professionalization serve the greater good, allow for the utmost integrity and guard against decisions and behaviour that advance narrow ambitions, that harm the enterprise and the societies it serves. On the other hand South Africa has recently seen and witnessed in the popular press, Minister Trevor Manuel's blunt admittance at the Government Leadership Summit that our government should stop blaming apartheid for its repeated failures, amid the heartbeat of corruption, greed, laziness, incompetence and nepotism created by some of our democratic leaders within the ambit of South African politics, within its bureaucracies and indeed within the private sector. Manuel has confronted and courted tremendous criticism from various quarters within the African National Congress political alliance structures. This article therefore, attempts to discuss these issues from the perspective of MBA qualifications and other related management qualifications, that can give some impetus to the very integrity that is required within the body politic, the bureaucracy, the private sector and within the public sector as a whole, given the all embracing reality that corruption and other forms of blatant abuse of power on the part of both public and private sector managers in general, has become the order of the day, and blatantly endemic in South Africa. Professionalization will in some way allow for integrity, honour, high and impeccable values and stymie the further emergence of corruption among managers within the public and private sector systems within South Africa. The paper therefore, under this background will attempt to articulate and discuss in a balanced fashion and manner, the importance of the issue of professionalization of management qualifications, using Minister Manuel's attack on corruption, the criticisms advanced in respect to his thesis, the Harvard Business School's article and campaign in 2009 to turn management into a formal profession.