Skills Recent Grads Need the Most: Interpersonal Skills, the Sine Qua Non of Business Success

This is the third in a series of blogs that I am writing in response to a request from Bob Clary, Webucator’s community manager. The series concerns professional and business competencies that recent grads need. The competencies that I am covering are ethics, job search, interpersonal skills, and writing. This blog concerns interpersonal skills and communication.

Interpersonal skills are among the competencies that are most critical to early career success.   The classic book on the topic is Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People. Three other excellent books on interpersonal skills and communication are Whetten and Cameron’s textbook Developing Management Skills, especially Chapters Four, Five, and Seven, Steven Covey’s Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, especially Chapter Five, and Andrew DuBrin’s Winning Office Politics: A Guide for the Nineties. 

Whetten and Cameron point out (p. 285) that junior managers who are insensitive, abrasive, intimidating, cold, aloof, arrogant, or untrustworthy frequently find that their careers have been derailed. Learning how to deal with people is essential to getting ahead and moving up in any organization, whether it is in industry, government, academia, the military, or healthcare.

Empathic Listening

Dale Carnegie gives simple, sound advice: Don’t criticize, condemn, or complain. Give honest appreciation. Be honestly interested in others. Remember others’ names. Smile. Be a good listener. In short, getting others to trust and like you depends on your communication skill as well as your dependability, hard work, and efficiency.  

Steven Covey also emphasizes the importance of what he calls “empathic listening.” In Chapter 5 of Seven Habits, “Seek First to Understand, Then to Be Understood,” Covey emphasizes the importance of putting oneself in the shoes of the person with whom one communicates.  Covey writes (p. 240): “When I say empathic listening, I mean listening with intent to understand.”  In other words, we should care about those with whom we work. 

Certainly, building personal relationships or even friendships with our coworkers is a desirable strategy.  Covey writes of an emotional bank account to which we make deposits when we make others feel good, and from which we make withdrawals when we ask for favors or forgiveness.  Covey shows that empathic listening can be especially effective with respect to integrative or win-win negotiation whereby we attempt to expand the pie rather than to divide it.

There is no question that empathic listening and integrative negotiation are effective much of the time.  They are most valuable in the context of long-term relationships that are important to us.  The more that we can use emotional intelligence to build trust, respect, and understanding through listening, the better our long-term relationships will be.

Contingency Theory of Interpersonal Tactics

Not all relationships in business are long-term, though.  We frequently need to interact with customers, suppliers, consultants, or associates whom we will meet only once or a few times.  Also, we may have colleagues with whom it is difficult to be empathic.  Empathy is a crucial strategy, but it is high in cost.  It is important to be empathic with those who are most important to us, especially our boss, higher ups with whom we work, and employees and colleagues with whom we frequently interact. We need to decide when the empathic strategy works best and when the alternative, managed communication, works best. We manage our communication when we provide responses and information that are appropriate to the situation but may not reflect our natural feelings. 

Management experts call a strategy or tactic that depends on the circumstances a contingency theory. Contingency theories suggest that an appropriate response depends on circumstances, task requirements, personalities, and organizational characteristics.  Organizational culture, for example, may dictate that we always seem smart or that we never seem smart.  Whether we are smart or not is less important than conforming to the requirements of the organizational culture, one way or the other. Other organizational factors such as the organization's tasks and structure also modify how we communicate.

Such organizational demands may pose adjustment difficulties for recent graduates. Most educational institutions emphasize intellectual achievement and ignore interpersonal flexibility.  The idea of appearing in ways other than high achieving is alien to most students' education.  The high-achieving style fits some but not all organizations.  Much as a yogi can bend his or her body in unusual ways, so can an individual adept at interpersonal skills bend his behavior patterns to fit organizational demands.

If an individual works for a firm for a long time, he or she is likely to acclimate to and adopt the organizational culture as part of  their personality.  At first, though, it is necessary to manage responses so that they fit.  

The same is true in dealing with a boss. We need to understand our boss’s aims. Our goals need to coincide with broader departmental and organizational ones.  Moreover, it is useful to mirror.  Mirroring means that we adopt characteristics of our boss or an important client so that we seem to have much in common with them. The characteristics can include interests, appearance, communication style, preference for entertainment, and place of residence. I once worked for a bank in which all of the higher ups lived in Summit, New Jersey.  When an employee was on the fast track, one of the first things that he did was buy a house in Summit.

I once had a student who worked at a major investment bank. He told me that when he had first been hired, he had had trouble fitting in because he had never been interested in sports before, but most of his fellow traders spoke chiefly about sports.  He realized that in order to fit in he would need to follow sports, so he bought subscriptions to Sporting News and Sports Illustrated. After reading these publications religiously, he developed an interest in sports. He found himself fitting in.

A key to the contingency approach to interpersonal skills, then, is deciding when to be empathic and when to adopt a calculated response.  It is important to understand that not everyone in an organization is trustworthy.  For instance, Paul Babiak and Robert Hare’s book Snakes in Suits: When Psychopaths Go to Work outlines the characteristics of workplace psychopaths. As I point out in  Cornell HR Review (and here), between three and six percent of corporate employees may be responsible for the majority of ethical breaches in corporations.  Workplace psychopaths tend to be “manipulative, glib and grandiose."  

Although white collar psychopaths are a small proportion of the population, corporate employees are forced to take on a defensive behavior pattern, creating a Gresham’s Law of psychopathy. In monetary history, Gresham’s Law is the principle that when gold coins were undervalued relative to silver coins, people saved the gold coins and only used the silver coins.  Gresham’s Law is that “bad money drives out good.” Lack of trust drives out trust in many corporations. Under such circumstances, which are common, it is foolish to be overly empathic. One must assess those with whom one deals. If you have seen the HBO series Game of Thrones, you know what I am talking about.

The need for a contingency theory comes up in many interpersonal contexts. In negotiating it may not be possible to share information with a bargaining partner who prefers to be distributive (emphasizing splitting up the pie to their advantage) rather than integrative (expanding the pie).  In motivating others it may not be possible to use Theory Y or trusting leadership because employees may have values that cause them to take advantage of trust; in such circumstances Theory X or controlling leadership is necessary.

Managed Approaches

In developing a managed approach to communication, Whetten and Cameron emphasize the importance of understanding the sensitive lines of others.  The sensitive line is the point at which one’s self-concept is threatened.  If you cross someone’s sensitive line, they are likely to become defensive or disconfirmed.  Defensiveness means one is inclined to protect oneself by attacking the other party. Disconfirmation occurs when one of the parties feels ignored or insignificant. Whetten and Cameron advocate the use of supportive communication tactics. Supportive communication tactics reduce the likelihood of causing defensiveness or disconfirmation in others. 

The supportive communication tactics include being honest, avoiding value judgments, focusing on factual discussion, and validating others by treating them as equals and by being flexible in response to their opinions. When a conflict occurs, the discussion should focus on facts and the behavior rather than the person.  People should take responsibility (or own) their communication, and they should relate what they say to what the other person says.

Whetten and Cameron also emphasize supportive listening. They describe four listening responses: advising, deflecting, probing, and reflecting. These can also be managed to influence the other person's feelings. The point of listening responses is that we can modulate them to encourage or discourage the other party from expressing themselves. Supportive communication means encouraging the other party.   

In advising the listener responds by giving advice. In deflecting the listener responds by changing the subject and  focusing on their own experiences: “If you think what your boss did is bad, take a look at what my boss did.” In probing the listener asks questions. In reflecting the listener responds by acknowledging that he or she is listening. Reflective responses include summarizing and restating what the other person is saying. It involves giving back the message in different words.

The reflecting and probing responses are the most supportive and least likely to cause defensiveness or disconfirmation.  The advising and deflecting responses are the most intrusive and most likely to do so. 

Conclusion

The ultimate key to developing interpersonal skills is practice.  Certainly, empathy is important to developing sound, long-term relationships, but the appropriate response is contingent on factors like personality, ethics, organizational culture, organizational structure, and task.  Good business people need to develop alternative tactics that are appropriate to different settings, personalities, tasks, and organizations and to choose the most appropriate ones. 

Skills Recent Grads Need the Most: Job Search, a Fundamental Competency for Success

This is the second in a series of blogs that I am writing in response to a request from Bob Clary, Webucator’s community manager. The series concerns competencies that recent grads need. The competencies that I am covering are ethics, job search, interpersonal skills, and writing. This blog concerns job search and informational interviewing.

Finding a job, from students’ summer jobs to retirees’ part-time jobs, is a challenge that most of us face at least a few times. The challenge is most acute for those finishing a degree. Finding the right job from the get-go is important to a recent grad’s future, and the sooner that you find the right job, the better off you will be.

 

For one thing, the salary on your first job affects your future pay increases, so decades later you will still feel the ripple effects of your first salary rate.  For another thing, by finding the right job you will be empowered to do what you believe.  That enhances commitment, focus, and purpose. Clear goals lead to successful performance, and by targeting your chief interest you establish clear, motivating goals.

One of the best books on job search is Richard N. Bolles’s bestseller, What Color Is Your Parachute? (also here).  Bolles makes many useful points: The success rate for mass mailings of job letters is painfully low. A job search should start by identifying your aims and interests. The best way to look for a job is not to look for a job, but rather, to interview for information.

Many students think of looking for a job as a bidding process. They set out to find the one job that offers the optimal opportunity, and they don’t consider whether they are really interested in the field, the occupation, the firm, or the position. That is a mistake. You will spend more time with your career than with anything else, and a loveless career is as unfortunate as a loveless marriage. 

As with marriage, focusing chiefly on the financial dimension is likely to lead to divorce.  Without passion for what you do, the money will not be enough.  It is more expensive to change jobs than to figure out what you want to do beforehand, yet it appears that few do.  According to The Wall Street Journal, half of workers between 20 and 24 have been with their employer for less than a year, and in 2008 the typical American was on the job for only 4.1 years. These statistics suggest frequent job changes.

The Importance of Goals

In my teaching career, which began in 1991 and has included teaching organizational behavior and managerial skills classes at nine higher education institutions, I have asked more than 5,000 students to read What Color Is Your Parachute? and then write an essay about their career mission and goals.  Many students have trouble conceptualizing their goals, and many students have little faith that they can execute the goals that they choose.

Besides doing the exercises in What Color Is Your Parachute?, students who have trouble setting goals for themselves can take the Strong Interest Inventory by consulting with a career counselor or other career professional.  The Strong Interest Inventory is more than 85 years old, and it has been revised many times; the questions concern the test taker’s occupational interests, subject area interests, activities interests, leisure activities interests, and personal characteristics.  It gives scores relevant to occupational themes, basic interests, and personal style. These can help you to identify fields that are of interest to you.

To some degree it is not so important that you find a goal that you love as that you find a goal to which you are committed. If you cannot think of anything that you really want to do, then pick something that you think is a likely suspect, and focus on it and only  it. 

Interview Not for a Job, but for Information

Once you have focused on a specific job, field, salary, and set of achievements that reflect your mission, your practical job search can begin. Bolles says that 1,400 letters and resumes are needed if you are going to play the numbers game of mass mailings.  Moreover, it is unlikely that you will find the very best jobs that way.  The reason is the unseen job market.  Applicants fill most jobs, and virtually all of the great entry-level jobs, through personal connections.  If you do not have personal connections, mass mailing of cold letters will not likely help you to get the best jobs.  Advertisements and headhunters won’t either because entry-level jobs are mostly filled through the unseen job market. The unseen job market is the web of personal connections through which employers fill most jobs.

In the early 1990s, before the advent of the Internet, I taught an on-site class at a major cosmetics firm’s Long Island plant.  I asked the class this: “How many of you got your job through newspaper ads, through personnel agents, through headhunters, through career fairs, or through personal connections?” Every single student in the class had gotten his or her job through a personal connection.

If you wish to work in advertising, investment banking, consulting, or in other high-end jobs, you need to consider how to make the contacts that will give you a leg up.  The answer, which Bolles establishes in What Color Is Your Parachute?, is informational interviewing.

Informational interviewing is a way to tap into the hidden job market by establishing personal connections with a number of professionals in your field.  One way to informational interview is to start by identifying people who are already successful in your field.  You can do this in a number of ways: through scanning a listing of alumni available through the college career center, through reading articles about specific managers in the business press, through calling firms, or through visiting professional association websites.

Many professional associations list their members, but they only make the membership list available to other members. That’s one good reason to join the professional association in your field. Another reason is that professional association meetings are great places to use a slightly different method of informational interviewing:  setting up informational interviews at professional association meetings.

After you’ve identified 30 to 100 managers who are likely to have information that will be of value to you in beginning your career search, write each a letter to set up an interview. Don’t write them all at once; rather, write them sequentially.  You will only be able to do one or maybe two informational interviews each day. Job search is a full-time job.

In the letter say that you have heard of them and their achievements and that you would like to request an in-person meeting so that you may learn from them. State explicitly that you are not looking for a job.  The reason is that you are asking for an informational interview, not a job interview.

Using bullets, indicate a few sample questions that you would like to ask in the interview such as how they got into the field, whether your degree is appropriate, and what the emerging problems in the field are. Make a mental list of 10 or 15 questions, but when you actually go on the interview you are unlikely to need a list. Once you ask a few questions, the interviewee will open up, and the meeting will become a free-flowing conversation.

In the letter give a specific date and time on which you will call to set up a meeting.  When you call, attempt to make an appointment with the individual’s secretary, or leave a message on an answering machine. Three failed attempts are the maximum.

Many students wonder whether business people will be willing to meet with them. The answer is a qualified yes. From five to thirty-five percent of the individuals whom you contact will be willing to meet with you in person.  Even if the percentage of yes answers is only five percent, the response rate will be twice that of mass mailings. More likely, you will be able to achieve a ten to  fifteen percent response rate, three-to-seven times better than that of mass mailings. 

The reason more managers will see you because of an informational interview letter than because of a job search letter is, first, that they often don’t have a job opening, but they are interested in meeting an available applicant. Because people hate to say no, they will see you for an informational interview but not for a job interview. Second, most people enjoy giving advice, and this is a great opportunity for someone to indulge themselves in that great pleasure. Third, many managers know about informational interviewing, and they are happy to participate because they may someday be in the same position as you are now. Who knows? Maybe when they are looking for a job in the future, you will be willing to interview them.

After the meeting, ask whether they know of anyone else who might be willing to meet with you. Also, tell them that you will keep them apprised of your progress.

The informational interview serves at least two purposes. First, by going on 20 or 30 informational interviews, you will learn a great deal about the field.  In 1996 I went on a series of a dozen informational interviews, and I found that after about six or seven the interviewees were asking me for information rather than the other way around.  By learning much about the field through an informational interview, you place yourself in an advantageous position when you obtain interviews using traditional job-search methods. In a sense, you are engaging in a benign form of industrial espionage.

Second, by meeting people in the field, you establish connections.  Since most of the best jobs are obtained through the hidden job market, through connections, you are opening up the possibility of an offer in three, six, or twelve months.  Bring a resume, but do not offer it. They are likely to ask for it.

Many students are reluctant to pursue informational interviewing because they fear rejection. Given that only five to thirty-five percent of interviewees say yes, that means that ninety-five to sixty-five percent say no.  That means that people who informational interview have to put up with rejection most of the time. The same is true of many high-value-added business tasks, such as sales. Rejection is a necessary stepping stone to success, whether you aim to be an entrepreneur, a trader, an author, or a scholar.

The job-search skill is important because your first job is likely to define your future ones. It is just as or even more important to know how to look for a job as it is to have gone through the best academic program.  By doing it right the first time, you will make early gains that will multiply over your career.  

Skills Recent Grads Need the Most: The Ethical Dimension

Bob Clary, the community manager of Webucator, has asked me to identify and blog about a valuable skill  that recent grads need to succeed. Bob would like to make the job market a less scary place to recent grads of his program, and he's asked bloggers with relevant knowledge to offer advice.  Bob writes this:  "We’re excited about this newest blogging campaign in our Webucator Asks series, and we look forward to reading about creative ways to help guarantee success!"

I decided to do Bob one better and identify four skills to write about.  The four skills that I am covering are ethics, job search, interpersonal skills, and writing.  Interpersonal skills boil down to communication, and communication is the focus of my discussion on that topic. This blog and my next three will cover these skills just as I discuss them with my students.

I start with ethics, the most basic of all managerial skills. Ethics is a competency or skill just like job search, interpersonal skills, and writing. Many students mistakenly believe that there is a dichotomy between profit-making or high wages and ethics.  That is a false dichotomy. Making money is a good, just as honesty and concern for others are goods.  Our job as business people is to balance these and other goods or virtues so that we, our associates, and society, can flourish.

As Warren Buffett pointed out in a talk he gave in the 1990s to MBA students at the University of North Carolina, ethics is much of the reason high achievers achieve.  It is true that in the short term money can be made through dishonesty; it is also true that low achievers can become successful by dishonest means. Look at those who engage in organized crime or in government corruption. They can be successful, although corrupt executives, as in the cases of Enron, Tyco, and Worldcom, pay a high price when they are caught.  Nevertheless, the reason we seek education is to achieve well, not to become drug dealers, confidence men, or thieves. Education is not necessary for such professions.  We achieve well and successfully on an ethical foundation.

The reason the most successful achievers achieve is that they play by the rules of the game. They respect their customers, their employees, their stockholders, and their society.  As society becomes more concerned with the environment, environmental concerns become business concerns.  That is why customers repeatedly return to a firm that produces great products, and that is why society turns to business in times of crisis. One of the great triumphs of General Motors was its ability to convert to war production to assist the US government during World War II.  Without such assistance American victory would have been more difficult, and more soldiers' lives would have been lost to tyrants in Europe and Japan.

Business's products are moral goods because they help many billions of people.  The ability to expand the availability of such goods to ever greater numbers of people is the moral triumph of business.  Making business more efficient and helping business to better meet customers' needs, the mission of recent grads entering the workplace, fulfills a higher moral good. To do so one must rest his or her actions on a moral foundation.

The moral foundation is a set of competencies that students need to identify for themselves.  These likely include what Warren Buffett called the "Ben Franklin virtues" that were identified by his teacher and the inventor of value-based investing,  Benjamin Graham. Buffett calls them the "Ben Franklin virtues"  because Franklin identifies them in his writings in Poor Richard's Almanac and in his 1758 book The Way to Wealth.  Franklin's virtues include honesty, sobriety, hard work, and prudence.  In ancient Greece, 2,500 years ago, Aristotle listed similar virtues--not geared to commercial life, although there is much overlap--as necessary to success.  The reason that there is much overlap between Aristotle's and Franklin's virtues, written more than 2,000 years apart and in different cultures,  is that Aristotle's students aimed to become leaders of the Athenian city state, and the virtues that he describes in his Nicomachean Ethics were geared to success in that ancient society.  These included the cardinal virtues: moderation, prudence, courage, and justice.

Justice, as in Aristotle's day and in Franklin's day, is the cornerstone of ethical competence when working in business. Just as is the case with emotional intelligence, in order to act well we need to develop ethical intelligence. Ethical intelligence means asking ourselves whether an end is justified, whether we can accomplish it prudently, whether we can reduce or eliminate costs or harm, whether we can improve quality or increase the good that we do, whether any harm is more than balanced by the good, and whether our actions serve our colleagues, society, and ourselves.

Many corporations recognize this balance. For example Johnson and Johnson's Credo describes the firm's vision of ethical intelligence in dealing with nurses, doctors, customers, employees, suppliers, and the greater community.  J&J's conclusion is this: "When we operate according to these principles, the stockholders should realize a fair return."  Compare the success of this great firm with that of any of the dishonest ones that have made the news and often no longer exist.

Ethics is the most important competency because all dealings depend on it.  It is the chief recipe for long-term success. Whether we are looking for a job, dealing with the challenges of interpersonal communication, or negotiating an important deal, it is important to ask ourselves whether we are doing the right thing by balancing all considerations in a way that yields an optimal outcome for others, for society, and for ourselves.

Proposal for a Conference Presentation

Why the Worst Get on Top: The Case of Higher Education

Proposal for a Paper for the Manhattanville Hayek Conference

Mitchell Langbert

May 30, 2014

In “Why the Worst Get on Top,” Hayek argues that, because of the unpredictability of social phenomena, the contradictory demands of interest groups, and the need to adopt a comprehensive plan, socialism requires a coalition of the worst. To lead the coalition, individuals rise to the top if they are willing to sacrifice moral duty to what they interpret to be expedient, social-welfare-maximizing decisions; assumption of leadership positions in a socialist state is of interest only to those who lack a moral compass. 

My claim is that American universities, both as propagandists and as independent economic interests, play a part in this process.  The evolution of universities in the United States has made them dependent on donations from large industrial and financial organizations as well as from the state.   American universities therefore take on characteristics that are similar to public German universities, but they also take on characteristics of allies to and beneficiaries of corporate interests.

I can trace the flow of donations to universities in two ways: through a listing of large donations since 1967 that the Chronicle of Higher Education (2014) publishes and through an examination of the names of buildings at top-tier universities. Universities often name buildings after large donors, and the business careers of at least some of them can be traced.  Then, I can content analyze quotations during the 2008-2009 bailouts from academics working at the same institutions.  I would look at quotations in the second-largest-circulation newspaper, the New York Times and quotations in one of the largest-circulation magazines, such as eleventh-ranked Time or first-ranked AARP The Magazine.   

Universities and Propaganda

In the chapter that follows “Why the Worst Get to the Top,”  “The End of Truth,” Hayek discusses the importance of propaganda.  Hayek argues that totalitarian propaganda destroys morals because it undermines “respect for truth,” (Hayek, 172).  Universities play a role in the production of propaganda. Readings (1996) points out that Wilhelm von Humboldt, the inventor of the modern university, saw the German university as bonded to the state: “The state protects the action of the University; the University safeguards the thought of the state.”  Academic freedom, in Humboldt’s view, correlated with universities’ commitment to sustaining the state.  Readings adds (Readings, p. 82), “The capacity of the [German] University structure [during the Nazi era] to adapt itself to Nazism should give us pause.”  Hayek points out that the symbiosis went further than Readings admits and that the Nazi minister of justice said that all scientific theories must serve National Socialism.

The Humboldtian university served as a model for the American university in terms of the integration of research and teaching and the claim of academic freedom, but the economic foundations of the American university were different from those of the German university.  America’s economy had not proceeded along the syndicalist lines that had earlier proceeded in Germany and gave Germany, in Hayek’s view, a militaristic culture.  Rather, universities in the United States grew out of free-standing religious colleges.  Their transformation and growth was financed by leaders of business and finance.  For instance, the first American university designed along Humboldtian lines, Johns Hopkins, was endowed by a wealthy Baltimore merchant, Johns Hopkins, who consulted about the university’s structure with fellow Baltimorean George Peabody, one of the first important American investment bankers. Their strategy meeting about the founding of Johns Hopkins University occurred during one of Peabody’s rare trips home to Baltimore from his firm’s London headquarters (Parker, 1995).  By then, Peabody had made significant gifts to Harvard and Yale, and he had endowed a Baltimore research library, the Peabody Library, on which Johns Hopkins relied for the first several decades of its existence.

On June 27, 1901 the New York Times wrote that JP Morgan, Peabody’s partner’s son, had made a one million dollar gift to Harvard Medical School for the construction of three buildings. In accordance with the recommendation of Carnegie Foundation-funded Abraham Flexner, Harvard modeled itself along the same lines as Johns Hopkins Medical School--as an allopathic, Humboldtian research institution.

Not to be outdone, the following year John D. Rockefeller also donated one million dollars to Harvard Medical School. Carroll (2009) notes:

In 1903, Rockefeller founded the General Education Board (GEB). In the succeeding decades, the GEB would become the dominant philanthropic enterprise in early-twentieth-century American medical education. It contributed over $94 million to American medical schools by the time of the organization’s termination in 1960.

As well, Rockefeller endowed the University of Chicago and appointed its first president. William Rainey Harper. 

Joseph Wharton, an executive at Bethlehem Steel and a mining entrepreneur, funded Wharton’s endowment so that there would be a basis for dissemination of knowledge about the advantages of protectionism.  There is no shortage of examples; virtually all private major research universities have depended on donations from corporate or financial donors, and they have been intimately integrated with the Progressive model since its inception.  Walter Weyl, for example, one of the three founders, along with Walter Lippmann and Herbert Croly, of the New Republic Magazine, was one of the first Ph.D. graduates of the Wharton School.

Scholars have pointed out that Progressivism reflected specific industrial and financial interests.  Expertise in fields like economics was necessary to justify to the public the formation of the Federal Reserve Bank (Kolko, 1963), while expertise in psychology was necessary to facilitate control in large-scale corporations that Progressivism encouraged (Baritz, 1974).  Croly (1915), in Progressive Democracy, advocates scientific management, and in 1910 Harvard Business School appointed Frederick Winslow Taylor, the founder of scientific management, to its faculty.

My claim, then, is that American universities did not develop according to a pure symbiosis between state and university characteristic of the German university—a symbiosis that is consistent with Hayek’s claims—nor did they develop along the lines of a countervailing model whereby universities speak truth to corporate power in accordance with the claims of critics of the post-modern university (D’souza, 1992).  Rather, the development of American universities has been consistent with the history of Progressivism described by Kolko (1963), Sklar (1988), and Radosh and Rothbard (1972), who see the development of Progressivism as a case of Olsonian (1984) special interest pressure or capture.   The American university’s symbiosis with the American state is less direct than the German university’s symbiosis with the German state, and one of its characteristics is its left-wing opposition to right-wing conservatism, but it remains a defender of sensitive corporate interests, such as banking and Wall Street.   

To illustrate my claims, I will review three sources of information about American universities.  The Chronicle of Higher Education (2014) publishes a list of major donations to universities since 1967.  These are donations in excess of $25 million.  I will tabulate the industry in which each donor has worked.  A large share of the donors will be in finance.  Second, I will review the names of the buildings of 25 major universities.  I predict that a significant percentage will bear the names of financial and business leaders.  Third, I will analyze comments in the media from 2008 and 2009 from academics.  I predict that finance-and-industry donations to universities will correlate with the tone and temper of academics ‘opinions about the desirability of subsidization of industry.

Bibliography

Baritz, L. 1974. The Servants of Power: A History of the Use of Social Science in American Industry. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.

Carroll, Katherine L. 2009. “Moderning the American Medical School,” Internet file accessed on May 31, 2014 at http://www.rockarch.org/publications/resrep/carroll.pdf . 

Croly, H. 1915. Progressive Democracy. New York: The Macmillan Company, http://books.google.com/books?id=QBUpAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false

Chronicle of Higher Education. 2014. “Major Private Gifts to Higher Education.” http://chronicle.com/article/Major-Private-Gifts-to-Higher/128264/

D’Souza, Dinesh. 1992.  Illiberal Education: The Politics of Race and Sex on Campus. Vintage Reprint Edition, www.amazon.com

Hayek, FA. 2007.  The Road to Serfdom: The Definitive Edition. Edited by Bruce Caldwell. London: The University of Chicago Press.

Kolko, G. 1963. The Triumph of Conservatism.  New York: The Free Press.

New York Times, June 27, 1901. “JP Morgan Gives over $1,000,000 to Harvard: Offers to Pay for Three Buildings to be Erected in Boston,” http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=F10E1FF93A5D1A728DDDAE0A94DE405B818CF1D3

Olson, M.  1984. The Rise and Decline of Nations.  New Haven, Ct: Yale University Press

Parker, Franklin.  George Peabody: A Biography.  Nashville, Tenn.: Vanderbilt University Press

Radosh, R. and Rothbard, M.A. 1972. A New History of Leviathan. New York: EP Dutton.

Readings, Bill. 1996. The University in Ruins. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press.

Sklar, MJ. 1988.  The Corporate Reconstruction of American Capitalism, 1890-1916: The Market, the Law, and Politics. New York: Cambridge University Press