HBS Hiring Practices Should Be Questioned

To the editors:

The revelations that an ad hoc tenure process was imposed on Harvard Business School (HBS) in 2002 raises fundamental questions of reliance and fairness (News, “Junior Professor Criticizes HBS Through Blog,” Feb. 27). There also are important assertions that are not correct concerning my analysis of casewriting trends at the school.

Like other junior faculty, I relied on being evaluated according to existing promotion policy—standards and process—as laid out in HBS’s “blue book.” Like other junior faculty, I was asked to attend meetings, held by Dean Kim B. Clark ’74 and Senior Associate Dean Srikant Datar, to review and reinforce the process that I would go through. No mention was made of these changes at these meetings.

There are other very troubling questions. Were any untenured faculty told of this informally, perhaps by mentors, and did this give them an advantage? Also what about the tenured faculty? I assume they knew, but how did it affect their actions? For example, there was another person in my unit who was scheduled to come up for evaluation at the same time as me, but the decision was made to delay his case a year. Why did that happen?

The fact that my tenure case didn’t get as far as University President Lawrence H. Summers’ desk also is not a salient point. The internal evaluation of candidates within HBS must have been done in the shadow of what the faculty believed would pass the ad hoc process and this would have disadvantaged me because of my managerial focus.

In addition, how can such a major change in the way faculty are evaluated happen without key constituencies, especially students and alumni, being informed and consulted?

In the article, an assertion is made that the database I used did not include cases that are restricted for internal HBS use. This is incorrect. As an HBS faculty member, I get access to a version of the Harvard Business School Publishing web site that includes cases that are restricted from use within HBS and I included those in my analysis. So I challenge the administration to release the data that supports their assertion that field case writing activity has not declined dramatically.

Michael D. Watkins

Feb. 27, 2004

The writer is an associate professor of business management at Harvard Business School.