译言网 | 《哈佛商业评论》专家论点：管理，并不是一种职业
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September 30th, 2010
The Big Idea: No, Management Is Not a Profession
《哈佛商业评论》专家论点：
管理，并不是一种职业
by Richard Barker
作者：Richard Barker
It is natural to view management as a profession. Managers’ status is
similar to that of doctors or lawyers, as is their obligation to
contribute to the well-being of society. Managers can also be formally
trained and qualified, notably by earning an MBA. If management is a
profession, the business school is a professional school.
人们一般认为，管理是一种职业，而经理人的地位类似于医生或律师，他们都对社会做出了杰出的贡献。经理人大多进行过系统学习和正规训练，个别优秀的会有MBA学位。如果我们把管理看成是一种职业的话，那么“商学院”就和“职业学校”没有分别了。
That perception has fueled criticism of business schools during the
recent economic crisis. They have come under fire for allegedly failing
in their obligation to educate socially responsible business leaders.
The same perception has informed the schools’ respon, which has been
to work toward greater professionalism. Writing in the June 2009 issue
of Harvard Business Review, Joel Podolny, a former dean of the Yale
School of Management, argued, “An occupation earns the right to be a
profession only when some ideals, such as being an impartial counl,
doing no harm, or rving the greater good, are infud into the conduct
of people in that occupation. In like vein, a school becomes a
professional school only when it infus tho ideals into its
graduates."
这种看法在最近的经济危机中招致了许多批评，责怪那些商学院没有培养出具备社会责任感的商界领袖。同样，越来越职业化的学校也对这种看法做出了回应，耶鲁大学管理学院前院
长Joel Podolny在2009年6月的《哈佛商业评论》上的一篇文章里这样说道：“一种职业之所以被称之为‘职业’，是因为（所提出的）一些想法可以获得公众行为准则的认可，比如一位公正的律师，不仅可以服务大众，而且对社会无害。就像血管一样，只有学生们接受了那些想法，学校才有可能变得更加职业化。”
Podolny is in sympathy with Harvard Business School professors Rakesh
Khurana and Nitin Nohria, who argued in the October 2008 issue of HBR
that it was time to make management a true profession. In their view,
“True professions have codes of conduct, and the meaning and
conquences of tho codes are taught as part of the formal education
of their members.” Yet, they wrote, “unlike doctors and lawyers,”
managers don’t “adhere to a universal and enforceable code of
conduct.”
Podolny和哈佛商学院教授Rakesh Khurana与Nitin Nohria的观点一致，他们在发表
于2008年10月《哈佛商业评论》的文章中谈到已经是时候将管理变成一种真正的职业了，在他们看来，“真正的职业有自己的行为准则，而从事这项职业的人一定接受过关于这些准则的含义与重要性的教育”，他们还说，“与医生和律师不同”，经理人不会“局限于那些普遍的、可执行的行为准则”。
The calls to professionalism are hardly new. Writing in the very first
issue of HBR, in 1922, HBS professor John Gurney Callan claimed,
“ay be thought of as a profession [and] we may profitably
spend a good deal of time in considering what is the best professional
training for [tho] who are to take important executive positions in
the coming generation.”
其实这种关于“职业”的说法早就不新鲜了，在1922年，哈佛商学院教授John Gurney
Callan在《哈佛商业评论》上就声称：“企业管理……或许应该被称为是一种职业，我们要用大部分时间来考虑如何为那些将要身居管理要职的人们提供最好的职业训练！”
A. Lawrence Lowell, the president of Harvard University, was even more
asrtive in his 1923 HBR essay “The Profession of Business” (adapted
from his address to the incoming class at HBS the previous September).
He attributed the very creation of HBS to the emergence of business
management as a distinct profession.
哈佛大学校长A.Lawrence Lowell在1923年《哈佛商业评论》上的评论文章《企业管理中的职业》（改编自他1922年9月的讲课内容）中的态度更加自信，他认为哈佛商学院独具创造性地把企业管理培养成了一种明确的职业。
In contrast with the views, I will argue that management is not a
profession at all and can never be one. Therefore, business schools are
not professional schools. Moreover, laudable and beguiling though
professional standards and ethics may be, and however appealing
professional status is, hanging the mantle “professional” on business
education fosters inappropriate analysis and misguided prescriptions.
和这些看法相反，我认为管理不是一种职业，并且永远不会是；同时，商学院也是不职业学校；此外，不管如何来判定职业道德的好坏，职业地位有多么诱人，打着“职业化”名头的企业管理教育只会培养出错误的分析与解决办法。
Let’s begin by examining what actually constitutes a profession.
下面，我们先来看一看“职业”是怎么构成的。
What Is a Profession?
什么是职业？
Professions are made up of particular categories of people from whom we
ek advice and rvices becau they have knowledge and skills that we
do not. A doctor, for example, can recommend a cour of treatment for
an illness; a lawyer can advi us on a cour of legal action. We
cannot make the judgments ourlves—and often we cannot judge the
quality of the advice we receive. The Nobel laureate Kenneth Arrow wrote
2010-9-30译言网 | 《哈佛商业评论》专家论…
q y
about the medical profession, “The value of information is frequently
not known in any meaningful n to the buyer; if, indeed, he knew
enough to measure the value of information, he would know the
information itlf. But information, in the form of skilled care, is
precily what is being bought from most physicians, and, indeed, from
most professionals.”
职业由一群特定的、可以为我们提供意见或服务的人组成，这些人拥有我们所没有的知识和技能，举例来说，医生可以告诉我们如何对疾病进行治疗；律师可以告诉我们如何进行诉讼，而我们对这些事无法做出自己的判断，同时也无从得知所得到建议的质量。诺贝尔奖得
主Kenneth Arrow是这样描述医学类职业的，“对于（医疗）信息的价值，一般的消费者（患者）完全不知道它的意义所在，如果他知道如何去衡量信息的价值，那他一定对信息本身相当了解，但据一些医疗护理信息显示，专业化程度越高的医生，会越受到患者的青睐。”
It is true, of cour, that most nonprofessional providers of goods and
rvices also have knowledge that we don’t. We cannot, for instance,
manufacture a computer or operate a train rvice. Nevertheless, we can
judge whether or not our demand has been met: We know what to expect
from our computer, and we know if our train is delayed. The difference
is that we might act on a lawyer’s advice and not know its quality,
even after the ca has been completed. Perhaps she gave us good advice
but the ca was lost, or vice versa. The outcome might have been more
or less favorable had her advice been different. We are in no position
to know, becau the professional is the expert and we are not. There is
an asymmetry of knowledge.
这当然是事实，即便是那些商品和服务的提供商也拥有很多我们所没有的知识，比如制造一台电脑或
者提供“一条龙服务”，可我们可以判断他们是否能满足我们的要求——比如对电脑性能的要求，对火车准时性的要求等等。但律师行业有所不同，我们可能会遵照某个律师的建议，但是却无法得知这些建议是否合理，即便案子已经结束。或许会出现这样的情况：她给我们提供了非常好的建议，但是却输了案子，反之亦然，最终的结果可能会因为她意见的不同而大相径庭，但我们却不知道其中的原因（知识的不对称），就是因为这是他们的职业。
In some cas the knowledge asymmetry is relatively transient. A taxi
driver in a foreign town provides us with a rvice, using his knowledge
of the local geography. Once we arrive at our destination, however, we
can ask a local whether the driver’s route was the most direct, and
thus reduce the asymmetry. But who evaluates legal advice for us?
Although we could ask another lawyer, he couldn’t offer a cond
opinion without being informed of the details of our ca—which would
amount to hiring two lawyers to do the work of one. Furthermore, the two
lawyers might advi us differently, and we’d be unable to distinguish
the better advice.
在某些情况下，知识不对称是相对暂时的。比如在国外的某个小镇上，一位出租车司机依靠自己的乡土地理知识为我们提供服务，当我们到达目的地的时候，我们会问当地的居民那位司机所走的路是不是最近的，以此来降低知识的不对称性。但是又有谁来为我们来评估那些“法律意见”呢？我们倒是可以咨询一下其他的律师，但他是不可能给予我们额外意见的，因为一个案子只能请一个律师，而他并不是这个案子所指定的正式律师。此外，两个律师有可能会给我们提供截然相反的建议，而我们却无法分辨出哪个是更好的。
In practice, our lawyer herlf implicitly assures us that we can rely
on the legal advice she is giving. This relatively permanent knowledge
asymmetry is the mark of the true profession; as consumers, we have no
option but to trust the professionals with whom we transact.
Nevertheless, we might be unwilling to transact at all without some
guarantee that the rvices we receive meet a minimum quality threshold.
That requires the existence of professional bodies, who regulatory
role enables consumers to trust their advirs, thereby making a market
for professional rvices feasible.
在实际中，律师会向我们保证可以相信她所提出的法律意见，这种相对持久的“知识不对称性”是“职业”的一个显要标志，对于消费者来说，除了相信这些专业人士之外别无选择。不过，我们大都不会与那些连最低的服务质量都无法保证的人达成合作，这就需要那些专业机构促使消费者相信他们的意见，从而使“专业服务市场”保持繁荣。
For a professional body in any given field to function, a discrete body
of knowledge for that field must be defined, and the field’s boundaries
must be established: When, for example, is something a medical or legal
issue, and when is it not? There must also be a reasonable connsus
within the field as to what the knowledge should consist of: If
physicians cannot agree on how the human body functions, or lawyers on
the nature of a contract, no discrete body of knowledge can be said to
exist. The boundaries and connsus for any profession will evolve over
time, but at any given moment they can be defined—which is what enables
formal training and certification. Certification signals competence to
consumers who would benefit from it.
对于任何一个领域里的专业机构的职能，我们一定要对这些“知识分支”加以界定，让其与其它的领域划清界限，比如某件事究竟属于医疗问题还是法律问题？同时，对于这个领域内应有的知识内容，大家应该达成一致——如果医生对人体的各项功能意见不一，或者律师对合同性质的见解不一样等等，那么这些知识的分支就没有存在的必要了。对于各个行业的界定都在随着时间的推移而趋于一致，一旦它们被定义下来，那么就需要进行正式的培训和认证了，而所谓的“认证”就是告诉消费者谁有能力做好这件事（而从中赢利）。
Professional bodies hold a trusted position. They have, in effect, a
contract with society at large: They control membership in the
professions through examination and certification, maintain the quality
of certified members through ongoing training and the enforcement of
ethical standards, and may exclude anyone who fails to meet tho
standards. Society is rewarded for its trust with a professional quality
that it would otherwi be unable to ensure. This is the model for the
legal and medical professions and others, including accounting,
architecture, and engineering.
专业机构一般都可以获得大众的信赖，实际上他们和整个社会有一个约定：由他们组织考试或认证来控制某种职业的人数，通过不断的培训和道德标准的约束来保证从业人员的质量，同时剔除那些不符合标准的人们。社会将认可那些职业素养高的（低的可能会被淘汰掉），这样的模型适用于法律、医
学、会计、建筑师和工程师等职业。
As I will argue, neither the boundaries of the discipline of management
nor a connsus on the requisite body of knowledge exists. No
professional body is granted control, no formal entry or certification
is required, no ethical standards are enforced, and no mechanism can
exclude someone from practice. In short, management is not a profession.
Moreover, management can never be a profession, and policies predicated
on the assumption that it can are inherently flawed.
所以我要说，无论是管理学科的诸多界限，还是知识界所存在的各个分支，没有任何一家专业机构是可控的，没有任何一种正式的认证是必须的，没有任何一条道德标准是被强制执行的，
也没有任何一种机制可以排除实践中的人。简言之，管理并不是一种职业，同时管理也永远不可能成为一种职业，而以上的分析中也能看出管理和职业之间是有本质区别的。
Why Not Management?
为什么管理不是一种职业呢？
One might ask, If medicine can reach agreement on the requisite body of
knowledge for becoming a physician, why can’t business do the same for
management? After all, isn’t the MBA a general-management
qualification, and isn’t there a reasonable connsus on MBA curriculum
content? It is generally agreed that nobody should be allowed to
practice medicine without schooling and certification; is society not
also at risk from a business leader with no licen to operate?
Moreover, don’t veral organizations, including the Graduate
Management Admission Council and the Association to Advance Collegiate
Schools of Business, play roles similar to tho of established
professional bodies? And why shouldn’t we introduce and enforce ethical
standards?
有人可能会问，如果学医学的人可以在达到相关行业机构的要求后成为一名医生，那么学商学的为何不能成为一名管理者呢？是因为MBA不是一般的管理认证？还是因为MBA的授课内容不一致？大家都知道，如果没有接受过教育和取得认证（行医执照），任何人都不能从医，但是如果那些商业领袖没有所谓的“从业执照”，这个社会就要陷入危险的境地了么？此外，也没有几家组织，包括“管理专业研究生入学考试委员会”（译者：简称为GMAC，成立于1954年，是总部位于美国的一个非营利性教育协会，其成员包括世界各地许多知名的商学院）和“国际高等商学院协会”（译者：简称为AACSB，成立于1916年 ，是全球首屈一指的商学院和会计项目非政府认证机构），可以发挥类似于前面所提到的专业机构的作用，那么为什么我们不能自己来制定和执行（管理方面的）道德标准呢？
Asking whether a connsus can be reached on the body of knowledge that
qualifies someone to be a manager—on the basis of which society would
delegate control of the training for, certification in, and practice of
management to a professional body—is not the same as asking whether
connsus is possible on the MBA curriculum. That is a narrower question
of whether business schools can agree on what they should teach. The
real issue is whether what the schools do teach qualifies students to
manage, in the way that an MD qualifies someone to practice medicine. I
will argue that the answer is no, and that therefore management cannot
become a profession.
如果你要问那些对职业经理人进行认证的行业机构是否能达成一致（在一个可以对那些提供管理培训、认证和实践服务的专业机构进行授权的社会里），这个问题与“MBA课程能否统
一”是不一样的，它其实就是在片面地问商学院能否同意教授那些制定的课程。真正的问题在于，学校所教授的知识是否符合学生？是否阻碍了医学博士指导某人进行医学实践？我的回答是否定的，这也正是管理不会成为一种职业的原因所在。
Consider the nature of a business contract, which in its narrowest form
is a detailed, precily worded document, drafted by a professional
lawyer and specifying the terms of an agreement, including prescribed
remedies in the event of certain outcomes. The contract is the result of
a professional rvice delivered to managers. Managers also ek the
rvices of accounting firms for internal audits, of engineering
consultancies for capital expenditure projects, and so on. Each
transaction requires the specialized skills of a professional. Each is
