Undershaft in B-School: Responses of Business Students to Major Barbara

ABSTRACT:This article examines the responses of business students to the 1941 film version of Major Barbara. It argues that today’s business students are quite receptive to the arguments of the play and eager to make comparisons with contemporary debates in business ethics. Due to the nature of drama, plays have a unique pedagogical potential to reach students and engage with them more fully. Shaw, in particular, provides especially helpful tools for teaching business students as well as students in other fields that typically do not have plays on their syllabi. The article suggests several ways Shaw’s works can be incorporated into curricula outside of literary and theater studies to enrich the education of nontraditional future Shavians.