The Making of Business Elites : Based on the example of the University of St.Gallen (HSG)

Abstract

As the distinguished recruitment institution for economic elites in the German-speaking region, HSG possesses a "brand" whose reputation conveys the height of economic success and enviable careers for its graduates. However, it is not only graduates' specific skills that earn them this privileged position in the market but, most importantly, personality development in the form of a certain "habit". The exist-ence and implicit support of this specific "attitude" is an oft-repeated theme in the mission of the Uni-versity as well as in internal communications that reference a self-concept of "excellence" and "class". The formation and imprinting of this aggregate of personality patterns and behavioural dispositions has however yet been barely examined - about the specific processes of this secondary "personality development" of economic actors no sound data is available, either internationally or in Switzerland, and in particular no qualitative empirical studies. The underlying project that is the basis of this pro-posal therefore seeks to explore the question of which socialization processes and institutions, norms and conventions of an exemplary education institute for "future leaders" facilitates the emergence of a specific habit, in which specific milieus its characteristics are more pronounced, and what role these factors play in the "production of elites" in the economy. The underlying problem here deals with an aggregate that lies beyond both the individualizing "ethical" pattern of the current criticism of the behaviour of "decision makers" and the purely social-structural issue of elite reproduction in the economy, but also understands the actual processes of "instillment" of behavioural patterns during the education as a decisive hinge between socially influenced dispositions of "future leaders" and the social reproduction of an economic elite.