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Although shrinking with time and circumstance, my MBA-acquired intellectual property inhabits prime cerebral space. There, in the deep folds of the cortex, the forces of theory and practice, numbers and narrative compete for mental supremacy. It can’t make for easy combat. Armed with formulas, spreadsheets and case-study conclusions, the synapses fighting for the free market are poised to wield the upper hand. But the underdog synapses struggling for socio-economic equity carry the business- school equivalent of Aesop’s Fables. Here are a couple of my favourites.

First, the day my professor of organizational theory invited the local Frito Lay plant manager and a high-ranking civil servant to address our class. While handing out more bags of potato chips than any 7-Eleven could stock, Mr. Frito Lay delivered a slick presentation on building teamwork among spud peelers. Mr. Bureaucrat, meanwhile, was pensive and modest as he shared stories of managing education and health-care budgets worth billions.

Afterwards, the potato guy was mobbed by students thrusting their résumés into his well-manicured hands. The other guy hovered in the background with only our professor for company. Over a bag of ripple chips, I contemplated the shape-shifting power of packaging and presentation—potato-chip production had been elevated to a calling more noble than educating the young or healing the sick.

A couple of months later, the CEO of a major financial institution was invited to speak on the issue of bank mergers. Cuddling a logo-clad teddy bear, Mr. CEO boasted of his company’s efforts to combat child poverty. He pledged that no child be left behind in an era of trade liberalization (note the savvy link to the bank merger issue). Then, with an abrupt toss of the teddy, he launched a fiery defence of front-line layoffs and corporate restructuring. The crowd rewarded him with a standing ovation. Slipping out the side door, I wondered whether some of the children living in poverty weren’t the very offspring of his company’s offloaded and underpaid front-line workers.

Questions about the relationship between the classroom and the boardroom loomed large during my B-school tenure. Signs of corporate influence over case-study selection, focus-group exercises and speaker series existed but were not flagrant enough to trigger any blowing of the scholarly whistle. Still, the scent of compromise lingered in the halls and I worried more about what I couldn’t see than what I could.