China European International Business School (CEIBS) in the People’s Republic of China is the shooting star amongst Business Schools. Since February the school has a new dean with John A. Quelch, previously teaching in London and Harvard. Now it’s time to be in China, he says. MBA-Channel spoke to John Quelch about the impact of Asia on Business Schools and how he is going to turn CEIBS from a regional into a global brand.
John A. Quelch
After 30 years in the U.S. at Harvard Business School amongst others as senior associate dean and four years in Europe as dean at London Business School, why did you choose to come to the People’s Republic of China?
It’s a moment in time where Asia – especially China - is pivotal in world economic growth. I have been approached by a couple of other schools for becoming dean, but I really was not interested in North America or in Europe again. I also had a couple of approaches within other schools in Asia - in locations which I would describe as Asia light...
When did you decide to come to Shanghai?
As a visiting CEIBS professor in 2009, I wrote a case study about the school and taught it to the faculty members. Looking back, this was fairly important because this enabled the faculty members to find a comfort level with me, even though I had no particular inclination that I would end up in Shanghai in this role. I decided to come in the middle of November 2010.
What are the differences in business education in Asia, especially China and the U.S. and Europe?
Business education in China is very much weighted towards hard skills subjects: finance, economics, accounting, operations and management are all particularly strong areas of interest among the Asian students. Perhaps they would not be so cognisant of the substantial need for soft skills development.
How do you explain this?
Don’t get me wrong: It is not that Europeans and Americans are doing the soft stuff and Chinese are doing the hard stuff. There are even native Chinese who are teaching leadership and entrepreneurship. But as a generalization, I can say: The ability to mix people from different cultures has not only a cultural benefit, but also a soft versus hard skills benefit in the curriculum.
Why would students choose CEIBS or rather Qinghua?
I will not make any comment on any competitor but after my reading of the Qinghua curriculum and faculty mix, it is fair to say, that there the hard skills are more weighted. It is after all called the “Qinghua School of Management and Economics”, not called the Qinghua Business School. The proportions of domestic and international students and teachers are the most important decisions you take as an institution. On our MBA-program there are 45 percent international students. The fulltime faculty mix is about half-half. The position of CEIBS is clearly articulated in four words: China depth and global breadth. No other international school can match us on the China-depth and no Chinese school can match us on the global breadth. The international students are very interested in China and see it as an important step in an international career, maybe with an international company or a Chinese company going international. We make sure that our Chinese students have full exposure to an international environment, so that they are better equipped for going overseas and investing abroad – something the Chinese government now wants them to do.
Nunzio Quacquarelli, managing director of QS – the organisation behind the World MBA Tour, says: “There is a need for innovation in teaching, in course construction, in faculty mix and so on. There is not one right answer, but there is a real need for change.” What do you believe: Are these changes going to come from China and Asia?
With 180 students the size of our MBA-program is small. Therefore we are very flexible and in the midst of an ongoing curriculum evaluation. We want to make responsible leadership a cornerstone of our general management program. Everybody agrees that we shouldn’t be substituting cases on Corporate Social Responsibility for the basic quantity of finance and accounting methods. But we would also like to drive responsible leadership through hard skills courses. I like the responsible leadership idea: People are very surprised when a Chinese institution says it is concerned with it.
Is the idea of responsible leadership popular amongst Chinese business people?
No, but I don’t think that a leading Business School should be just preaching to the choir. There is a segment of our alumni who are very committed to this area, but obviously most business people in China are preoccupied with taking full advantage in the current economic opportunities. It is our responsibility to provide some guidance in this. This is also an arena where non-Chinese students can help to educate Chinese students.
Are these very Western ideas?
No, the new Confucianism expressed by Hu Jintao and Wen Jiabao in terms of harmonious society is very much equivalent to our concept of stakeholder capitalism. With 800 graduates per year, we have one of the largest EMBA programs in the world. Our students are chairmen, COOs and presidents of their own companies. Many of them want to take time to explore issues like work-life balance: “How do I manage my marriage and my family when I’m working 100 hours a week without loosing the current opportunities?” They feel this need for guidance. Therefore the concept of responsible leadership has a strong chance to resonate.
Many professors believe that innovation in Business Schools will come from emerging markets like China and India. What is your opinion?
Up to this point, CEIBS was focussed more on knowledge dissemination than on knowledge creation, because we have grown so rapidly. We have to become knowledge generators rather than simply knowledge disseminators - just as China has to advance from a production economy towards a knowledge economy. Therefore we bring strong researchers like Professor George S. Yip to the faculty, the current dean of Erasmus in Rotterdam, who will be joining us as full time faculty member in May. He is of Chinese heritage, teaches international strategy and is an expert in multi-national companies going to China. We will only be able to sustain our claim of „China depth, global breadth“ as long as we are generating new thinking.
Where will CEIBS be in one year?
The number of students will not increase. You can’t simultaneously say: Move towards knowledge creation and double the teaching load. Harvard Business School only admits one percent of all the MBAs in the USA, but if you measure its impact, it’s obviously much greater than one per cent. You don’t need the biggest program to have the most impact. We rather want to have the best applicants in China.
At the moment, the percentage of admittance is 4.5:1 in the MBA-program and 2:1 in the EMBA. The MBA-admittance ratio is satisfactory, but I wish it was more robust. At Harvard it is 10:1 with 9,000 students. At CEIBS it is 4.5:1 with only 180 students. We need to re-assure our Non-Chinese students about the career-opportunities coming out of the school, a question that is related to the sheer brand awareness of CEIBS. This awareness is very strong in China, and I’m working on boosting it globally, so that people would feel more comfortable about it. We are pushing companies who have recruited students from CEIBS for China activities to now put CEIBS on their global fellowship programs. These companies realize that in their global organization they need people with familiarity with China. They don’t just need these people in China.
Do most of the Non-Chinese graduates stay in China?
Out of the international students, 60 percent end up outside of China, quite a few in Hong Kong and Southeast Asia, and 40 percent stay in China. Most of the students are people who are taking on a long view on Asia. They are pretty courageous students. It is easy for someone to say: CEIBS is great, but I got admitted to Wharton, it is a great brand and it is better known, more alumni... The people who actually do say yes to CEIBS are a remarkable group of pioneers, particularly those who obviously don’t have any China connections.
How important is it to speak Chinese?
If it was important, I would not have been hired. On the other hand, our international students do have to reach a basic Chinese level. It is kind of a cultural appreciation and we want them to be socializing with our Chinese students.
Business Schools, especially in the US are selling „career-packages“ with their MBA-programs. In China everybody talks about „Guanxi – relations“. You are new in this country. How are you going to create your Guanxi-network?
Our MBA-program has clearly leveraged the existence of the EMBA-program: Any MBA-student can get an EMBA-mentor and two thirds of the students do. The EMBAs are frequently tapped for student projects, case studies, internships and full time job opportunities. The teaching demands of the EMBAs, who are in their 40s, are so high, that the quality of the teaching in the MBA-program is also uplifted. So even though you have this largely domestic EMBA program, the English-language MBA is not swamped, but actually advantaged by its presence.
CEIBS has a campus in Accra, Ghana...
There is hardly any Business School that has serious activities in Africa. If you run such a program, what would normally happen? People back home would say: “Why is my degree being dumbed down and given to people in Africa?” My point would be: “Meet these people, their calibre is extraordinary”. In Africa, to be at a level where you have the motivation, the time and the resources to put yourself through an EMBA program, you need to be extraordinary.
Facts and Figures China Europe International Business School (CEIBS): MBA
Students: 180 MBA (37 % female, 63 % male students)
International students: 36 %
Length of programme: 18 months
Cost MBA programme: Chinese participants (including Taiwan, HK and Macau): RMB 298,000; International participants: USD 49,800
Accreditation (CEIBS): EQUIS, AACSB, Academic Degree Committee of the State Council, People's Republic of China
Facts and Figures China Europe International Business School (CEIBS): EMBA
Students: 775 EMBA (20 % female, 80 % male students) 5 Chinese classes, 1 international class (IEMBA)
International students: 49 % (in the IEMBA class 2009-2010)
Length of programme: 24 months
Cost EMBA programme: Chinese program: RMB 458,000; IEMBA: RMB 478,000
Accreditation (CEIBS): EQUIS, AACSB, Academic Degree Committee of the State Council, People's Republic of China
A short biography
John A. Quelch
John A. Quelch, a native of London, was appointed Professor of International Management, Vice President and Dean at China Europe International Business School (CEIBS) on February 9th, 2011. He already had been visiting Professor of International Management at CEIBS in 2009. Quelch has 30 years experience at Harvard Business School, amongst others as Senior Associate Dean. Between 1998 and 2001 he was Dean of London Business School. Quelch is well known for his teaching materials and innovations in pedagogy. Over the past twenty years, his case studies have sold over 3.4 million copies. His research focus is on global marketing and branding in emerging as well as developed markets.
Quelch was educated at Exeter College, Oxford University (BA and MA), the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania (MBA), the Harvard School of Public Health (MS) and Graduate School of Business Administration (DBA).
John A. Quelch holds British and American nationality.
