MBA Market Views

The MBA trend in China started nearly 10 years ago and opened up a new market for business schools. In China, so far, only a handful out of the total 233 business schools have been able to achieve one of the highly regarded accreditations from Equis or AACSB, and therefore many aspiring managers fell into the arms of foreign business schools.

“Coming to study at a UK university has become increasingly difficult, as would-be students get entangled in more complex and expensive visa requirements”, says James Pitman, managing director of the UK’s Study Group, a specialist provider of educational programmes for international students.

Business ethics have been in the spotlight since the beginning of the financial crisis in 2008. Many business schools have discussed how to integrate and how to teach business ethics in their MBA curriculum and quite a few have taken actions as well. But business ethics is not as easily taught as accounting where hard facts prevail. A recently published book aims at being a useful support tool for exactly this integration process.

Demand for part-time MBA programmes has held steady through the financial crisis, as the degree attracts people who want to study without giving up a job. This is the outcome of the Application Trend Survey conducted by the Graduate Management Admission Council or GMAC. Amongst the surveyed part-time MBA programmes 44 per cent saw an increase in applications from 2011 and 14 per cent reported no change.

Goldman Sachs once created the name BRIC countries – meaning Brazil, Russia, India and China. The name has stuck despite that the countries don’t have a lot in common apart from being the fastest growing and largest emerging markets economies. The global focus has mainly been on the IC part of the abbreviation – India and China, but Brazil has slowly and steadily “climbed the ladder” as well.

Belgian business school’s rebranding campaign

Vlerick Leuven Gent Management School has changed its name to Vlerick Business School. The change in name is part of a rebranding process that also gave the school’s logo a bold new typeface and a bright colour-setting.

When the QS Global 200 Business Schools Report was published, only 10 schools qualified within the Latin American region. But a change seems to be in the air and São Paulo is the name to keep in mind. The Brazilian city is already the 10th richest city in the world and a global financial hub for Latin America (also see the article “A nation at a glance: Brazil’s rise to the top”). And so it’s not without reason that two Brazilian business schools from São Paulo have climbed up the ratings.

“The Global Compact asks companies to embrace universal principles and to partner with the United Nations. It has grown to become a critical platform for the UN to engage effectively with enlightened global business,” describes UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon the UN’s initiative to team up with the corporate world to enforce good practice in regards to labour, the environment and to fight corruption. Audencia Nantes was the first French Business school to sign this Global Compact in 2004. Now the school will emphasise its dedication to sustainability by launching an MBA in Responsible Management.

The case method is a key teaching tool in most business schools. A case study provides students with mostly real events and challenges from the corporate world. These can be 30 pages on the introduction of a new frequent flyer programme or a company’s re-branding campaign for example … During a case students have to turn into decision makers, they are confronted with a problem and need to solve it.
For years this method has been praised but in recent times, more and more criticism has sprung up.

European business schools dominated the Financial Times’ masters in management ranking for 2012. The University of St Gallen placed first followed by ESCP Europe, Cems, HEC Paris, Essec Business School, IE Business School, Esade Business School and Rotterdam School of Management.

A generous donation of $60m will see Northeastern University’s business school renamed. Two alumni of Northeastern University, Richard D’Amore and Alan McKim, are the sponsors, and the school’s new name will accordingly be the D’Amore-McKim School of Business. The business school plans to invest the donation in the undergraduate, graduate and executive programmes at the school. Money will also go towards overseas programmes and teaching in entrepreneurship.

Weatherhead combines forces with China and India for global MBA

A new three-country MBA programme will be launched in 2013, allowing students to gain knowledge from an American, Chinese and Indian business school. The three participating schools, the Weatherhead School of Management at Case Western University, in Cleveland in the US, the School of Economics and Management at Tongji University, in Shanghai in China, and Xavier Labour Relations Institute, in Jamshedpur in India, will start by enrolling 20 students each for this full-time MBA programme.

The tremendous growth of the Chinese economy has created high demand for well-trained managers, causing many middle managers, executives, and business owners in China to go back to school to seek business education, writes Shu-Hsing Li, dean and professor of accounting from the College of Management at National Taiwan University in a recent essay. Due to the sheer size of China’s population this could mean a large number of students will be applying for part-time EMBA programmes in the near future.

Stephen Greer started his own business straight after college, at the ripe old age of 24. He moved on to create a global scrap metal company, which he eventually sold for 250 million dollars. After Harvard Business Review had written about him and he had published his experiences in the book “Starting From Scratch”, Greer was invited to tour a number of business schools to talk about his life.

Online MBAs have become more and more popular over the years. Online MBAs mean flexible learning wherever and whenever you want to. These courses don’t force you to attend class regularly and at one location. And a point that has proven crucial in the aftermath of the financial crisis: They don’t force you to resign your job and tuition is much more cost-efficient. On the downside, employers have been hesitant in the past to recruit online MBA graduates.