The Market

Since April, Carsten Schaefer has been specialized as a headhunter in the area of higher education at the 3C Career Consulting Company in Munich. He wants to support business schools in filling their management positions. MBA Channel inquired about his reasons and goals.

A growing list of business schools are adding courses on social media to their MBA curricula, addressing the corporate demand for social-network-savvy employees. Now Harvard Business School and Columbia Business School have joined the ranks, reports Businessweek. The two schools are among at least six that have added courses in the past year that allow students to learn about internet marketing and social media strategy.

In May Indian born Nitin Noharia was appointed as dean of the Harvard Business School. Now Sunil Kumar – also Indian born and educated - will take over as dean of Chicago Booth School of Business. And Dipak Jain, who stepped down as dean of the Kellogg School of Management in September 2009, is tipped to be the new dean at INSEAD.

Traditionally the China Europe International Business School (CEIBS) in Shanghai, HKUST Business School in Hong Kong, Indian School of Business (ISB), and Nanyang Business School in Singapore have competed for applicants from Europe. Now the four renowned business schools are joining forces for the first time to target top European students.

So you’ve decided that what’s called a “brick-and-mortar” MBA program may not be for you. There may be several reasons for this. For example, you may be already working and you don’t want to take some time off to commit to a traditional MBA program, or you may have family or financial obligations that are more easily dealt with distance learning.

The way Business Schools are selling MBA degrees to applicants is shifting, reports Business Week.

How can business schools save money on printing, contribute to environmental sustainability, improve networking opportunities among participants and bring cutting edge knowledge into the classroom? The answer – the iPad.

While purely economic reasons triggered SKEMA, a French business school, to open a campus in each of the emerging markets of China and Morocco, the decision to conquer the American market has a more emotional background.

Business schools are institutions which don´t change within. They need external pressure, says Harvard professor Rakesh Khurana at the EFMD Annual Conference in Oestrich-Winkel, Germany, and gave shocking insights on the mindset of Harvard students.

Darden’s Kindle experiment is not quite over but the verdict is already in: Most students prefer not to use the electronic reading devices in the B-school classroom.

Faisal Shahzad was building the classical business career: a degree in computing followed by an MBA, high-profile business jobs at the cosmetics company Elizabeth Arden and Affinion, a financial marketing company. But then he planted a bomb at New York’s Times Square.

At the first Deans Conference in 2010, Professor Datar and Professor Lowes Dickinson from Harvard Business School presented the findings from the book ‘Rethinking the MBA: Business Education at a Crossroads’. An early attempt to define the challenges business schools are facing these days.

The presidents of 7 US business schools met earlier this week as a first step for improved inter-school cohesion and collaboration.

With professional excellence as its aim, the Central and East European Management Development Association (CEEMAN) performs solid work. When it comes to its own members, however, it would rather turn a blind eye. An example of this is the controversial Indian business school IIPM.

Every era has its own version of an MBA’s dream. In the 1980s, it was about conquering Wall Street, the late 1990s saw a run to Silicon Valley. After the millennium parties, private equity companies seemed to be irresistible. Now, it’s all about Asia and its promise of growth, reports “Business Week”.

The Australian economy may well be on the rebound but the continuation of a tight job market means that MBA programs are well-patronized once again this year, writes the “Australian Financial Review”. But the international demand is slowing down.