Business schools adapt to changing global realities
Russia’s widely condemned war against Ukraine is taking lives, destroying infrastructure and dislocating energy and food supplies. In parallel, China’s hardline stance on Covid-19 control and its stand-off with the US and Europe — highlighted in part through the Taiwan stand-off — is creating blockages to the movement of people, ideas and trade.
If these trends have not yet led to clear deglobalisation, they have certainly caused significant disruptions and are shaping new patterns. They have suspended or reversed the tighter integration between east and west of recent years in many fields, including in business education.
Nevertheless, this year’s Financial Times ranking of executive MBA programmes shows some strong performers in east Asia as well as Russia. This reflects painstaking work by institutions in building alliances, partnerships and networks of campuses in different parts of the world — to capitalise on growing demand to study and understand varied regions, encourage exchange and cultivate personal networks.
That means some of our highly ranked programmes are having to take stock and adjust their content and intakes. The resurgence of international flows of students remains patchy, and some schools are now looking more to their own domestic or regional markets for recruits.
Digital and technological insights — as well as sustainability — are still much in demand and, in our series on new research, we publish work by an MIT professor on the evolving roles, obligations and potential solutions for social media companies coming under pressure to tackle manipulation and distorted content on their platforms.
We describe also a recalibration in the labour market — after a period of “peak tech” — which has implications for training. As growth slows in many parts of the world and interest rates rise, the sheen has worn off aspects of fintech, turning some people away from careers in businesses such as crypto and “buy now, pay later” finance and toward more traditional banking.
Some business schools are themselves embracing technology more actively, drawing on the lessons of lockdown to continue to teach more online — if only, in some cases, as a way to bring a broader range of speakers and students to the “classroom”.
Wharton, for instance, has recently broken ranks with its leading peers by launching a global EMBA that will be primarily taught remotely (yet charged at the same price), with students attending some intense face-to-face sessions in different cities to cultivate their networks and meet their professors for less formal exchanges.
Hill cites alternative models including offices that convert to community facilities outside working hours. It is no coincidence that examples such as the Lego headquarters in Denmark are dubbed a “campus”. Universities have long offered a model for blended work, study and leisure, and need to evolve for their own survival and to help prepare students for the shifting patterns, structures and organisation of work.
Executive MBAs remain popular among mid-career managers, many of whom are keen to reflect and learn new skills — not only to seek promotion, but often to switch specialism or employer, or to create their own start-ups. Schools are embracing greater flexibility in recruiting and supporting a more diverse range of applicants.
As always, readers using our rankings should put them in context. They provide a snapshot in time, based on data including the perspectives and current status of alumni who completed their courses three years ago. The ranking encapsulates a range of factors, including salary outcomes, perceptions of value for money and career support, as well as diversity and research quality.
This story originally appeared on: Financial Times - Author:Andrew Jack
