FUTURE TALENT November - January 2019/2020 | Page 33

ON TOPIC
O
nce the pinnacle of
professional learning,
guaranteeing lucrative
careers, the full-time
MBA is dead or dying
– at least in the opinion
of some.
Wr i t i n g i n T h e
Guardian last year,
P ro fe s s o r M a r t i n
Parker, author of Shut
Down the Business
School: What’s Wrong
with Management
Education, described business
schools as “intellectually fraudulent…
fostering a culture of short-termism
and greed”. With his perspective
drawn from a 20-year career within
business schools, he slammed them
as “places that teach people how to
get money out of the pockets of
ordinary people and keep it for
themselves”, pointing out that “since
2008, many commentators have
suggested that business schools
were complicit in producting
the crash”.
Other critics have been warning
for years that most MBAs fail to
impart practical skills grounded in
business practice, cater only for
privileged students who can afford
the high fees, and are slow to adapt
their curricular to today’s exponential
pace of change.
However, the MBA’s return on
investment remains high for recent
graduates, according to the
Graduate Management Admission
Council, a global, mission-driven
association of leading graduate
business schools (and owners of the
Graduate Management Admission
Test – GMAT™– exam).
Its 2018 Alumni Perspectives
Survey (based on survey responses
from 10,882 alumni, representing 274
institutions and a wide variety of
programme t ypes) found “a
p rofe s s i o n a l l y rewa rd i n g
experience” to be the primary driver
of overall value of a graduate
management education: 79% of
respondents rated the value of their
graduate management education
outstanding or excellent, with just
4% rating it fair or poor.
An overwhelming 93% of alumni
said they would pursue a graduate
management education again
knowing what they know now, while
O
95% would recruit a student from
their alma mater for a job opening
at their organisation. 
It must be stressed that not all
MBAs are created equal. Types of
format and programme – and
levels of prestige – vary. Where
there was once a full-time MBA
(and potentially a part-time
option), now MBAs can also be
executive (EMBAs), online, global,
international and accelerated,
dif fering in length, format ,
entry requirements, cohor t
demographics and cost.
But the need for business
schools to work harder at matching
their MBA products to current
needs is clearly acknowledged.
Earlier this year, Professor Bodo
Schlegelmilch, chair of the
Association of MBAs (AMBA) and
Business Graduate Association
penned a ‘call to action’ in AMBA’s
magazine, Ambition.
This urged business schools
to “embrace and adapt to
environmental turbulences” and
“to think very carefully about their
resources, capabilities and, in
particular, their purpose”, bearing
in mind the appetite among
prospective students for flexibility,
personalisation and meaningful
values (such as sustainability and
inclusive capitalism).
He referenced today’s pace of
technological and societal change,
going so far as to suggest a new
model of “degrees for rent”.
“What MBAs learned five, 10 or
15 years ago is certainly not
current, often irrelevant and
sometimes even wrong,” he
acknowledged. “Business Schools
need to change their business
model. For example, in sync with
the sharing economy, future
business schools could move from
ownership to renting. Under this,
schools would not award their MBA
degrees forever (the ownership
model) but would grant the
degree for a limited number of
years (subscription model). Unless
MBA graduates demonstrated a
commitment to continuous
professional development, their
degrees would expire.”
So, innovation (and lateral
thinking) is apparent within the
business-school sector. And while
November – January 2019 // 33