Clara Lovett’s commentary on “American” (I think she means U.S.) b-schools is timely. “The rise of the rest” should be some kind of global agenda item.
I am presently involved in starting MBAs in a developing region. In one country here, over thirty percent of the people live below the poverty level. Literacy is a struggle and the culture is not heavily invested in reading. Tourism provides a lot of revenue though “service” is not generally understood at a level the North American or European customer might prefer. Other revenue comes from overseas remittances.
Wealth must be created in this region for long-term sustainability and there are bright and eager entrepreneurs and business people who want to do this. With credit union loans and family help some might be able to afford to pay around $90 US per semester credit for an MBA, but could not stop working while studying. Part-time MBAs are the only option. As best as I can figure Harvard costs around $1,800 per unit; adding in the need to live there full-time it’s about $3,700 per unit for a family. One of the places I used to work now charges $1,785. My guess is that at least 99% of the world could never afford these MBAs. More to the point, even if they could, the education would quite likely have little to do with creating wealth back home.
Books like the Bottom Billion and Fortune at the Bottom suggest that we all should be concerned about wealth creation in lots of places. When considering these ideas, elite B-Schools, with a few exceptions, either aim at getting more for those who already got it, or throw in some social responsibility courses that take students to a barrio or favella somewhere to reflect on social issues (or drink the local beer).
The MBA elite, represented mostly by AACSB, seem to be a pretty self-absorbed bunch. Maybe a fundamental re-imagining of the first-world MBA is called for, something that might contribute to “the rest”. However this poses an essential conundrum… unless the faculty of these schools have spent a significant amount of time at ground-level in these places they won’t have a clue.
Next steps:
- Re-orient your worldview
- Live with “the rest” for a while
- Don’t assume that a U.S. model is right, good or appropriate anywhere else
- Set up the teaching MBA that will equip practitioners actually to teach others, rather than create personal or corporate wealth
- Figure out functional management and apply it locally – this means that local business and management paradigms might create infinitely-customizable MBAs
- Trash current ideas about accreditation and start over
- Fear not new models
Each of the italicized phrases in the list of seven above will provide fodder for future blogs.
In the meantime, let me know your thoughts on creating an MBA for “the rest” (of the world).
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7 Steps to an MBA for the rest:
- Re-orient your worldview
- Live with “the rest” for a while
- Don’t assume that a U.S. model is right, good or appropriate anywhere else
- Set up the teaching MBA that will equip practitioners actually to teach others, rather than create personal or corporate wealth
- Figure out functional management and apply it locally – this means that local business and management paradigms might create infinitely-customizable MBAs
- Trash current ideas about accreditation and start over
- Fear not new models
About Wes Balda
