Prospective MBA students set out their views on what they think of the MBA qualification, what they expect from the business school experience and what they want to study
Entrepreneurship is not new to the MBA, but for many years the focus for many MBA students has been banking, finance and consulting. The second Tomorrow’s MBA study suggests this focus is shifting and that entrepreneurship may be the trend of the future.
The Tomorrow’s MBA study was first run in 2009/2010 to try and understand if the economic recession, and the criticism that the MBA received following the collapse of several banks, had an impact on prospective MBA students. If anything the study suggested a strengthening of interest in the qualification, especially in Asia.
Research for the second year of the study took place in November/December 2010. Potential respondents were contacted through social media, online advertising and banner adverts on a number of business school websites. Responses were received from 476 prospective MBA students in 79 countries.
Key trends highlighted in this year’s study include:
- Entrepreneurship is now in the top five most valuable pieces of content according to a study of 476 prospective MBAs in 79 countries.
- Most valuable course content among prospective MBAs is Strategic Management, Leadership and Managing People and Organisations.
- Less than 10% of the sample have become more negative about the MBA qualification over the past year.
- Only in North America do more than 50% of the sample indicate that they want a traditional 2 year MBA programme. Across the sample, more respondents want blended learning rather than traditional academic terms and office hours.
- When asked what had the greatest impact on their perception of the MBA, the answer was most likely to be people, either when visiting business schools, meeting MBA alumni or working with MBA graduates. Information gathering may be dominated by electronic media, but decision making still tends to only take place after a conversation with an alumnus or school staff member.
- There is a continued focus on embedding ethics and CSR rather than teaching as stand alone components of a MBA
Check:
www.efmd.org for further info
Download the Executive Summary of Tomorrow’s MBA
Povl Tiedemann
May 2011