Understanding Executive Education

Today’s trends in executive education reflect those of the broader world of business management courses. Financial uncertainties and the growth of global complexity in business are playing a key role in the development of new course offerings. This has led to greater attention being paid to furthering professional development in the realms of self-awareness, innovation, inspiring others and responsiveness to change, for instance. On the whole though, a major trend has seen courses move away from focusing on a specific function and open up to multi-disciplinary approaches.

Almost every executive education program will now contain some element of online learning or interaction. The competition presented by MOOCs, meanwhile, is a challenge felt more keenly here than among degree-awarding programs – especially in attracting individual students to its open enrollment courses.

Here schools place emphasis on the need for in-person learning and interaction to truly impact upon professional development, not least in terms of reflecting on aspects of character and approach that could be improved. Plus, the customized course format will continue to be attractive to those organizations with the resources to tailor-make programs to their specific requirements.

Still, the MOOC challenge does mean that business schools and universities must continually strive to do better in areas highlighted as the most difficult components of executive education in the Financial Times’ executive education rankings, such as implementing teaching into the workplace and staying connected to a school’s lifelong learning process.            

Prices for open enrollment executive education courses will vary considerably from institution to institution and, naturally, are very much dependent on the length of programs, which can run from anywhere between a few days to over two months.

The following examples and figures are all taken from business schools’ websites at the time of writing:

A comprehensive Advanced Management Program (AMP) spanning over seven weeks would set you back US$75,000 for at Harvard, for instance. Meanwhile, the shorter one-month AMP offerings at INSEAD and MIT Sloan cost approximately US$50,000.

However, there are many alternatives at all these schools. For example, INSEAD, which runs a wide portfolio of courses in Singapore and Abu Dhabi in addition to France, has a five-day course on management skills needed for international business at a cost of roughly US$10,000.

Elsewhere, HKUST Business School offers a 10-day leadership program for c. US$7,700, Nyenrode Business Universiteit has a six-day ‘mini MBA’ in energy transition and innovation for about US$8,000, The American University in Cairo’s six-day program focusing on managing uncertainty is available at US$1,800, INCAE Business School has a three-week senior management course for about US$12,000 and UBC’s Sauder School of Business offers a five-day integrated management program at c. US$2,700.

So, the huge variety in what’s available and at what price is there for all to see. All the schools cited above are members of UNICON - a global body of executive education organizations, which serves to act as a global reference for this form of professional development.

UNICON is optimistic about the future of the executive education program. It senses growing interest in the format amid the challenging terrain of the modern business world in a 2012 best practices report: “There is increasing recognition that, today, lifelong learning is no longer a competitive elective but, rather, a business necessity.”