Evolution of the MBA program: A Decade of Business Education

In order to keep pace with the constantly evolving world of business, MBA programs continually evolve and perfect their teaching and learning experiences. Most recently, the global financial crisis has had a profound impact on the business school world.

“Having seen the financial crisis first hand while working as a managing director of Blackrock, it became clear to me that we can’t understand the world from any single academic viewpoint - that our economic and financial theories have to be complemented by an understanding of psychology and sociology, for example,” explains Professor Mark Taylor, dean of Warwick Business School (WBS) in the UK.

“We need to break down the academic silos and take an interdisciplinary approach to understanding the hidden forces that lie behind human behavior and that drive business and society.”

As a direct result of Professor Taylor’s experiences and the conclusions he drew from them, WBS has set up what is the first behavioral science and teaching group at a European business school.

“I firmly believe [behavioral science] will be at the forefront of business research and teaching going forward,” he says. “In fact, we are building behavioral science into all of our courses at WBS. It’s at the core of our redesigned MBA program, for example.”

As a result of the financial crisis, methods that incorporate reflection of the world that surrounds business have also been introduced in MBA programs across the Atlantic in the US.
At Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth for instance, a specialist center to aid student recognition of their surroundings has been set up in the wake of the crisis.

“We established a group called the Center for Business and Society to emphasize the teaching of corporate social responsibility, environmental sustainability, social

entrepreneurship, and community involvement - values that were sorely lacking among some business leaders during the crisis,” Dean Paul Danos tells TopMBA.com’s sister publication, the QS Top MBA Career Guide.

Further, Tuck has joined five other business schools around the world to form the Council on Business and Society, “which hosts forums that address how business and society interact throughout the world,” says Danos.

The five other member schools are: France’s ESSEC Business School, China’s Fudan School of Management, Japan’s Keio Business School, Germany’s University of Mannheim Business School, and Brazil’s Fundação Getulio Vargas.

Such a globally representative set of schools joining forces emphasizes the ever-increasing globalization of business, and how business schools have reacted to it.

Even a decade or two ago, MBAs considering the idea of gaining post-degree employment in Asia, Africa, or Latin America would have been met with a considerable number of obstacles, not least lower recognition of business education and salary levels that made a return of investment from the qualification close to unimaginable.

Fast-forward to today however, and global MBA remuneration is closer to parity than it has ever been.