The International Finance Corporation's MBA Survey : How Developing Country Firms Rate Local Business School Training
Graduate education in business administration was developed in the U.S. around the turn of the twentieth century. MBA and similar graduate-level business programs took hold more slowly in other countries, but the number of such programs expanded mo...
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| Format: | Policy Research Working Paper |
| Language: | English en_US |
| Published: |
World Bank, Washington, DC
2014
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| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2003/12/5278701/international-finance-corporations-mba-survey-developing-country-firms-rate-local-business-school-training http://hdl.handle.net/10986/17429 |
| Summary: | Graduate education in business
administration was developed in the U.S. around the turn of
the twentieth century. MBA and similar graduate-level
business programs took hold more slowly in other countries,
but the number of such programs expanded more rapidly from
the 1960s onward. In an effort to determine what firms from
these countries require from business school graduates, the
IFC used its extensive contacts with these firms to conduct
a survey of the quality of business education in these
countries. The survey results imply that the strengths and
weaknesses of developing and transition country MBAs seem to
overlap with those of MBAs from the U.S.: managers in the
U.S. and in the developing countries find that the technical
and analytical skills of MBAs are well developed while the
practical training/skills and communication/language skills
of MBAs are significantly lacking. On the whole, only the
African and Middle Eastern firms were significantly
dissatisfied with the quality of local MBA graduates. The
survey results show that MBAs worldwide are not fully
satisfying the needs of firms. Each of the other regions of
the world has its own particular weaknesses, while at the
same time some common weaknesses (such as work experience
and communication skills) stand out. These results show that
a cookie-cutter approach to training MBAs cannot work.
Rather, MBA programs have to be tailored to suit the needs
of the local business community while also teaching common
business fundamentals. |
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