Harvard Business School is celebrating its centenary by looking back at the years gone by and gearing up for future endeavours. A team of faculty members, led by Srikant Datar, senior associate dean and the Arthur Lowes Dickinson professor of business administration at Harvard University, discussed how the next 100 years of management education are going to look like. The team held discussions with deans from 30 of the world’s premier B-Schools, over 400 executives and conducted six detailed case studies which will be out in the form of a book by the end of next year.
What have been the main findings of the study?
There is going to be a greater emphasis on experimental learning when it comes to management education. With the main focus on individual, there will be more of individual classes and less of classroom teaching. This will mean a further shortage of faculties.
The deans discussed the need to bridge the gap between ‘knowing’ and ‘doing’. It is one thing to know something which is quite different from having the ability to do it. Very little emphasis is given to introspection in management education.
So, there is a need to give attention to an individual. Certain things need to be changed. Everyone is worried about globalisation. However, our courses on globalisation are very functional, with the syllabus emphasising on the global nature of the work.
What needs to be done is to integrate global thinking. For instance, at Stanford, there is a global context management course in the first quarter itself, which is an innovative practice — to get the big picture first before anything else.
What about the impact of globalisation on management education?
B-schools have to ensure students understand the exact meaning of globalisation. Does this mean that B-schools set up global campuses? I think for a truly global perspective, a classroom is not enough. B-schools will eventually end up organising projects in other countries — provide the framework, explore how is it to work in other countries with different market and culture and then discuss the experience back home.
More than global campuses, I see alliances being formed, mainly for executive MBA programmes. Some B-schools have already set up campuses — Chicago has one in Barcelona and another in Singapore, and INSEAD has one in Singapore. I think, B-schools worldwide will establish alliances without setting up their own campuses and offer exchange opportunities for executive MBA programmes — Chicago has 33 international exchange programmes.
Setting up of new campuses will be a problem — not from the supply side but from the demand side. Since these alliances will have a significantly high number of local staff, finding faculty members is going to be a big challenge.
What about the duration of management courses and changes in content?
The trend of two-year MBA programme will change. In Europe, for instance, an MBA is a year-long programme. B-schools in the US — other than the top ten — find it difficult to frame two year MBA programmes. I am not sure if one year is enough for an MBA. There is a need to add more value to the two-year MBA programme or reduce the duration to one year.
Also, there are specialised courses — like the one-year finance specialisation — that are very popular. For instance, at INSEAD, finance specialisation is a 10-month programme, whereas the regular MBA is a 16-month programme. In the 10-month intensive programme, 60% course of the 16-month programme is covered. So, if the programme is made even more intensive, more topics will be covered in short duration.
Although I still believe that students need to spend more time to get the most out of an MBA degree. At a colloquium, deans also discussed what the B-schools need to do if they want leaders and not managers to emerge from their programmes. Stanford has a developed an Individual Leadership Lab, where people discuss introspection, self awareness and advantages of working in small teams.
What about the availability of faculty members?
In the US, there is already a 10% shortage of faculty members. The challenge is, as the faculty-student ratio is getting smaller, we need to think about the size of the faculties and their skills. Our study shows that at HBS, the student-faculty ratio is 10-12:1. So, for 2,000 students there are 200 faculty members. At Stanford, for 700 students there are 75 faculty members.
This is a big resource challenge, especially in India. US is already facing this problem and the study suggests that the focus has to shift to individual classes. Also, about 35-40% of staff members and students in the US come from elsewhere. It will be a while before Indian B-schools will be in a position to do something like this. The need is to have faculty members who are analytical in their approach and have excellent communication skills.
How will the business schools in India gain from this study?
The biggest challenge is availability of faculty members. Indian schools will adapt quickly to the changes. However, providing more facilities is the need of the hour. For instance, when Stanford introduced its new curriculum, it re-designed the campus saying new changes can not be incorporated in old structures. This will be easier for Indian schools which are developing now. All the three resource aspects — faculty, money and facilities — are a challenge. Indian schools will have to do things in their own way.
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