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The Trend Toward Specialized MBAs

Sunday, November 7th, 2010

Business schools have traditionally been aligned and have traditionally taught students along functional lines. Departments have been formed and managed, case studies designed, curricula defined and courses taught around relatively discrete disciplines, such as marketing, finance and international business. Students selected concentrations and mixed-and-matched courses from each discipline in accordance with their particular interests. These specializations, however, have traditionally been taught within the context of a broad management framework that was intended to provide students with the type of integrative perspective required to make complex, multi-faceted decisions.

Many mid-tier schools, particularly those with regional, rather than national/global reputations, saw a big limitation in this model. The vast majority of their graduates would not become the type of top corporate executives that would make full use of these integrative frameworks. Most companies were looking to these schools to provide specialists who could immediately contribute demonstrable value to their companies.

Rapidly growing numbers of mid-tier schools, therefore, are working to increase and demonstrate their graduates’ relevance to these employers by restructuring their programs around increasingly focused disciplines. Many offer MBAs that are targeted at preparing graduates for specific jobs or for work in specific industries.

The Birth and Growth of Specialized MBAs

The trend toward specialized MBA programs began in 1990 after the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business International (AACSB) changed its accreditation guidelines to encourage schools to develop innovative curricula. The University of Wisconsin at Madison was one of the pioneers in this practice, launching its first specialized program that same year. It has since gone further than virtually any other university in its embrace of such programs. In fact, it eliminated its general MBA program altogether in 2004, opting for a program that consisted of 14 specialized programs including applied corporate finance, market research, real estate and urban economics.

Such specializations provided a convenient way for mid-tier schools to differentiate themselves from, and change the terms of competition with larger, better-known and better-funded schools. Then, as some of the early specialists began to improve graduate placement rates, the trickle of specialization grew into a flood. AACSB figures, for example, show that 298 U.S. business schools now offering specialized MBAs.

These schools often begin by introducing specialized programs in established management sub-disciplines, such as human resources, project management, information technology management, supply chain management and nonprofit management. A growing number of schools have created new specialties in areas that hold the promise of particularly attractive or rewarding careers, as in business analytics, asset and wealth management and brand management. New programs have since begun to emerge around currently hot fields including entrepreneurship, sustainability, corporate social responsibility, global management, innovation, social media and risk management.

Such programs are also proving to be popular among students. AACSB, for example, estimates that more than 20% of all MBA students are now enrolled in such programs and that this enrollment continues to grow at about 4% per year.

A Global Phenomenon

Nor has the trend toward specialized MBAs been confined to the United States. European B-schools, especially in France, were also early adopters of the specialization model. The ESSEC Business School, for example, launched its first specialized MBA program (in international luxury brand management—with sub-specialties in fields including fashion, fragrances, jewelry and cars) in 1995. It now offers a couple such programs, including one in hospitality management. The BEM Bordeaux management school, logically, offers its Wine MBA, built around a curriculum that is intended to prepare managers for careers in different aspects of the wine trade. France’s HEC School of Management, meanwhile, now offers 12 specialized master’s programs in areas including law and international management and entrepreneurship. U.K.-based schools, such as the Cranfield School of Management, offerings specialized degrees in areas including innovation leadership, international human resources management, logistics and supply chain management.

Asian universities have begun to follow suit. MBA India, for example, lists about two dozen schools offerings specialized degrees in fields such as real estate, construction, bank, travel and tourism, pharmaceutical and even rural management. The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology Business School, meanwhile, offers master degrees in e-commerce management, investment management and information systems. China, which has so far authorized about 60 universities to offer MBA programs, is following suit. The Beijing Institute of Technology, for example, offers MBAs in manufacturing and government management and Beijing University now offers an Aviation MBA. In fact, according to AACSB, more than 140 schools outside the U.S. now offer such specialized programs.

In other words, worldwide, 438 out of 599 AACSB-accredited graduate business schools already offer at least one specialized program—many offer multiple programs. Other schools are introducing specialized programs or integrated multi-disciplinary programs every semester. But while such programs may well differentiate these schools from those that offer more generalized MBA programs, how can schools differentiate their specialized programs from those offered by others? That is the topic of my next post.

Posted in Universities and Grad Schools | No Responses »
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The Community College Contribution

Sunday, August 8th, 2010

As I discussed in my June 25 blog (Occupational Opportunities for the Next Decade), the Bureau of Labor Statistics 2010 Occupational Outlook Handbook shows that 46 million jobs (30% of those in the U.S.) will soon require more than a high school education, but less than a four-year bachelor’s degree. The nation’s 1,200 community colleges are—and will continue to be—the primary source of this education as demand for individuals with two-year technical degrees grows faster than that for those with a full university degree.

These institutions, which enroll a total of 11.8 million, or 43% of the country’s undergraduate students, play five critical, but very different roles in our educational system, providing:

  • Transfer Education, for students that will transfer to a four-year institution to pursue a BS/BA degree;
  • Career Education, for those that will graduate with an Associate Degree and directly enter the workforce;
  • Developmental Education, remedial education for high school graduates who are not academically ready to enroll in college-level courses;
  • Continuing Education, which entails non-credit courses for personal development and interest; and
  • Industry Training, which is contracted for by companies to provide training for specific jobs.

Of the 930,000 students who completed formal courses of community college study in 2009, 65% graduated with Associate Degrees (which typically require the equivalent of roughly two years of full-time study). The other 35% end up with certificates, such as a GED (General Educational Development) high school equivalency or Industry training certificate.

Engines of Social Mobility

Community colleges, however, do much more than confer degrees or certificates. They are also one of nation’s the most effective enablers of social mobility. community colleges, for example, have open admission policies, offering degree-track admission to anyone with a high school diploma or equivalent, regardless of grades. And, according to data from the American Association of Community Colleges, tuition at public community colleges costs an average of 64% less ($2,544) than those for public four-year colleges and 1/10th to 1/20th the cost of many private four-year schools.

They also cater to disproportionately higher percentages of ethnic minorities (40% of total enrollment) and first-generation college students in their families (42%). And since they are so geographically widespread, with campuses or extension centers within an hour’s drive of more than half of the nation’s population, they provide a critical source of education and vocational training to commuters, those who live in rural areas and those who must work part-time. In fact, according to AACC, 60% of all community college students are enrolled part-time (with 89% of these working either full or part time) and of those who do attend on a full-time basis, 80% work (with more than a quarter of these working full time).

Those students who attend community colleges—and especially those who graduate—are generally rewarded with higher-paying and more secure jobs than those who with only a high school diploma. Bureau of Labor Statistics figures, for example, show that those students who attend, but did not receive an Associates’ degree from a community college, typically earn 13% more than those with just a high school diploma. Those who complete a degree earn 21% more. Both are also correspondingly less likely to be unemployed. Those who take, and ideally earn certificates and degrees in technically-oriented math and science courses, earn significant premiums (about 14 percent for men and 29 percent for women) over those in less technical fields.

Local Economic Development Engines

These schools also play important roles in helping their communities develop their economies. They do this by upgrading the skills of their community’s labor force, both in providing remedial and vocational training to “traditional” students who have just recently graduated from high school, and especially to older, non-traditional students. These include those who return to school to freshen or sharpen existing skills, homemakers or welfare recipients who are preparing to enter the labor force, immigrants looking to improve their language skills and displaced or dislocated workers who are seeking to retrain for a new occupation that offers better employment prospects.

Since many vocational graduates tend to seek jobs in their own communities, most of these schools tend to be highly attuned to the needs of local businesses, tailoring courses and curricula to the needs of local industries and often partnering with specific companies to:

  • Provide customized or contract job training, as where they develop programs that are tailored to the needs of specific companies; or
  • Develop cooperative education programs that combine classroom learning and practical (typically paid) on-the-job experience.

These colleges can also play much more proactive roles, as by partnering with state and local governments to provide business development services. They may partner with the state to create and operate entrepreneurial training centers or government-funded small business development centers (SBDCs) or participate in the creation of regional economic development plans. Colleges also actively partner with government agencies and Chambers of Commerce to attract corporations to build or expand facilities in their communities, by serving as a third-party training arm to teach local citizens the skills required by these new employers.

They may also play much more defensive roles, as by contracting with cities and states to retrain plant-closing victims for new jobs in totally different fields. The State of Michigan, for example, provides tuition assistance to community colleges that retrain displaced auto workers for careers in other industries—especially health-care.

On-Ramps to Higher Education

Community colleges also play another critical role in society: that of a feeder system to universities. A large percentage of students enter community colleges with the express intention of transferring to four-year universities and the recession is prompting growing numbers of four-year students to temporarily “drop down” to community colleges to cut costs.

Overall, about 29% of all community college students end up transferring to four-year universities and 17% of all bachelor degree holders had previously earned associate degrees. These transfer and “step-up” processes are facilitated by the existence of “articulation agreements” that specify which courses credits will and will not transfer to four-year schools. With careful planning, students can transfer most, if not all their credits.

The result is millions of low-income, minority and late bloomer high school graduates who would not have been able to afford to attend or get accepted by four-year universities, end up with four-year, and in some cases, graduate or professional degrees. And with university costs doubling over the last decade and rising at twice the rate of those for health care (see my July 11 blog “Is College Still the Best Road to the American Dream?”), the role of community colleges as a first-step to a four-year degree appears likely to increase.

Too Much of a Good Thing?

Given the value community colleges provide, their popularity should come as no surprise. The growing demand for educated workers, combined with the rapidly growing cost of a four-year university education has led enrollment in these colleges to expand at about twice the rate as for four-year universities. Now, the recession is prompting more high-school graduates to enroll in college as a means of deferring entry into the job market, forcing more displaced workers to return to school to learn new skills, and enticing growing numbers university students to “drop down” from four-year to two-year programs as a way of reducing expenses and the long-term burden of college debt.

Total enrollment has exploded from 6.8 million to 8 million between 2006 and 2009 and applications for 2010 are likely to surpass those in 2009 to reach a new record. Unfortunately, this may be too much of a good thing. Unless something dramatic is done, the rapid growth of community colleges may well contain the seeds of the system’s destruction.

Posted in 21st Century Careers, Community/Other Colleges, Creating the 21st Century Workforce, Economic and Political Forces, Economic Forces, Education System and Institutions, Job and Career Opportunities, Skills Requirements, Workforce Trends | No Responses »
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The Government’s Efforts to Bridge Schools’ STEM Gap

Sunday, February 7th, 2010

I have written extensively about the U.S.’s urgent need to retool its workforce to compete in the Global Knowledge Economy of the 21st century, and of the particularly critical need for a whole new level of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) literacy. Although this need must be addressed at all education levels, from primary school through universities and continually through one’s career, the biggest and most pressing gap lies in the formative years, from elementary school through high school.

Just how big is this gap? U.S. 15-year olds now rank a dismal 21st in the world in science and 25th in math. It is similarly drawing up the bottom in high school completion, where the 2006 PISA study ranks it 21st out of 27 OECD countries. Meanwhile, at a time when virtually every knowledge-based career requires strong IT skills, most U.S. middle and high school computer classes focus on teaching rudimentary Windows, word processing and spreadsheet usage, rather than the value of IT in all disciplines and occupations. But our educational prowess relative to OECD countries is one thing. We are now even getting our STEM educational clocks cleaned by China, where:

  • Math, science (not to speak of foreign language) skills are the primary focus of the educational system, from elementary school, all the way through universities;
  • IT is integrated into math and other high school curricula, rather than taught as a standalone set of skills;
  • College STEM graduation rates far exceed those in the U.S.; and even where
  • Adult literacy rates (over 90%) are higher than in the U.S. (86%).

In reality, how could we hope for much more when most teachers graduate in the bottom quartile of their college classes, only 39% of 8th grade math teachers and 7% of science teachers even majored in the subjects they are teaching and children devote so little time to homework. Compare this again with China, where, all math and science teachers must have degrees in these subjects, school years are longer and students devote twice as many hours to homework as their U.S. counterparts.

Government Progress

Although this is all pretty grim, we are seeing progress. And it is coming from the most unlikely of places—the U.S. government. While every U.S. president since Dwight Eisenhower has tried to create a national education program, virtually every effort has failed in Congress. Sure, George W. Bush managed to get No Child Left Behind through Congress, the law allows every state to set their own standards. And, 15 states that fell short of the law’s performance requirements found a creative way of staying in compliance—they simply lowered the scores required to demonstrate proficiency.

Although a couple of multistate organizations, the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officials, are making some progress in creating a voluntary set of common standards for Math and English education, Barack Obama shares his predecessor’s view of the need for national action. However, he understands (all too well) the perils of relying on Congress. He, therefore, gave Arne Duncan, his Education Secretary, unprecedented power and an unprecedented pool of money ($4.35 billion) to incent states to pursue innovative strategies for recruiting, credentialing, rewarding, and retaining teachers. Although this Race to the Top initiative will cover all subjects, it is particularly skewed to STEM education.

Obama would like to do much more to address many of the fundamental deficiencies of the current educational system. Yet he recognizes the formidable political, fiscal and practical constraints to enacting true educational reform. Therefore, he is attempting to enlist the private sector to fund and drive additional programs.

Enlisting Private Sector Help

In November, OBama announced a new campaign to encourage businesses and not-for-profit organizations to help enhance science, technology, engineering and math education in middle and high schools. This Educate to Innovate program is focused on encouraging companies and non-profits to contribute $250 million worth of time, money and volunteers to create extracurricular education programs to expand children’s interest in and knowledge of STEM. As reported in the New York Times, some of the first of what are expected to grow into a larger number of commitments include:

  • Discovery Communications is sponsoring two hours of commercial-free, after-school Science Channel programming to be targeted at middle school students;
  • Science and engineering societies’ commitments to provide volunteers to work with children;
  • PBS will incorporate a science focus into two years of Sesame Street programming;
  • Time Warner Cable, which has committed to devoting 80% of all its philanthropic efforts to science and math education, will also create and promote a web site that will provide a searchable directory of local science activities;
  • Sony will donate 1,000 PlayStation 3 game consoles and LittleBigPlanet educational games to libraries and community organizations and fund a $300,000 contest to incent game designers to develop science- and math-based games that Sony will distribute free; and
  • The Jack D. Hidary and MacArthur Foundations are working with the National Science Teachers Association and American Chemical Society to launch a website (http://www.nationallabday.org/) to create a Web site that will match volunteer scientists with teachers looking for assistance in teaching specific areas.

Intel, which already has one of the largest and most active STEM education initiatives in the world (which I’ll discuss in some future blogs), is playing a particularly central role in this imitative. It is launching a ten-year, $200 million cash and in-kind campaign to help train more than 100,000 U.S. math and science teachers and is committing its own employees to volunteer 100,000 hours to improving STEM education. Its former chairman, Craig Barrett, will also work with prominent technology CEOs and former astronaut Sally Ride, to encourage other corporations and foundations to fund and participate in efforts to improve STEM education.

Promising First Steps

The bad news is that U.S. educational system (especially elementary, middle and high school) has dug itself into a huge hole. It is not vaguely prepared to teach the types of skills that tomorrow’s workers will need to compete in an increasingly global economy that is being redefined by information and communications technology.

The good news is that virtually everybody—private sector and public sector and Democrat and Republican—recognizes these deficiencies and the urgency of addressing them. George W. Bush—with solid bipartisan support—took an important first step (No Child Left Behind) in addressing these needs. Barack Obama, without waiting for Congress, has taken two more. Race to the Top provides schools with compelling incentives to reinvent policies and processes. Educate to Innovate enlists the private sector to help identify, enable and fund some of these changes. Both focus on those areas that are in greatest need of change—how middle and high school students are exposed to and taught math and science.

Ideally, politicians of both parties will again come together to acknowledge this critical need and address it in a comprehensive and enlightened manner. But even if not, Educate to Innovate, in particular, sets an important precedent as:

  • An effort to encourage and focus the efforts of the private sector (especially information companies and foundations) around a common goal.

This will hopefully be the first of many initiatives in which government attempts to mobilize the private sector to address critical societal issues.

Posted in 21st Century Careers, Business Trends, Corporate Social Responsibility, Creating the 21st Century Workforce, Economic and Political Forces, Education System and Institutions, Job and Career Opportunities, K-12, Political Forces, Skills Requirements, Societal Forces, STEM Careers, Technology's Impact on Job Skills, Workforce Trends | No Responses »
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