8th AIMS International Conference

On

“Management Education in 2020

Issues, Challenges & Opportunities”

January 1-4, 2011

Organized By
AIMS International
&
Indian Institute Of Management, Ahmedabad

Prepared By
Richard Remedios
I/c Principal
S.V.E.T. COMMERCE, BBA & IT COLLEGE,
(Affiliated to Saurashtra University, Rajkot)

Resi: 3-Divyam Bunglows, 12-Patel Colony,

Opp Krishna Appartment, Road 1/A
Jamnagar-361008
Mob: 9824507579
Email: richie_remedios@yahoo.com
Abstract Ref No: A8654

Eighth AIMS International Conference on Management January 1-4, 2011

 The Future of Management Education-Vision 2020
Richard Remedios
I/c Principal, S.V.E.T Commerce & Management College, Jamnagar
(Affiliated to Saurashtra University, Rajkot)
Email: richie_remedios@yahoo.com

Abstract
Corporations, now a days, face pressures from different stakeholders of the business environment The changes in the
environment have created threats to all of today’s organizations. So, the managers have to look for finding the best
possible ways of striking the implications brought by the changes. Mostly, it depends on better way of educating
their people to convert previous knowledge and experience into today’s competencies required for best possible
strategies. This research is an attempt to understand the changing need of management expertise to face the
contemporary challenges of management and the roles of business school in this concern. The business has to know
the implications of the changes and accordingly has to prepare the people by their capabilities required to implement
the strategies. Today, the corporations want to give a clear message to the business school about their role to play in
this regard, means to put all necessary efforts to come with proper set of management skills of the challenges to be
faced by the corporations. The leading business schools of the USA and Asia Pacific have got proven records of
maintaining standards in terms of vision, program design and offerings. It implies that the business school has to
cope into the needs of changing situations to produce future managers with all the required skills. Management
Education in future will face five different challenges which will have to be taken care of by the business schools as
a measure to shape and mould the way they nurture management talent for the purpose of building better efficient
managers.

Keywords: People, Challenge, Management Education, Business School

Eighth AIMS International Conference on Management January 1-4, 2011

The Future of Management Education-Vision 2020

1. Introduction
Management education denotes those activities traditionally conducted by colleges and universities that focus on
developing a broad range of managerial knowledge and abilities. Unquestionably, the major issue in management
education is the curriculum offered in our business schools and this concern has been labeled the competency
movement (Wexley and Baldwin 1986). The traditional management education curriculum, as presently constituted,
may not be adequately preparing individuals for the challenges they experience as professional managers (Pfeffer,
1977). Today one fundamental question comes, whether the curriculum of a business school can produce future
leader of the corporation with required management skill to meet contemporary challenges. Management Education
for Contemporary Challenges: The Role of Business School 650 This research attempts to evaluate today’s
management education standard to develop management skill in the paradigm shift of managing business. The first
section of the paper evaluates the changing scenario of managing business organizations, the second section explains
the reshaping of management education with the emerging needs of the business management, and finally the roles
played by leading business school have been analyzed in the context of changing situation. As such, the research
aims at examining the changing need of management education to produce future leaders of the corporation. The
research question comes in the study is whether the roles played by leading business schools can be considered as
the ones according to expectations of the corporate management generally. Specially, the question is, whether the
products of leading business school have got all the required management skills to meet the contemporary challenge
of business management.

2. Methodology
This research is mostly done on existing literature of management education. The firs two sections of the research
have been done on reviewing the literature of the issues raised in the study. So, a good number of published papers
on the issues has been reviewed and examined to get clear idea on major aspects of the research. This exercise gives
a clear understanding of the changing scenario of managing business today and the management skills required to
face the challenges of management. Then, the research has got today’s situation of management education to meet
the needs. This critical review of management education has been used to get the roles played by leading business
schools of USA and of Asia Pacific. In selecting the leading business school, the research used the ranking given by
different organizations. So, the required information according to the research question have been collected from
web sites of ten top ranking business schools of each of the two regions; the USA and Asia Pacific(Table 1). The
thoughts on management education according to literature review have been used to analyze the information from
MBA brochures of top ten business schools of two regions studied in the research.

Table 1: List of top ten business school in the USA and in Asia Pacific

Sr.No U.S. Top Ten Management Institutes Asia Pacific Top Ten Management Institutes
1. Harvard Business School Melbourne Business School
2. Stanford Graduate School of Business Indian Institute Of Management, Ahmedabad
3. University of Pennsylvania(Wharton) Asian Institute Of Management(Philippines)
4. Massachussets Institute Of Technology Asian Institute Of Technology, Thailand
5. University of Chicago National University of Singapore Business School
6. Tuck School of Business, Dartmouth Chinese University of Hong Kong
7. University of California Korean Advanced Institute of Science & Technology
8. Columbia Business School, Columbia University Graduate School of Management, Uni. Of Japan
9. Europe International Business School Chinese International Business School
10. University of Michigan-Ann Arbor(Ross) Nanyang Business School, Singapore

Source: All India Management Association, 2010

Eighth AIMS International Conference on Management January 1-4, 2011

3. The Paradigm Shift of Management

In today’s rapidly changing business environment, capable managers are crucial to organizations’ success in gaining
and sustaining competitive advantage. This must be achieved against a background of intensified competition,
incessant change, a power shift to the customer, collaborations across organizational and geographical boundaries,
and a need to maintain high levels of talent (Tannenbaum, 2002). Business programs across the nation recognize the
need to change in response to external pressure from key stakeholders. An important dimension of such change is
the redesign of business 651 Mohammed Abdullah Mamun and Ariffin Bin Mohamad curricula. Achieving greater
integration across curriculum is often a central focus of such efforts (McCuddy & Pirie 1988). Business
organizations continue to transform themselves in response to the challenges posted by increased competition, the
globalization of business, and rapid change in information technology (Hammer & Champy 1993). Pfeffer (1994)
argued that because of the accelerating rate of change, the workforce in terms of human and social capital should be
seen as one of the critical factors in developing and maintaining competitive advantage, joining traditional factors
such as technology and protected market. He also claims that an appropriate development of the workforce is closely
related to appropriate management. Related to this perspective and from a knowledge based view of the firm,
Leonard-Barton (1995) saw core capability as comprising managerial activities and systems or what she describes as
“the whole system of knowledge management” bound up with a particular competitive advantage. Conger, Spreitzer,
and Lawler (1999) argue that intense and global competition, rapid technological change, new complex
organizational forms, organizational alliances, and international capital markets are creating an increased demand
for change leadership at a time when such leadership is increasingly difficult to find. Quinn and Snyder (1999)
suggests that before expecting others to change, a leader must understand strategies such as those based on
confrontation, facilitation, persuasive discourse, and the management of meaning to ensure that their actions are
consistent with their vision of the future. These scholars and others are suggesting that individual employees, not
just top management, must become leaders who can work with the technological revolution and globalization of
business and can continually acquire new knowledge and remain flexible (McDonald 2000). Therefore the business
schools, responsible to educate future leaders of business organizations, need to understand the challenges faced by
the organizations. This is how; they can try to bring necessary changes in their curriculum according to the needs of
the changing situation of the environment.

Which challenges are important to consider is more important to them? The following section of the paper describes
the nature of the organizational challenges today. It can be termed as
‘paradigm shift’ of managing today’s businesses. The management of business organizations has changed in
significant ways since early 1990s (Drucker 1995; Naisbitt 1997; Ohame 1995; Rohwer 1996). The sources of these
changes include the following :

• Growth and integration of a global, increasingly free market economy has raised standard of
competition in all sectors providing goods and services.
• Greater openness of political systems among nation states allows grater aces to global
information and exchange of cross broader business.
• Developments in information technologies have fundamentally changed the way in which
business is conducted, allowing for less expensive communication, easier sharing of information, and greater
efficiencies in production and management of goods and services.

Reviewing the literature it is revealed that today’s business management faces tremendous pressures from globalize
economy. Against this backdrop of the study the driven forces of globalization can be analyzed to understand the
nature of implications. Globalization is being driven on the one hand by the spread of economic logics centered on
freeing, opening, deregulating, and privatizing economies to make them more attractive to investment, and, on the
other hand, by the digitization of technologies that is revolutionizing communication (Barkema et.al. 2002). So,
opening market increases scope of investment to anywhere in today’s world, and movement of technology, money
and people in some place increase to avail of the pportunity of deregulation. At the same time it poses challenges to
existing players of economy and to new entrants as well. Globalization is speeding up industry life cycles by
accelerating the pace and the rhythm at which firms must develop new technologies and produce and roll out new
products and services on a global scale to stay competitive. So, the new management challenge gets in with
managing team of experts from different culture as dispersed worldwide using digitally adopted organizational
Eighth AIMS International Conference on Management January 1-4, 2011

structure ((Barkema et.al. 2002). To use the words of Bettis and Hiltt(1995), new competitive landscapes are
emerging, marked by increased levels of uncertainty and ambiguity, leading to what is now known as hyper
competition (D’Aveni 1994).

Management educators may be interested in accompanying these challenges to help managers in shaping
organizations in such a way as make them willing and able to respond to complex organizational challenges. In
brief, it may be advantageous to expose business students and managers to complication (Cunha et. al. 2004). The
other challenges of managing businesses are created from the need to speedy decision making in resources deployed,
managing diversity, searching right direction of knowledge management for the people, timeliness of the process
and innovative approaches, synchronization need of process and activities, industry life cycle effects on the firms
operations, and finally social responsibility of present generation for future generations (Barkema et. al. 2002).More
specifically, global change forces have brought fundamental changes to the way in which business organizations are
managed.

For example, we find the following management trends:

• Organizations are more restructured in response to more open competition

• There is an increased emphasis on entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial management as
engines of global economic growth (Drucker 1995).
• The recognition that ethical crises and environmental problems located in a single nation or
organization are magnified in a global society has led to a greater emphasis on moral leadership and corporate social
responsibility among business leaders (Csikszentmihalyi 2004).
• The ability to manage and use information for decision making is now a core competency
required of managers throughout business organizations (Drucker 1995).
• There is increased emphasis on linking corporate goals with human resource practices, especially through the use
of performance management and measurement (Norton an Kaplan 1996).
• Knowledge is viewed as a key currency of organizations that requires conscious, proactive management (Buckman
2004; Stewart 1997, 2001).
• Capacities for innovation and change are viewed as competencies that distinguish organizations that thrive vs.
others that flounder in a rapidly changing, turbulent environment (Drucker 1995; Kotter 2002; Rohwer 1996).
These changes have required a cadre of business leaders who possess a broader set of both leadership and
management capacities (Hallinger and Snidvongs 2008). More recently, attention from both academics and
practicing managers has focused on the formulation and implementation of strategic initiatives within the realm of
human resource management (Beer et. al. 1984; Szilagyi and Schweiger 1984; Foulkes 1986).

Organizational survival, development and prosperity reflect the extent to which an organization is able to obtain,
allocate and control its resources to take advantage of changes in its environment perceived as opportunities: and
avoid or overcome the threat posed by changes perceived as constraints (Buckley and Kemp 1987). Managerial
competency is vital in such responsibility of the organizations. The more dynamic the environment, the more
strategically important management development is to the organization (Buckley and Kemp 1987). There is a
growing awareness that survival and future success reflect to a considerable extent the ability of an organization to
develop its management resource in appropriate and anticipated ways (Hendry and Pettigrew 1986). In response,
educational institutions have made significant adaptations in the curriculum designed for business leaders. The next
section of the research describes the dynamics of business school to get a picture of redesigning or reshaping of
management education addressing the contemporary challenges of managing business organization.

4. Reshaping the Management Education

Corporate leaders have been placing demands to the business school to redesign the programs while they need
management skills to face the challenges described in the previous section of the research. This reshaping of
management education goes to the context. So, a critical review of management education has been given first. Then
the evolution of management education has been described to know the changes happened with the contemporary
challenges. Finally, the restructured MBA program has been examined to evaluate the roles of business school.
Business schools have come under attack in recent years for the poor job they do of providing relevant training and
skills for their students (e.g., Hambrick 1994; Jorgensen 1992; Linder and Smith 1992; Porter and McKibbon 1988;
Eighth AIMS International Conference on Management January 1-4, 2011

spender 1995). There is growing corporate demand for pedagogical techniques that focus on their immediate
problems rather than on lofty theories or even case studies (Raelin 2000). Business speakers at a recent international
Association for Management Education (AACSB) symposium on continuous learning continued to make this plea as
they challenged business schools to “be more proactive and partner with business leaders in their communities…and
to make their curricula more relevant” (AACSB 1999).Teaching about uncertainty and increasing environmental
turbulence is not new – these concepts have been discussed since the late 1960s (Lawrence and Lorsch 1967). Most
teaching model and materials are geared toward enhancing the ability of large organizations to adapt to change.
Those that are more person-centered treat change as necessary evil and present topics such as resistance or coping
with change (McDonald and Mansour 2000). Teachers and learners are facing increased uncertainty, paradox,
pervasive rapid change, and dramatic challenges to the status quo and traditional mindset. In response, the
individual’s ability to adapt to change and embrace ambiguity should be more central in the curriculum (Bickford
and Van Vleck 1997).Even the actors in business school mostly tried to accommodate the change issue into their
curriculum, there were resistances everywhere. But three had been pressure from different stakeholders to bring
necessary changes into the programs of management education. Change is driven by many other factors as well,
including the increasing importance of international rankings, public pressure on teaching performance and the more
focused agendas of governmental funding agencies(Huff and Huff 2001). Primarily as a result of the changes in the
way business organizations function, colleges of business are subject to pressures form a number of stakeholder
groups, including employers, advisory boards, accrediting bodies, alumni, legislators, and students (Forman 1998).
As institutions of higher education are perceived to exist for the public good, they are increasingly held accountable
for the quality of outputs produced (Kearns 1998). The previous section of literature suggested that the business
curriculum has to be changed remarkably to address the issues raised as challenges before the organizational
management today. The business organizations those have been increasingly trying to cope with the changing
demands of the environment looking for managerial expertise with required skills. So, an emphasis on skill
development has transformed the curriculum debate. The discussion has moved away from determining the
appropriate balance of content, which is a discussion rooted in traditional functional areas, to a determination of
effective methods for developing softer skills, self directed learning, an a holistic understanding of the internal and
external environment of organizations(Hamilton, Diane et.al. 2000). Traditional functional curricular approaches
often do not address these issues (McCuddy and Pirie 1998). Hence business curricula are gradually shifting from
functionally fragmented to convergent and coherent, with a focus on developing specific competencies (Hyslop and
Parsons 1995). The redesigned curricula must cut across traditional boundaries to develop and reinforce the
Management Education for Contemporary Challenges: The Role of Business School 654 appropriate bundles of
technical knowledge as well as social and organizational skills (Hamilton, Diane et.al. 2000). In the 1950s, business
schools in the United States were criticized for being overly narrow and vocational in their orientation (Gordon and
Howell 1959; Pierson 1959). To remedy this, they were encouraged to, and did, hire faculty from a variety of acidic
disciplines relevant to organizations and management so as to enhance their scholarly legitimacy. Now, however,
the faculty who were hired to achieve academic respectability for business schools are being criticized by the
corporate community for their lack of experience in business firms, for the perceived irrelevance of their research,
and for their unwillingness to provide the kinds of training in practical professional skills the corporate world feels
in need (e.g., Behrman and Levin 1984; Hambrick 1994; Porter and McKibbon 1988; Raelin 2000).

5. The Leading Business School

In the context of today’s changing need of management education, and the way an MBA program has to be
designed, as these issues discussed in the research, the leading business school’s performance standard has been
examined. The following section of the research gives a contrasting picture of leading business schools of the US
and of Asia Pacific. The evolution in management education and the subsequent changes in MBA program suggest a
framework to understand the performance standard of leading business in the USA and in Asia-Pacific region. The
basic criteria used in such framework are; a) vision to create talented leaders of the corporation, b) curriculum fitting
to understand the environmental dynamics, and c) quality management of the program.

The vision statements of leading business schools today give clear message to the corporations that all of the leading
business schools have got useful vision or purpose satisfying the needs of today’s challenges of business
management. It is found that such a vision statement can be perceived as proper role played by a business school to
produce talented leaders with necessary skills to fulfill the need s of today’s contemporary challenges in business
management. At least the remark column of the table corresponding to the vision statement of each business school
Eighth AIMS International Conference on Management January 1-4, 2011

reveals that the schools are playing the role effectively in this concern. The vision statements of Asia Pacific
business school can be examined to find the contrast.
Table 3: Vision Statement of Leading Asia Pacific Business School

Sr Asia Pacific Top Ten Business School Vision Statements of Top Ten Business Schools in Asia Pacific
. Names
No

1. Melbourne Business School To equip professionals with fundamental business knowledge and
analytical skills required for management roles Build
professionalism

2. Indian Institute Of Management, The program nurtures world-class managers by exposing them to
Ahmedabad real life unstructured situations along with analytical tools and
business philosophies.

3. Asian Institute Of Management, To provide rigorous training, conceptual foundations, up-to-date

Phillipines knowledge, analytical tools and people management and leadership
skills.

4. Asian Institute Of Technology, To develop skills and attitudes of listening and understanding
Thailand others, holistic thinking, collective decision making, leading by
example, communicating, negotiating, being sensitive to societal
concerns etc

5. National University of Singapore Vision for the NUS MBA Program is for it to become a top
Business School provider of effective and responsible business leaders. Produce
talented leaders

6. Chinese University of Hong Kong To equip business leaders with sound business acumen

7. Korean Advanced Institute of Science KAIST is the best model that leads a globalize with the accumulated
& Technology capability in education and research, and the graduate school-
oriented educational system, Focus on system
development

8. Graduate School of Management, Uni. To Prepare and train the talent to face the future proactively
Of Japan

9. Chinese International Business School To prepare talented young people with career aspiration, managerial
potential, and international orientation for a career of global
business leaders in the future organizations.

To take advantage of this rare opportunity to build regional business

10 Nanyang Business School, Singapore networks. Unique features for confidence
.

Source: MBA Brochure shown on the web site of the school

From the above table it is revealed that the leading business in Asia Pacific have got right set of vision statements
for MBA programs. The statements are committed to produce future corporate leaders with required set of skills
necessary to face the challenges of today’s management. The remarks of the statements give the nature of the visions
of the schools. Basically in term of focus of MBA program of both the regions schools, they have good standing to
play proper roles to produce talented leaders as it is reflected from the vision statement. The next question is related
to curriculum designing and integration so that the vision can be implemented using deserving set of curriculum of
offerings and the way the program can be imparted. So, the two other issues are; curriculum integration designing
and the mode of offerings. From the brochures studied here the curriculum integration according to today’s
management need and the features of program management of the schools are summarized in the following table.

Table 4: Summary of Curriculum Integration & Program Management

1 Aim at developing student’s necessary capacities Combination of core and specialized requirements

2. Diverse range of electives are offered Lead to develop required skill level
3. Core courses for foundation Covers all the areas required to address the changes in
business management
4. Participant has found flexibility Skill level help to achieve professional development
5. Scope of getting competitive advantage Scope of getting knowledge of interdependencies and
interrelationships
6. Curriculum Integration Courses required to improve management skills
7. Interdisciplinary approach Exposed to diverse environment
8. Capstone Experience The Case Method
9. Seminar & Workshop Internship Program
10. Exposed to realities through Experience Elite Mentoring Program

Source: MBA brochure downloaded from the website of the school

The above table shows that the curriculum integration of the top ranking business schools of the USA and of the
Asia Pacific has got necessary emphasis to ensure the skills required to face the challenges. While it is found that in
both the regions business schools have included required courses with diverse range of options. So, the business
schools in the regions can play role of building management skill in the MBA program as the candidates have got
scope of getting knowledge build up in a competitive way. This sort of combination in curriculum designing, as it is
revealed in both regions schools, gives scope of professional skill fulfillments of the future leaders. In case of
program offerings it is found from the table that the US business schools are more professional to use modern
effective approaches, whereas the Asia Pacific business schools are not far behind while they use effective set of
offering techniques.
The study perceived that, top ranking business school, considered as the best intuitions of providing deserving
candidates for managerial positions, should play proper role in this concern. It is revealed from the study that these
business schools of both the regions; USA and Asia Pacific, have been trying to play effective role in producing
right set of management talent for the corporations. This is how they are considered as the best business schools in
the regions to produce future business leaders. The study further reveals that the business school should have vision
of producing leadership quality of prospective managers which has to be reflected in curriculum integration process
and in program management. The curriculum integration process should address all the management skills required
to face the contemporary challenges as it is found in case of leading business schools examined in the research.
Finally, the program management has to be most effective approaches leading to ensure professional build up among
the candidates.
Eighth AIMS International Conference on Management January 1-4, 2011

6. Challenges for Management Education Worldwide:

The following are the five global challenges faced in management education:

6.1. Growth
All the indicators point to continuing increases in the demand for management education.Driven by demographics,
economic trends, business expectations, and initiatives that expand access to higher education, future demands will
come not only from traditional college-age populations, but also from working professionals who need to retool and
reinvigorate their careers. Growth is, of course, a better scenario than decline or stagnation, but how do we maintain
quality while continuing to grow? This is not a new challenge. Most countries have expanded their number of
business schools and programs in recent years. We now know that these expansions have led to diverging quality of
management education providers. Through strategic investments and accreditation, many schools have achieved
higher levels of quality. However, there are rising concerns about a growing number of institutions that make
promises they cannot — or do not — intend to keep and offer programs whose quality is not assured by reputable
accrediting organizations. Aspiring business schools in many countries have found it increasingly difficult to build
and maintain faculties with both academic qualifications and professional experience who are capable of conducting
advanced research and teaching effectively. Similarly, government financial support for business education hasn’t
kept pace with growing demands, leaving some business schools to seek higher tuitions and new financial sources to
compete internationally. Limited decision-making autonomy at these schools not only makes tuition increases
unlikely, but also constrains their ability to respond to emerging curricula needs with innovative programs. For all of
these reasons, it appears unlikely that business schools throughout the world can support continuing demand growth
without significant changes in the way they assure quality, organize faculties, and finance and govern their
programs. In some developing countries in Asia and Africa, for example, we expect huge increases in college-age
populations. There is great potential in these countries if management education is able to expand while also
working toward achieving higher levels of quality. But, doing so will be increasingly difficult in the absence of
qualified faculty, sufficient infrastructures, relevant instructional resources, and supporting institutions. For
example, management education is higher education, and without quality supporting elementary and secondary level
education, it will not grow. Similarly, many developing countries lack research experience and the emphasis on
research that is necessary to shift from vocational training to higher levels of management education. Transition
economies across Europe and parts of Asia — though they don’t always face the same demographic trends —
require investments to build educational and economic institutions to support entrepreneurship and innovation.
Today’s investment in infrastructure — and particularly doctoral education — will impact our future ability to meet
demands for quality management education, especially in developing countries. Future access to management
education by young people will determine whether developing nations will thrive or languish in the emerging
knowledge-based, market-driven global economy.

6.2. Balancing Global Aspirations and Local Needs

A recurring theme throughout this report has been tensions between global aspirations of countries, schools,
faculties, and students — and pressing local needs. These tensions are revealed on many dimensions: curricula,
strategy, and collaboration, for example. Further economic integration calls for strengthening our curricula emphasis
on global perspectives, but we cannot ignore unique histories, politics, and cultures. At the same time, as many
schools seek global recognition for world-class quality, and accreditation focuses on the best schools in the world,
we cannot forget that wider access to quality management education can contribute to economic and social progress
in countries or regions with fundamentally different goals. While supporting national initiatives to fortify
international competitiveness, we must also capitalize on the advantages offered by multilateral alliances and
increasing student and faculty mobility. Although these tensions are quite natural and are to be expected in dynamic
and competitive environments, we should also be mindful that management education can enable both global and
local success. The powerful forces of globalization, advances in information and communication technology, and
further liberalization of services trade will not only demand more from management education, but also enable us to
achieve local and regional goals and objectives. For example, international alliances and exchanges of faculties and
students create opportunities to build banks of localized case studies, which can be shared worldwide through
electronic channels. Expanding global footprints of individual schools give rise not only to globally savvy graduates,
but also represent an investment in local economies. The real and more important question is, “How will we
Eighth AIMS International Conference on Management January 1-4, 2011

capitalize on these opportunities to balance our global aspirations against the needs of our regions, nations, and local
communities?” The GFME(Global Forum For Management Education) is particularly concerned about efforts
within some countries to develop international graduate management schools that, by design, are highly selective
and expensive to support. Achieving, and consistently improving upon, the highest level of quality is certainly
important. Doing so can assist countries to attract knowledge enterprises, serve as a foundation for broader
management education objectives, and attract talented faculty and students. However, the GFME believes that these
efforts should be complemented by broader strategies to expand access to management education, including
undergraduate education, while ensuring sufficient levels of quality across education providers with diverse
missions and stakeholder groups. Not every school in every country need hire from the dwindling supply of doctoral
faculty or attain the highest level of accreditation when, clearly, the most pressing regional concerns are low overall
educational attainment and extreme poverty, for example. At the same time, well-intentioned investments in world-
class business schools should not come at the expense of investments in other quality management education
programs that are accessible to a broader portion of the population. Rather, they should be viewed together as
complementary investments in the future of business and society.

6.3. Quality Assurance

We have argued that expansion in management education has brought greater diversity among the programs and
providers in management education. Schools have different missions and aspirations; vary in governance structures,
faculty characteristics, and financial models; and are embedded in a wide array of cultures, histories, and governing
systems. All of this diversity is to be nurtured and celebrated. Diversity means that students and employers have
choices to meet their unique goals and accommodate their circumstances. It also fosters innovation among schools
and programs. However, as management education grows and students, graduates, and faculties become more
mobile, we must be increasingly concerned about the maintenance and assurance of quality. AACSB International
and EFMD’s EQUIS have developed deep, yet flexible, standards to assess quality and support continuous
improvement. These standards cover the full breadth of quality dimensions: mission, strategy, faculty, students,
staff, curricula, educational outcomes, and research. The standards define quality and, because they are linked to the
mission of the school, they are designed to ensure that quality depends implicitly on whether the promises of schools
and expectations of students and employers are met. The standards allow for a wide range of promises, as long as
they are communicated accurately and delivered sufficiently. Unfortunately, growing demand and competition can
increase the incentive for schools to exaggerate promises, leaving their graduates with unmet expectations. In the
environment we described above, with doctoral faculty becoming more scarce and with shrinking financial support
from governments, there are tremendous pressures to cut corners, promise more, and deliver less. In short, there are
incentives for schools to compromise the integrity of their missions. Global accreditations, such as EQUIS and
AACSB, are essential to ensure quality. But, we have shown that they cover only a small fraction of the institutions
that deliver degree-based management education. Moreover, most of the globally accredited institutions are in
higher income countries. In some countries, national accreditations, assessments, or regulations fill the void.
Unfortunately, in others, including some regions where demand for management education is exploding, viable and
effective systems to promote quality in management education do not exist or are severely underdeveloped.
Transparency is important for our working definition of quality. If quality is about delivering in the promise of the
school’s mission and meeting expectations, then it is important to ensure that accurate data and information about
the institution are available to the public. Appropriately so, accreditations have tended to focus on institutional
improvement, while national systems are often regulatory or administrative in nature. It is thus noteworthy that few
global structures currently exist primarily to inform and protect students and employers against the hazard of
implausible claims. Business school rankings publish data and information about programs and claim to play a role
in holding programs and schools accountable for meeting student and employer expectations. However, they, too,
cover only a tiny fraction of the programs offered worldwide, and educators have questioned their methodology and
accuracy. There are growing concerns that rankings actually mislead, rather than inform, the public. Rankings have
also led to unfortunate outcomes such as promoting homogeneity among programs and creating incentives to invest
in short-term gains over long-term sustainability.

6.4. Sustaining Scholarship

Throughout this report, we have highlighted the difficulties that schools have had in recruiting and retaining
qualified faculty. For many schools, the challenge is to recruit faculty with doctorates to support missions that
include research and scholarly approaches to teaching. Clearly, the demand for doctoral faculty has been
Eighth AIMS International Conference on Management January 1-4, 2011

outstripping production, leading to concerns about the ability of some of these schools to introduce or sustain an
emphasis on scholarship. We have argued that the problem is complex. It is not a temporary issue that can self
correct without intervention; rather, it appears to be a structural problem. In mature environments with a tradition of
research excellence, there are systemic problems related to funding models and perceptions about academic careers.
In less mature management education environments, the lack of doctoral programs has rendered it impossible to
bolster faculty supplies. Even when there are sufficient numbers of doctorates, there are quality concerns that range
from depth of knowledge of theory, capabilities to teach and conduct research, and experience to provide relevant
education in a dynamic business environment. By itself, the challenge of recruiting and retaining qualified staff
would already be alarming to business school leaders, for it will take many years of sustained investment to bring
doctoral production to the levels required. However, a greater sense of urgency arises when we consider the
challenge in light of the growing demand for management education, rising costs, lack of quality assurance, and the
integral role that management education and talent play in fostering innovation. Together, these concerns send a
clear message that the challenge of sustaining scholarship should be a top priority for business and government
leaders. Meeting this challenge will require efforts to bolster doctoral production around the globe through
regionally targeted investments, cooperation and collaboration, and innovation to develop and expand doctoral
programs. Or, it will require new models for organizing faculties, developing and delivering curricula, and
conducting research. Most likely, it will require both. In the end, the goal is to maintain or increase the quality of
management education as demand continues to expand.

6.5. Aligning with the Future Needs of Organizations

By examining global economic and business trends, we have attempted to isolate the emerging needs of
organizations around the globe. For example, we argued that the integration of economies will require stronger
emphasis on global perspectives, fracturing value chains will require graduates to master important skills rather than
just apply knowledge, and emerging emphases on social responsibility and sustainability will require new ways of
thinking about business strategy. We should caution that these are only examples and are rather subjective. The
point here is not that the needs of organizations have changed over time; they have and always will. What’s new is
that the pace of change has been accelerating. How can business schools structure themselves and build systems to
learn about, predict, and react quickly enough to emerging needs? Recent criticisms have exacerbated this challenge.
Targeting MBA programs, for example, some critics claim that business schools have become overly academic and,
as a result, less relevant to business. Others have claimed that the content of what schools teach does not currently
match the requirements of business. For example, some argue that schools do not place enough emphasis on the
development of interpersonal, communication, and leadership skills in business programs, or that entrenched
functional silos within curricula do not support the holistic requirements of business. Two obstacles make this
challenge particularly difficult to overcome. First, there are few substantial industry-level collaborations between
businesses and business schools to discuss, debate, and jointly-define the future of management and management
education. Many business schools have strong relationships with practicing managers and leading businesses and are
constantly monitoring the business environment and making projections to refine and revise curricula. But, these
individual efforts cannot capture and share the benefits that would be created from higher-level interactions between
business and education communities. Business leaders and management educators do offer their opinions to one
another, but these opinions often seem disconnected and idiosyncratic, because they are informed mostly by
personal experiences, rather than broader discussion and analyses. Second, we have seen that decision-making
autonomy has, in some cases around the globe, been only slowly delegated to the institutions that deliver
management education. Moreover, funding formulas and other factors such as rankings have created limited
incentives to change — much less change quickly — in response to emerging needs. For example, although
demographers have shown that the students of the millennial generation are more interested in social responsibility
relative to money than the previous generation, some schools are reluctant to adapt their curricula and programs
accordingly for fear that their reputation will suffer from the lower salaries their graduates would earn. We have
described five pressing challenges for management education. Each is important independent of the others, but they
converge in ways that signal a sense of urgency. Management education is, by no means, facing a “perfect storm.”
The challenges are not insurmountable. But, management education leaders must be proactive.
Eighth AIMS International Conference on Management January 1-4, 2011

7. Conclusion
The study reveals that business organizations have been giving pressures to universities to fit their professional
mode. It becomes crucial for their successful survival in creating knowledgeable people to face the challenges of the
environment. The management education has to be shaped into the needs of the industries today. But in today’s
situation survival of business school is questionable due to lack of professionalism in its management. The issues
from the literature review of the study can be considered as proper set of guidelines to business school. The study
shows that top ranking business schools have been playing proper roles in all the concerns addressed in this study.
As a matter of fact the ranking status of the business school of the USA and Asia Pacific is given due to their roles
played in producing management experts of the corporations. In the changing scenario of managing, each business
has to depend on such a business school to fulfill the required management skill. The study reveals that top ranking
business in the regions have responded rightly to build the skills of future managers. The business schools those who
have poor standing in case of setting right vision statement,
have got drawbacks curriculum integration process accordingly and finally, do not have exposure to effective
approaches to offer the programs have been treated as inefficient institutions to the corporate leaders.

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