AACSB Data and Research Blog

More B-Schools Viewing Career Services Centers as Valuable Investments

By Hanna Drozdowski

In the current global economic climate, students earning degrees in business, even those finishing an MBA, are not guaranteed to land a job once they graduate. Business schools are expected to equip students with the knowledge and skills needed to excel in their careers; however, securing a position can be a major endeavor in itself. Although universities and business schools also have felt the pain of the financial crisis through budget cuts, many have chosen to invest, or continue to invest, in their career services centers, believing that now career support for students and alumni is particularly valuable.

A recent article from eFinancialCareers indicates that while some schools have reduced the budgets of their career services, more are maintaining or expanding their career services for MBA students, realizing that, “students really need it now more than ever.”[i]  For example, Harvard Business School reportedly increased its careers budget by 30% starting in the fall of 2008. Stanford University Graduate School of Business took a different approach by leveraging a new network of alumni external career advisors.

I conducted some research on career services for a previous project, and was somewhat surprised to learn just how popular they are as a resource for students. Schools are recognizing this. For example, according to GMAC's 2011 Global Management Education Graduate Survey, the percentage of MBA graduates' use of the school’s career services center jumped from 51% to 66% from 2010 to 2011.[ii] Across universities, career services centers are also finding more innovative ways to offer students assistance in their job searches with, for instance, the use of social media. According to the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) 2010–2011 Career Services Benchmark Survey for Four-Year Colleges and Universities, more than 70% have a fan Facebook page (compared to 59% the year prior); 36% have a Twitter presence; and 68% offer online counseling.[iii]

AACSB data also suggests that having a career service center is a growing trend in the past five years among AACSB accredited institutions. In 2010, 48.6% of AACSB-accredited institutions reported having a graduate business career services center, which is up from 32.7% in 2005. In 2010, 42.6% of U.S.-based institutions reported having a career services center, while 83.3% of schools in other world regions reported having a career services center.

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[i] Sharon Oster, Dean of Yale School of Management in “MBA Career Services Resist Tide of Budget Cuts,” eFinancialCareers, http://news.efinancialcareers.com/News_ITEM/newsItemId-24582 , accessed May, 10 2011.

[ii] GMAC 2011 Global Management Education Graduate Survey, http://www.gmac.com/gmac/researchandtrends/surveyreports/globalgraduatesurvey/

[iii]2010-2011 Career Services Benchmark Survey for Four-Year Colleges and Universities, NACE Research Brief, http://www.naceweb.org/Research.aspx?fid=64&menuID=120&ispub=False&nodetype=7&navurl=.

A B-School Lingua Franca?

By Juliane Iannarelli

"If I am selling to you, I speak your language. If I am buying, dann müssen Sie Deutsch sprechen [then you have to speak German]." This oft-quoted remark by Willy Brandt, a former German chancellor, suggests that the language in which a message is delivered can be of strategic importance. 

In AACSB’s 2009-10 Business School Questionnaire, 95% of participating AACSB member schools in countries where English is not the official language indicated that degree programs were offered in English. In fact, 47 of these schools (38%) reported English to be the primary language of instruction for degree programs offered. Of these, 29 reported that English was the only language of instruction in degree programs.

Another interesting dimension of the survey data is that schools in countries where English is the official language are predominantly uni-lingual in terms of the language of instruction. Among the 574 schools in Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States that participated in the survey, all but two reported English to be the primary language of instruction. These two, unsurprisingly, were located in the French-speaking Canadian province of Quebec. Only nine business schools in these six countries reported offering certain programs in another language of instruction.

Around the beginning of the first millennium A.D., Latin and Arabic served as common languages uniting scholars from different world regions and facilitating what Kemal Gürüz has described as some of the earliest international mobility in higher education. Today, is the English language playing a similar role within the world of management education?

One potential driver of such a phenomenon could be the frequency with which English is used as the “lingua franca” of business around the globe, and the desire of business schools in different world regions to prepare their students, regardless of the region in which they will work, to interact easily in this environment. A second could be schools’ reliance on English as a language most likely to unite students with varying mother tongues within the same classroom.

Clearly, however, English is not the only language of business; there are several other languages that play a significant role in global commerce and which are valuable to practicing managers in international companies, as well as emerging hybrids of English and other languages that suggest English will never be more than semi-global at best. Some business schools in English speaking countries encourage or require proficiency in a second language by the time students graduate, while other schools emphasize the importance of language skills by making them a basis of program admission. The University of South Carolina Moore School of Business, for example, requires undergraduate students participating in a collaborative program with the Chinese University of Hong Kong to acquire proficiency in a second language (Mandarin). INSEAD’s MBA applicant criteria include that the student be fluent in English and demonstrate practical knowledge of at least one other language.

Nor are English courses the only way to attract students who speak a variety of other languages into the same program. Choosing to retain or add another language of delivery may serve as a strategic move by a school to “select” students into the program who already have a level of fluency in the language that will facilitate easier communication in certain markets. And there are worthwhile questions about the level of proficiency in any language required for students to maximize the learning experience. There have been numerous reported cases of schools that have been overly optimistic about the lack of a language barrier when recruiting international students, and have found lower than expected language capabilities to be impediments to meeting program objectives.

Whereas in years past, the language of instruction at many schools was likely to have been taken for granted, in today’s global higher education and business environment, it is likely to increasingly become yet another strategic dimension of program design and delivery.

Native-AmericanTrends in B-School Enrollment

By  Joseph Mondello

“They made us many promises, more than I can remember, but they never kept but one; they promised to take our land, and they did.”

Mahpiua Luta (Red Cloud), Oglala Lakota

Nowadays, when gender and ethnicity questions arise in the context of business school education, they most frequently focus on Asian, Hispanic, or Black communities. There is, however, another community not often spoken of in these discussions about diversity—Native Americans. In fact, during my tenure of six plus years providing data to AACSB members, I have never had an inquiry concerning Native Americans, which is not surprising given our history. We remember the Alamo. We remember Pearl Harbor. But few of us recall Wounded Knee. The rise of the Industrial Revolution, and the slow progression westward during the 19th century, forged political and military policies that saw a considerable attrition of the native population. Add to this the resulting insularity of their own society, and it is easy to overlook them in these kinds of studies.

Today, based on the last update from the Department of Education (summer 2009), there are approximately eight tribally controlled institutions that offer four-year degrees. The enrollment in these schools went from 5,405 in 2000 to 6,324 in 2006, a whopping increase of 919 students in all academic disciplines.

In the realm of business education, among AACSB member schools providing data to us over the last seven years, total business school enrollment for those classified as Native Americans has gone from 4,769 in 2003–04 to 5,457 in 2009–10. That’s a mere increase of 616 students. When you take into account that enrollment has actually dropped the last two years from a high of 6,381 in 2007, it becomes even more sobering. That number of 5,457 is a paltry 0.62% of the business education community at AACSB reporting schools. By contrast, Black students in business schools have increased by 6,292 in just the last year, representing 10% of the total population, and while that percentage is not something to shout from the rooftops, it sure looks good from a Native American’s perspective. Here are the enrollment percentages by ethnicity for the last five years:

 

Of course, none of this is groundbreaking news. There are no surprises or revelations in these numbers. Business enrollments, like many things, are subject to the vagaries of socio-economic conditions, but except for Native Americans, there has been a trend upward in the last two years. Ten years from now, the data will likely not change much. The general population of Native Americans is small to begin with; and does not appear to be on the rise.

For better or worse, we are a nation ruled by corporations. No one defined it better than Calvin Coolidge when he stated “the business of America is business.” To succeed in this culture, an ethnic group must eventually relinquish its own.  Failure to do so can render any segment of society irrelevant. If the history of Native Americans has taught us anything, it has taught us that.

Faculty Focus: Exploring the Number of Faculty Members by Field/Discipline

By Jessica Brown

I often receive inquiries about the number and types of faculty at business schools. Faculty members teach, research, advise, and participate in their students’ academic lives on a regular and ongoing basis, so information on faculty can help students choose the school that best fits their needs. One way to look at this data is to consider the disciplines reported for faculty members currently, newly hired, and the expected demand. This snapshot can help us to better situate our discussions about the long-term popularity of different disciplines.

This post allows interested readers to explore faculty numbers using data from AACSB’s Annual Salary Survey. In the survey, 546 AACSB member schools reported basic data on 31,367 full-time faculty members. Each of the tabs in the interactive data presentation below shows different views and cuts of the data.

In the initial view, the numbers of faculty members by rank are displayed as squares. Larger squares mean more faculty members were reported by AACSB member schools in that discipline. Mouse-over a square and the number and categories will be displayed for that data point. The next tab in the presentation is the “All Faculty-Chart” which shows the same data, but this time with the number of positions reported shaded from light gray to green to illustrate the size differences both visually and numerically.

Data on the number of new hires by discipline can also be displayed to indicate which disciplines are on the rise. By looking at new hires in a given year by different variables, we can learn a lot about the faculty job market right now and see which disciplines are most often represented in business schools. To round out the picture, the last three tabs show the number of doctoral-level full-time faculty positions by net planned growth in the next year, existing unfilled positions, and anticipated retirements over the next five years.

If you are unable to see the data presentation below, please click this link to open it outside of the blog.

 

Powered by Tableau

 

[Data Source: AACSB International DataDirect, 2010-11 Salary Survey, 546 participating schools]

Regional Universities: Models for Developing Regions

By Colin Nelson

AACSB's recently-released report on globalization speaks extensively about what it means to be a "global" institution, and covers many dimensions of cross-border education, such as institutions with international branch campuses, international joint or dual degree partnerships, articulation/twinning agreements between institutions in different nations, etc.[i]

However, there is an important dimension of cross-border education that is not covered, namely the growing number of regionally-focused, multi-locational institutions to which multiple national actors contribute. These are different from institutions with branch campuses outside their country of origin, in that no one nation hosts the "main campus," but rather all campuses act as co-equal parts of the institutional network. Such institutions are an increasingly common strategy in developing regions, where individual nations have limited resources for promoting access to higher education.

I have observed three models for such institutions. First is the model in which governments of several states collectively found and/or own a given institution, or the "public model." Examples include:

• University of the West Indies (UWI)– Established in 1948 as a College of the University of London, UWI became independent in 1962. It has three main campuses: Mona, Jamaica (which includes the Mona School of Business); Cave Hill, Barbados (which includes the Cave Hill School of Business); and St. Augustine, Trinidad (which includes the Arthur Lok Jack School of Business). UWI also has 42 university centers, known collectively as the "Open Campus," among UWI's other 14 stake-holding countries and territories:

• University of the South Pacific (USP) – Established in 1968, USP is jointly owned by the governments of 12 island countries in Oceania, each with its own campus and/or university center. The Faculty of Business and Economics is based on the main campus; Laucala, Fiji:

• Eastern and Southern African Management Institute (ESAMI)– ESAMI is owned by the governments of 10 member states, who all signed its establishment charter in October 1979 and recognize its MBA programs. ESAMI headquarters is in Arusha, Tanzania, but all member states have campuses:

 

Another model is that of a private institution, founded and/or operating in multiple countries (the "private model"). This model does not preclude government cooperation, however, as such is generally needed for the institutions to operate effectively cross-nationally. Examples include:

• University of Central Asia (UCA) – An international treaty and charter establishing this secular, private university was signed in 2000 by the governments of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan, and H.H. the Aga Khan, and registered with the UN. UCA is an independent, self-governing institution with campuses of equal size and stature in each founding country:

• Arab Open University (AOU) – Though its headquarters is in Kuwait, campuses of AOU also lie in Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Oman, and Saudi Arabia. AOU was founded in 2002 in all nations that currently boast a campus, except Oman, whose branch opened in 2008. AOU uses the same teaching and program delivery methods as The Open University of the U.K., a partner of AOU. The Faculty of Business Studies is one of AOU's three original academic units, present at all campuses:

 

The final model blurs the line between individual institutions and consortia (the "consortium model"):

University of the Indian Ocean (UIO) – Established in 1998 under the aegis of the Indian Ocean Commission (IOC), UIO is a European Union-funded network of institutions of the five IOC member states and territories: the Comoros, Madagascar, Mauritius, Réunion (a French territory), and Seychelles. Though it has no physical campus of its own, multi-university degree programs are offered by UIO, focused on topical subject areas such as diaspora, or vocational degrees such as an MBA, whereby all participating students from IOC member countries attain the same recognized level of education. During its three-year pilot phase, the UIO secretariat was based in Réunion, but it now rotates among member states:

As the report points out, business schools in developed nations choosing to expand their global cross-border presence tend to select locations for their facilities "because of their roles as business centers in their respective regions and for their accessibility by students and faculty traveling from other regions of the world."[ii] As a result, less developed nations are not frequently chosen as hosts. I see regionally-focused institutions like those above as an encouraging sign, not only of developing nations' recognition of the utility of capacity-building inherent in management education, but also their ingenuity in creating locally relevant responses to their needs.

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[i]AACSB International, Globalization of Management Education Task Force. (2011) Globalization of Management Education: Changing International Structures, Adaptive Strategies, and the Impact of Institutions, Emerald Group Publishing, Ltd, Howard House, Wagon Lane, Bingley BD16 1WA, U.K.

[ii] Ibid, p. 178.

Name That School

By Dan LeClair

How many "named" business schools can you list?

Most higher education institutions (universities) have at least one academic unit within them that principally deliver business programs. Sometimes these business schools are "named," such as the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania or the Leon Recanati Graduate School of Business Administration at Tel Aviv University. Other times the unit carries a "generic" name such as the College of Business or School of Business Administration. In between these two cases are academic units that do not carry the names of people, but specifically and distinctively apply the names of their institutions ("institution sub-brands"), such as Harvard Business School or Rotterdam School of Management.

We use "stand-alone" to describe business schools that do not reside within a larger university. INSEAD and Thunderbird are examples of stand-alone business schools.

For another project we took a look at business school names at AACSB accredited institutions in 1991, 2001, and 2011. The break down by category is shown in Table 1 below.

Table 1. Business School Names by Category

Category	1991		2001		2011
Named	54	19.6%	137	33.7%	219	36.1%
Institution Sub-Brand	1	0.4%	4	1.0%	38	6.3%
Stand-Alone	1	0.4%	8	2.0%	35	5.8%
Generic	220	79.7%	258	63.4%	315	51.9%
Total	276	100.0%	407	100.0%	607	100.0%
% Branded	20.3%		36.6%		48.1%

Source: AACSB International

 

I was surprised that nearly half (48.1%) of currently accredited institutions are either stand-alone or have academic units delivering business programs under a distinctive name or institution sub-brand.

 

We also analyzed changes over the last two decades. The corresponding percentage (of named, sub-branded, or stand-alone schools) was 20.3% in 1991. The increase is explained primarily by "unnamed" schools moving to one of the branded categories. Although it is not shown in the table, 85 "generic" schools that were accredited in 1991 became "named" or "sub-branded" by 2011. Interestingly, there were five "named" schools in 1991 that became "generic" by 2011.

 

The percentage of stand-alone business schools also increased. However, this shift was due primarily to the expansion of AACSB accreditation beyond the United States to Europe and other regions where stand-alone business schools are more common.

 

This analysis suggests several questions. First, what has caused the shift from "generic" to "named" business schools? Fundraising has become more important to business school deans as they diversify revenue sources, and naming opportunities strengthen the pitch for major gifts. However, today's business schools are also more interested in reputation and brand differentiation, so money is not the only driver.

 

Second, are there implications for the way we handle and promote accreditation? AACSB currently promotes accreditation at this institutional level, including all business and management degree programs. But more and more deans are asking AACSB to draw attention to the business school rather than university in which it sits.

 

Third, to what extent has the shift from generic to named business schools impacted the relationship between the business school and institution, and other academic units in it? While the trend towards named schools may suggest loosening connections, intra-university partnerships are becoming more important.