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Reinventing the MBA the European way
Reinventing the MBA the European Way Helen J. Muller, James L. Porter, a n d Robert R. Rehder
he business school credential has begun to lose its luster. While enrollments remain healthy, American business and management schools a p p e a r frozen in time with anachronistic theory and programs. Questions of value and relevance are being raised with renewed generousness. Many business leaders c l a i m - some n e w techniques aside--that today's business students receive m u c h the same education they themselves received, despite vast changes in all aspects of the business environment. A number of educators reluctantly agree with such assessments, some adding their o w n stinging indictments. Noel Tichy of the University of Michigan pulls no punches in contending that business education is a disaster and needs radical transformation. He further notes that his colleagues' research is becoming so specialized and reductionistic that most finance professors can't hold an intelligent conversation with a vice president of finance. Ross Webber of the Wharton School warns that as the international climate increases in complexity, graduate schools of m a n a g e m e n t have to rethink strategies to address America's weaknesses in product design, manufacturing, h u m a n resources management, and strategic vision. The recent major study of business education, commissioned by the American Assembly of Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB), also produced disquieting conclusions. A key finding was that rapid growth and market success caused complacency a m o n g business educators about the traditional business school model; it was clear that this model is ill-suited to the needs of the next century. The authors state that "if any single element of organizational culture ideally should characterize the U.S. business school in the next decade, it should be an ingrained, embedded, and pervasive spirit of innovation" (Porter and McKibben 1988).
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Reinventing the MBA the European Way
In the 1990s we are, after all, in discontinuous transition and living through a massive restructuring of p o w e r relationships. Alvin Toffler (1990) notes that we are at the dawn of the "Powershift Era": "Power is shifting at so astonishing a rate that world'leaders are being swept along by events, rather than imposing order on them." He believes that these forces will b e c o m e more intensive and pervasive in the years to come. Change on this scale underlines a need for experimentation and innovation in every aspect of business and m a n a g e m e n t education. In Europe these p o w e r shifts have b e e n more dramatic and closer to h o m e in the past several years than in the United States. With the approach of the 1992 European Economic Community, there are rapid changes occurring at m a n y institutional levels. The Europeans, perhaps more than the Americans, are proactively shaping their futures. This difference is also in evidence at business schools abroad. In Western Europe there was a pattern of discontent with the university-based MBA degree similar to that in the United States. European business education, however, is n o w experiencing a renaissance through the development of innovative programs that in m a n y ways reconceptualize, restructure, and provide opportunities for graduate m a n a g e m e n t education. An extensive survey conducted by the Harbridge House Consulting Group in England documents a major growth in what they call In-Company and Consortium MBA programs. These educational innovations specifically address European managers'
American business schools must change the way they teach to regain their reputation and help U.S. business.
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concerns that business schools have been too theoretical and out of touch with the needs of globally competitive corporations and rapidly changing economic environments. In the past several years, a rapidly growing number of alliances among corporations, business schools, and some public sector organizations have been organized to design and administer flexible and modular mid-career MBA programs specifically addressing these concerns. Although the inertia in academe in any country is not easily ovep> come, the Europeans and now a few American universities are making important breakthroughs. American management educators can ill afford to ignore these innovative developments while the business world and the global economy are awash with change. THE ANACHRONISTIC AMERICAN MODEL
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merican critics of business education have produced a steady stream of reform studies, beginning with the Carnegie and Ford Foundation reports and continuing on to the recent AACSB report. While U.S. university-based management education continues with endless self-study, there is a growing call for the development of creative and visionary leaders. Managers are needed who can unify and empower others with high-quality ~ _ _ standards of self management and ethical "If there is to be meaningbehavior necessary for globally competiful change in American tive organizations. business education, Placing our hopes in a new course here or nothing less than a there, or even on a fundamental shift in the whole new MBA curriculum based excluthinking of leading U.S. sively within the unibusiness educators and versity setting, should by this time be recogmanagers needs to take nized as naive. If place." there is to be meaningful change in American business education, nothing less than a fundamental shift in the thinking of leading U.S. business educators and managers needs to take place. The recent report of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Commission on Industrial Productivity by a team of leading MIT scientists, engineers, and social scientists (Dertouzos et al. 1989) also stresses the need for dramatic changes in American management strategies and practices, as well as totally new goals and priorities for universities and management education. Their key recommendations strike an important chord and have been widely cited: 84
Create a new cadre of students and faculty characterized by: 1) interest in and knowledge of real problems and their societal, economic, and political context; 2) an ability to function effectively as members of a team creating new products, processes, and systems; 3) an ability to operate effectively beyond the confines of a single discipline; and 4) an integration of a deep understanding of science and technology with practical knowledge, a hands-on orientation, and experimental skills and insight. There are several major interrelated problems that contribute to the inertia presently immobilizing American business education. An appreciation of these problems makes it clear why efforts to fine-tune the curriculum alone are futile. First, the strategy, structure, and curricula of most U.S. business schools reflect traditional practices that institutionalize the values and methods of anachronistic managerial and organizational strategies. Students often learn more about bureaucratic administrative behavior from their experiences in business school than from their textbooks. Moreover, the hierarchical gender and minority segregation within most business school environments reflects and reinforces the difficulties the broader business community continues to experience in its own attempt to respond to changing demographic patterns and an increasingly diverse work force. Second, a traditional "corporate culture" educational ethos is thriving in most business schools. Students are more often interested in grades and obtaining credentials for well-paying jobs than in learning for its intrinsic value or the broader societal contributions for which an education could prepare them. This unfortunate phen o m e n o n is reinforced by traditional classroom teaching and grading methods, and by some corporate recruiting practices that pay top dollar for highly specialized skills--sometimes measured in tenths of a grade point average. Third, the reductionist nature of much faculty research, the narrow academic interests and analytical empiricism of many faculty members, and the inadequate, antiquated pedagogy that exist in most university-based business schools are of limited value to students, practicing managers, or the larger society. Because all too many highly specialized faculty members tend to be isolated from one another as well as from practitioners, it can be no surprise that many lack a vision or an understanding of how a contemporary high-pep> formance organization functions within a local community--not to mention within the global context. A recent article in Business Week describes the frustration of the new dean of New Business Horizons / May-June 1991
York University's business school about the "overemphasis placed on scholarly research" which basically says "nothing" and in "a pretentious way" ("Is R e s e a r c h . . . ?" 1990). The same article quotes another B-School dean who feels that "as much as 80 percent of management research may be irrelevant." Fourth, American business education has long been strongly influenced by the AACSB, its primary accrediting agency. The standards set by the AACSB, though initially having many favorable effects, have tended to encourage a 1960s cookie-cutter approach to management education even while the environment has changed. European schools of business have been spared this homogenizing influence and are more successful with highly difl'erentiated programs that meet new and diverse needs. THE EUROPEAN RENAISSANCE IN MANAGEMENT EDUCATION t is somewhat humbling that American hegemony in management education is now being effectively tested by the institutional flexibility of the Europeans. Among the better-known schools of business in Europe are those that were formed by corporations without a university base, such as ISA (Institut Superieur des Affaires, created by the Paris Chamber of Commerce and Industry in 1969), INSEAD (the European Institute of Business Administration begun in 1959) in Fontainebleau, France, and IMD (the International Institute for Management Development, which resulted from the merger in 1990 of IMEDE--International Management Development Institute--and IMI--International Management Institute) in Lausanne, Switzerland. The focus of the better-known European schools has been on management education with a strong international orientation that is created by both an international student body and faculty, participant major corporations, and an internationally focused curriculum. The MBA degree offered by these programs usually requires fulltime attendance for one year. The degree prepares students to work in a multinational environment, without any one dominant culture, where a global, integrative view of management is developed. Two languages of instruction are often used in these programs, and sometimes knowledge of three is required. Program structure and emphasis varies within the international framework, but individual career and leadership assessment and group process skills are c o m m o n components that are emphasized, along with the dynamics of complex, uncertain, and rapidly changing organizational and economic environments. Action learning or experiential learning is stressed by class projects that
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Reinventing the MBA the European Way
are company based, within learning modules, or by consultancy-internships that can be of substantial duration. International Institute for Management D e v e l o p m e n t The European innovations in management education offer some creative examples for American management educators. As we struggle to develop more relevant, interdisciplinary, and realitybased models, we can turn to those who have had experience in this area, "Given the competitive test what may be state of the world econappropriate for our context, and reframe omy, m a n a g e m e n t the most salient feaeducation in the U.S. is tures. Because the Europeans exist too important to be left within narrow geoexclusively to a c a d e m i c graphic borders that ally based m a n a g e m e n t are distinguished by multilingual and educators. " multicultural configurations, they have considerable experience in conceptualizing educational approaches for managers who must work in these variegated social and economic environments. The new International Institute for Management Development (IMD) provides comprehensive, innovative, and international education for managers around the world. In addition to the traditional management disciplines, it also seeks to address several broad emerging needs: 1) developing a keener awareness of new trends in human thought--its political realities, its scientific discoveries, and its patterns of social and cultural behavior; 2) developing the individual manager's tools for judging correctly in the absence of analytical certainty--this is not just analysis, but a combination of vision, intuition, and the capacity to thrive in ambiguity. Four core values underpin IMD's program: • International perspective--students are prepared to face business and management situations in an international context. • Integrative capabilities--the program is organized into issue-oriented modules that integrate several functional areas and disciplines. Basic skills learned in one module are reinforced in subsequent ones, so that there is a progressive development of knowledge and skills. • Interactive skills--these skills are developed through activities and groups in which students t W to reach a common position and present and defend proposals before other students, the faculty, or industry leaders. 85
Consortium MBAs University o f Warwick Business School Integrated Consortium MBA Program The Warwick Business School began a consortium MBA program in 1988~ with 23 participants. The initiative came from three original consortium members: National Westminster Bank, BP, and Coopers and Lybrand. They were interested in an MBA focusing on practical applications and integrating their respective corporate management development programs. They did not believe traditional, theoretical business school MBA programs met their needs. After the corporations made their needs known, several universities submitted applications. The Warwick proposal to be the academic member of the consortium was accepted because of the school's previous experience with consortium programs. Program participants are limited to employees of consortium members; however, the consortium is open to additional organizations if they meet its:requirements. More recently the Metropolitan Police and British Telecom have joined the Consortium. The Warwick program has three special areas of focus: global competition, management of change, and general management. Participants normally hold a first degree and have demonstrated high executive potential. The program is especially designed to integrate the individual managers' career development with the MBA program. Company mentors also provide assistance and support in the plan's implementation. Before undertaking the six-course functional core program, participants tak e an individually tailored foundation course designed to bring them all to a similar level of knowledge and skill. Four special topic modules comprise the third part of the program. Each module is made up of a week-long classroom-based topic followed by a related company-based project that can be done in groups with participants from other organizations. Topics focus on global competition or the management of change and are directly related to the participant's company and career goals. The last part of the Warwick program integrates the group projects and the basic core through an individual consultant project within a consortium organization. These special consultant projects are done concurrently with two courses: strategic management and business policy. The individual projects center on a specific client; and a Warwick faculty member guides the consultant/change agents through:to their final report. As in most consortium MBA programs, the companies' managers and training departments are fully involved in the development, teaching, and assessment of the MBA programs along with the faculty of the School of Business. Source.. Robert W. Baston, "The Company-Based MBA, "Harbridge Consulting Group Ltd., London, May 1989.
• Innovative abilities--students' abilities are developed to manage change and an environment in which people are e m p o w e r e d to nurture their talents in pursuit of the corporate vision. Several learning approaches, including participative and interactive methods as well as computer-based models, are presented. An intense experiential learning opportunity takes place w h e n participants serve as team consultants to the m a n a g e m e n t of client companies in international consulting projects extending over the second half of the program. The 80 corporate partners of IMD provide some of the project learning experiences. 86
In 1989, at least 20 company-based MBA programs were under way in Britain alone. More than 40 major British and international organizations were involved in such programs. These innovations arose in response to several national studies documenting the shortcomings of management education in Britain. Cuts in higher education funding by the Conservative government have also played a role in bringing business and academe together. Company-based MBA programs are essentially of two general types:
1) In-company MBA programs---those in which a business school offers an in-company program restricted to employees of one organization. In-company programs are currently being run by (a) the University of Bradford for the N.G. Bailey Organization, a West Yorkshire-based electrical engineering company; (b) H e n l e y - - t h e Management College for Shell U.K., BICC, Pedigree Peffoods, and Turner & Newhall; and (c) the University of Lancaster for British Airways, as well as others.
2) Consortium MBA programs--those in which a business school provides a focal point for the coordination of an MBA program serving participants from a consortium of private and/or public organizations. In 1988 500 managers were enrolled in consortium MBA programs in Britain alone. According to a recent survey of these programs, all of them a p p e a r e d to be meeting some of the more significant criticisms of traditional MBA programs b y being "flexible and modular in structure, . . . [and by] provid[ing] advanced functional and strategic s k i l l s . . . [in a format] integrated with career development and w o r k experience" (Baston 1989). A n u m b e r of academic and polytechnic institutions are involved in consortium-type programs. For example, the University of Bath is part of a consortium in which 11 companies are members, including British Gas, Hewlett Packard, Avon Rubber, and Clark Shoes. The University of Leeds is a m e m b e r of a consortium that includes three manufacturing c o m p a - . nies, a police force, and a public utility. The University of Glasgow is also a m e m b e r of a consortium. The S i d e b a r s on the University of Warwick's Consortium MBA and the Ashridge MBA program provide detailed information on the organizational relationships and program format of two such programs. Consortium MBA programs offer particularly promising opportunities to exploit the complementary attributes of the academy and the affiliated organizations. Such arrangements not only present opportunities for participants and business schools to utilize h u m a n and organizational resources of private and public sector consortium Business Horizons / May-June 1991
Content and Format o f Ashridge MBA Program Module 1 (at Ashridge) 6 weeks
Global perspectives in changing organizational environments, intro to business policy and strategy, identify major international business issues, and intro to main business/management disciplines.
Social, ethical, and economic factors, selfassessment and skills development, projectmanagement and management research skills.
Module 1A Away; 6 weeks
Putting the project into action.
Assignments and mini-projects.
Module 2 (At Ashridge) 4 weeks
Development of main management disciplines and functions, government and business relations, management decision making, global competition, and new technology.
An overview of organizational development, leadership and visioning, and research skills and writing.
Module 2A Away; 6 weeks
Implementing the project, and data collections and analysis.
Assignments and mini-projects.
Module 3 (At Ashridge) 4 weeks
Diversification and acquisition strategy, further integration of main business disciplines and functions, and innovation and management of change.
Single European Market implications, forecasting and risk analysis, and new product development.
Module 3A Away; 6 weeks
Evaluating and working on the project.
Preparing the interim project report.
Module 4 (At Ashridge) 4 weeks
Role of the general manager, development and revision of international business policy and implementation of strategic plans, and business/media/PR workshop.
International financial management, developing an effective information systems strategy, and cross-cultural aspects of organizations.
FORMAL ASSESSMENT (At Ashridge); 3 days Module 4A Away; 13 weeks
Completion of the project report and assignments.
Progress meetings with sponsor, mentor, and Ashridge tutor.
Weekend (At Ashridge)
Final project presentations.
Re-entry into the organization: the next step.
Adaptedfrom the Ashridge MBA Programs 1991, AshridgeManagement College,Ashridge, England, p. 12.
members; they also provide other synergistic linking opportunities for m e m b e r organizations. It is interesting to note that in some consortium programs the university m a y not be the sole determinant of curriculum and program development. The authority for such decisions m a y rest in the consortium itself. The City University Business School of London, for example, is part of a consortium that includes American Express, the International Stock Exchange, Sainsbury, and the Training Commission. Ownership of the program is vested in all m e m b e r s of the consortium, and control is by the Consortium Board, which consists of four people from the university and one from each of the other members. The board controis fees and program development. This is a radical departure from the traditional B-School model and implies that faculty must share p o w e r over decisions heretofore considered under their exclusive purview. Reinventing the MBA the European Way
A consortium-type MBA program was develo p e d by the Ashridge Management College (with the degree awarded by City University, London) in 1987. An action-oriented program, it combines four residential learning modules with companysponsored projects. The action-learning design is a basic underpinning of the program along with an issue-based rather than discipline-based approach on the premise that real managerial and organizational problems require multidisciplinary solutions. Participants can be self- or organization-sponsored, but throughout the project they work with a company. The sponsoring organizations are thus in a position to reap immediate returns through their involvement in the Ashridge program. The participant is supported by a comp a n y mentor and a peer group (facilitated b y an Ashridge tutor and a project supervisor) throughout the project experience. The project m a y be in a firm's out-of-country office. 87
AN ALTERNATIVE FOR AMERICA: THE LEARNING ALLIANCE APPROACH otally new conceptual frameworks for management education are long overdue in the United States, but there is little reason to believe that another revision of the curriculum in university-based schools would result in much more than another unsuccessful attempt at a quick fix. Transformation involves much more than curricular change; it necessitates evolving long-term collaborative learning alliances among corporations, universities, and public sector organizations. The components of one alternative model for management and leadership education proposed by the authors is compared to the traditional B-School model in the Figure. This figure highlights the major characteristics of each of the interrelated subsystems of management education and contrasts the two models. The Learning Alliance MBA (LA-MBA) model enhances opportunities for participants, managers, and faculty members to develop their vision, values judgement, and skills, broaden their global perspectives, integrate theory and practice, and develop the capacity to learn h o w to l e a r n - much or all of which has largely been ignored in U.S. management education's 30-year love affair with reductionism. This model builds upon some of the new European innovations in management education and totally reframes business education by addressing the future needs of managers that are so widely discussed today in the United States and Europe.
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Reframing Education t h r o u g h Learning Alliances Given the competitive state of the world economy, management education in the U.S. is too important to be left exclusively to academically based management educators. A wealth of learning resources and research opportunities await the motivated learner in corporations and other organizations outside the university. Tapping these resources and combining them to complement those of the business school ranks as one of today's critical challenges for U.S. management educators. The university, the corporation, and other public and not-for-profit organizations all offer valuable learning resources. Business schools can bring to an alliance or consortium a talented faculty with its traditions of academic freedom and business research. Academic freedom is essential in a truly open educational environment, though there is little experience with it in most corporate cultures. Although some university-based business research, as we have noted, has been seen as narrow and even trivial, some of it has made meaningful contributions. 88
For example, whereas there is little understanding or systematic study of organizational behavior in most corporations, schools of business in North America and Europe have contributed a great deal to our understanding of organizations as complex sociotechnical systems. A major corporate challenge during the 1990s will be to develop managers to transform "dynamic conservatism," and the university can be a powerful partner in meeting this challenge. Learning Alliance MBA programs can operate in the following way: One or possibly more business schools affiliate with a group of corporations or other sponsoring organizations. The initiation of the alliance may be undertaken by any organization, corporation, university, or public sector organization that identifies this development need and seeks an innovative, cooperative solution. In Europe the initiators of the consortium approach have often been one or more corporations; however, business schools have also taken the lead. Necessarily, any given LA-MBA program reflects the shared values and objectives of its sponsoring organizations, including the business school. For example, a strategic consortium consisting of sponsoring corporations representing several industries wishing to emphasize the development of transformational leaders necessary for corporate adaptation and change might establish a Learning Alliance with an established graduate school of management. A chamber of commerce concerned with economic development might initiate a Learning Alliance including a local business school, several small businesses, and perhaps a state agency to provide learning opportunities focusing on entrepreneurship and small business development. Another variation is the Leaders for Manufacturing Program at MIT, which seeks to educate and develop future leaders for manufacturing firms and is thus a consortium comprised of such firms. Nonprofit organizations, state and local governments, labor unions, and other such organizations, who have as much need for competent management and visionary leadership as their profit-seeking counterparts, can establish appropriate Learning Alliances to serve the needs of their stakeholders. The variety of configurations is unlimited. The alliance energizes and coordinates largely heretofore untapped but highly complementary educational and organizational resources. Learning Alliance faculty can be drawn from a wide range of universities, corporations, and public sector organizations, depending on their teaching and learning skills, their experience and research interests, and their motivation. Such faculty members offer a breadth of professional and academic experience and are better able to understand and integrate theory and practice. Business Horizons / May-June 1991
Figure The Traditional B-School and the Learning Alliance Models TRADITIONAL B-SCHOOL
LEARNING ALLIANCE
Strategy and Vision
Strategy and Vision
Goals
Goals
• Growth in school facilities, financial resources, and numbers of faculty and students; increase in market share
• Empowerment of all participants, development of leaders and managers for new competitive and creative organizations
Emphasis
Emphasis
• Functional coursework, technology, planning, budgeting, controlling • Quantitative indices form evaluative criteria: grades, test scores, numbers of publications, amounts of grants and contributions, and salaries • Numbers of job offers and starting salaries of graduates
• Integration of disciplines, people, and process; theory and practice • Balance of technological and human needs within organizational and ecological contexts • Progress measured in terms of motivation and ability of organization participants, faculty, and students to contribute in significant ways to their organizations, communities, and nation
Culture, P h i l o s o p h y and Values
Culture, Philosophy, and Values
Assumptions about Students
Assumptions about Students
• Motivated by grades, competition, degrees, job opportunities
• Motivated by desire to learn, develop potential, and contribute to organization and society
Faculty Role
Faculty Role
• Emphasis on reductionist and specialized research, reputation, and self-promotion • Minimize teaching responsibilities and student contact in general
• Ongoing collaborative effort to improve the quality of learning experiences • Balance of theory, research, practice, and teaching • All types of contributions valued--qualitative, quantitative, specialized, and interdisciplinary.
Learning
Learning
• Equated with academic performance, mastery of facts, ability to recall, and passing exams • An accumulation of classroom information disseminated and evaluated by faculty and other "experts"
• Complex, dynamic interactive process that occurs throughout one's life in a variety of contexts • Equated with self-development, active participation, and critical analysis • Judgment, "common sense," creativity, and breadth of perspective are elements
Human Nature
Human Nature
• People are passive, can't be trusted, and require close supervision • Hierarchical and adversarial relations are the norm
• People desire to realize their potential, assume responsibility for their efforts, and actively participate in problem solving and decision making
Organizational Structure and Climate
Organizational Structure and Climate
• Management education largely confined to the university classroom • Tendency toward hierarchical bureaucracy with specialized, highly structured academic departments • Centralized planning, performance measurement, bottom-line measures of efficiency predominate • Most communication in writing from the top down • White male traditional power relations and occupational sex segregation • Non-constructive criticism, alienation, and adversarial environments for stakeholders all too common
• Management education as a lifetime learning process taking place in a variety of stakeholder settings • Flat, collegial organization with strong stakeholder involvement in planning, decision making, implementation • Power and rewards equitably distributed to reflect diversity and power sharing • Sharing of information throughout organization and its networks • Nonsexist, nonracist relations • Emphasis on goal sharing, team learning, and research involving all stakeholders and cutting across disciplines
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The challenge to the LA-MBA faculty is to create a motivating and empowering environment necessary to realize the participants' real potential. Faculty and other LA-MBA participants have opportunities to work closely with one another and learn a great deal in the process. Faculty-participant teams provide unusual opportunities for the mid-career participants as well as academic and corporate-based management faculty to learn the value of testing out and integrating both theory and practice. The LA-MBA model, then, is a broad collaborative effort between the university and allied organizations jointly establishing goals and objectives, pedagogy, program development, implem.entation, and review. Admission decisions are made together and can be based on all relevant information; history and longitudinal research both clearly show that traditional admissions criteria do not necessarily foreshadow management and leadership accomplishment. The Learning Alliance coordinating body includes faculty members, student participants, and corporate or university representatives. This group can assume substantial responsibility for the design and implementation of a wide variety of creative learning modules. These learning modules ideally draw upon the human and organizational resources of all of the Alliance members. Each module provides opportunities to explore and identify appropriate learning goals, strategies, settings, and modalities. Learning modules can rotate among the organizational facilities of the Alliance members to take advantage of the unique learning opportunities, resources, and centers of excellence. There is no better way to emphasize that learning is something not uniquely associated with a university or school, but rather a process that can and does take place in a variety of settings, is ongoing throughout one's life, and depends on the learner assuming a high level of responsibility and self-direction. Interdisciplinary or integrative learning modules such as those developed by IMD or Ashridge reframe the traditional MBA curriculum in a way that places high value on the integration of specialized business and organization topics and the complex issues that confront management and the global economy today. For example, accounting can be approached as an aspect of business information systems in general, its relationship to other types of information and control processes, and its influence on the organization, the individual, and society. Similarly, research and development, production, and marketing need not be viewed alone as discrete topics but as interrelated aspects of "total quality management" systems. In addition to interdisciplinary learning opportunities covering more traditional subjects in integrative modes, learning modules can be de90
veloped in such important but often overlooked or underemphasized areas as the management of technology, ethics in decision making, managing a multicultural workforce, transformational leadership, the global political economy, government and business relations, alternative methods of dispute resolution, and the development of learning organizations. As part of such learning modules, participants also have opportunities to identify and conduct special learning projects and action research on a collaborative basis. These projects can be built around a consulting opportunity and continue through one or more cycles. Learning can be relevant, alive, and exciting in a Learning Alliance environment. An alliance might include one or more international modules taught in appropriate overseas private or public sector organizations or schools of business. For example, the University of South Carolina master's program in international business includes language and area studies and a six-month internship abroad where students become fluent in a foreign language. But this example is rare in the American experience. Although we have international borders to the north and south where non-English languages are spoken, our curricula typically do not require foreign language fluency. As our border countries work with us in developing free trade agreements and increasing interdependence, bilingual managers with sensitivity to and ability to work with nonWestern and non-English cultures will become essential. Accreditation associations, which historically have tended to freeze narrowly defined academic programs, now have the opportunity to dramatically alter their mission to foster creative diversity, responsible experimentation, and change by brokering Learning Alliances and other innovations and disseminating information about successes and shortcomings. ur ability to compete abroad will reflect in some sense our ability to cooperate at home. As individuals, groups, organizations, communities, and nations, we need to do a better job of building strategic alliances with one another. Partnerships and joint ventures between arch corporate rivals are already common. Within the corporation, non-adversarial cooperative relationships with labor, suppliers, customers, and governments are now essential. In America-the land of the ragged individualist, where adversarial, highly competitive, win-lose relationships have long been dominant cultural realities--we will have to work extra hard to meet present and future challenges. America's schools of business, with rare exceptions, have done little to develop the transformational leaders able to engender trust, create shared visions, and build the strate-
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Business Horizons / May-June 1991
gic alliances essential to our nation's future. In a world of extraordinary change and shifting power alliances, Americans, like Europeans, must experiment with dramatic new ways of creating learning opportunities. Learning Alliances can b e c o m e laboratories of change at home and abroad. We believe they offer a promising alternative for the development of people able to deal with challenges both k n o w n and as yet unrealized. References
Robert W. Baston, The Company-BasedMBA (London: Harbridge Consulting Group Limited, 1989). Burton Bollag, "University-Industry Collaboration in Europe Called Mainly Positive and Likely to Expand," Chronicle of Higher Education, November 7, 1990, p. A37.
"International Institute for Management Development--MBA Program Description," Lausanne, Switzerland, 1990. "Is Research in the Ivory Tower 'Fuzzy, Irrelevant, Pretentious'?" Business Week, October 29, 1990, p. 62. Jeremy Main, "B-Schools Get a Global Vision," Fortune, July 17, 1989, p. 80. H. Muller, R. Rehder, and J. Porter, "Have Business Schools Let Down U.S. Corporations?" Management Review, October 1988, pp. 24-31. J. Porter, H. Muller, and R. Rehder, "The Making of Managers: An American Perspective," Journal of GeneralManagement, Summer 1989, pp. 62-76. L. Porter and L. McKibben, Management Education
and Development: Drift or Thrust into the 21st Century? (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1988).
Earl Cheit, "Business Schools and Their Critics," California Management Review, Spring 1985, pp. 43-61.
Donald A. Schon, Beyond the Stable State (New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 1971).
"The Condition of Professoriate Attitudes and Trends, 1989," commissioned by The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, referenced in The Chronicle of Higher Education, November 8, 1989, p. A18.
Robert J. Sternberg, The Triarchic Mind (New York: Viking, 1988).
Michael L. Dertouzos, Richard K. Lester, and Robert M. Solow, Made in America: Regaining the Productive Edge (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1989). Jean Evangelauf, "American Business Schools Seek to Internationalize Curricula to Meet Demands of the Global Economy," Chronicle of Higher Education, July 5, 1989, p. All. T. Harrel and B. Hanson, "Predictors of Business Success Over Two Decades: An MBA Longitudinal Study," Stanford University Graduate School of Business Research Monograph #788, January 1985.
Reinventing the MBA the European Way
Alvin Toffler, Power Shift (New York: Bantam Books, 1990). Ross Webber, "Building a Better Business School," Best of Business Quarterly, Fall 1990, p. 66.
Helen J. Muller and James L. Porter are associate professors of management and Robert R. Rehder is a professor of management, all at the University of
New Mexico, Albuquerque.
9l
he business school credential has begun to lose its luster. While enrollments remain healthy, American business and management schools a p p e a r frozen in time with anachronistic theory and programs. Questions of value and relevance are being raised with renewed generousness. Many business leaders c l a i m - some n e w techniques aside--that today's business students receive m u c h the same education they themselves received, despite vast changes in all aspects of the business environment. A number of educators reluctantly agree with such assessments, some adding their o w n stinging indictments. Noel Tichy of the University of Michigan pulls no punches in contending that business education is a disaster and needs radical transformation. He further notes that his colleagues' research is becoming so specialized and reductionistic that most finance professors can't hold an intelligent conversation with a vice president of finance. Ross Webber of the Wharton School warns that as the international climate increases in complexity, graduate schools of m a n a g e m e n t have to rethink strategies to address America's weaknesses in product design, manufacturing, h u m a n resources management, and strategic vision. The recent major study of business education, commissioned by the American Assembly of Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB), also produced disquieting conclusions. A key finding was that rapid growth and market success caused complacency a m o n g business educators about the traditional business school model; it was clear that this model is ill-suited to the needs of the next century. The authors state that "if any single element of organizational culture ideally should characterize the U.S. business school in the next decade, it should be an ingrained, embedded, and pervasive spirit of innovation" (Porter and McKibben 1988).
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Reinventing the MBA the European Way
In the 1990s we are, after all, in discontinuous transition and living through a massive restructuring of p o w e r relationships. Alvin Toffler (1990) notes that we are at the dawn of the "Powershift Era": "Power is shifting at so astonishing a rate that world'leaders are being swept along by events, rather than imposing order on them." He believes that these forces will b e c o m e more intensive and pervasive in the years to come. Change on this scale underlines a need for experimentation and innovation in every aspect of business and m a n a g e m e n t education. In Europe these p o w e r shifts have b e e n more dramatic and closer to h o m e in the past several years than in the United States. With the approach of the 1992 European Economic Community, there are rapid changes occurring at m a n y institutional levels. The Europeans, perhaps more than the Americans, are proactively shaping their futures. This difference is also in evidence at business schools abroad. In Western Europe there was a pattern of discontent with the university-based MBA degree similar to that in the United States. European business education, however, is n o w experiencing a renaissance through the development of innovative programs that in m a n y ways reconceptualize, restructure, and provide opportunities for graduate m a n a g e m e n t education. An extensive survey conducted by the Harbridge House Consulting Group in England documents a major growth in what they call In-Company and Consortium MBA programs. These educational innovations specifically address European managers'
American business schools must change the way they teach to regain their reputation and help U.S. business.
83
concerns that business schools have been too theoretical and out of touch with the needs of globally competitive corporations and rapidly changing economic environments. In the past several years, a rapidly growing number of alliances among corporations, business schools, and some public sector organizations have been organized to design and administer flexible and modular mid-career MBA programs specifically addressing these concerns. Although the inertia in academe in any country is not easily ovep> come, the Europeans and now a few American universities are making important breakthroughs. American management educators can ill afford to ignore these innovative developments while the business world and the global economy are awash with change. THE ANACHRONISTIC AMERICAN MODEL
A
merican critics of business education have produced a steady stream of reform studies, beginning with the Carnegie and Ford Foundation reports and continuing on to the recent AACSB report. While U.S. university-based management education continues with endless self-study, there is a growing call for the development of creative and visionary leaders. Managers are needed who can unify and empower others with high-quality ~ _ _ standards of self management and ethical "If there is to be meaningbehavior necessary for globally competiful change in American tive organizations. business education, Placing our hopes in a new course here or nothing less than a there, or even on a fundamental shift in the whole new MBA curriculum based excluthinking of leading U.S. sively within the unibusiness educators and versity setting, should by this time be recogmanagers needs to take nized as naive. If place." there is to be meaningful change in American business education, nothing less than a fundamental shift in the thinking of leading U.S. business educators and managers needs to take place. The recent report of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Commission on Industrial Productivity by a team of leading MIT scientists, engineers, and social scientists (Dertouzos et al. 1989) also stresses the need for dramatic changes in American management strategies and practices, as well as totally new goals and priorities for universities and management education. Their key recommendations strike an important chord and have been widely cited: 84
Create a new cadre of students and faculty characterized by: 1) interest in and knowledge of real problems and their societal, economic, and political context; 2) an ability to function effectively as members of a team creating new products, processes, and systems; 3) an ability to operate effectively beyond the confines of a single discipline; and 4) an integration of a deep understanding of science and technology with practical knowledge, a hands-on orientation, and experimental skills and insight. There are several major interrelated problems that contribute to the inertia presently immobilizing American business education. An appreciation of these problems makes it clear why efforts to fine-tune the curriculum alone are futile. First, the strategy, structure, and curricula of most U.S. business schools reflect traditional practices that institutionalize the values and methods of anachronistic managerial and organizational strategies. Students often learn more about bureaucratic administrative behavior from their experiences in business school than from their textbooks. Moreover, the hierarchical gender and minority segregation within most business school environments reflects and reinforces the difficulties the broader business community continues to experience in its own attempt to respond to changing demographic patterns and an increasingly diverse work force. Second, a traditional "corporate culture" educational ethos is thriving in most business schools. Students are more often interested in grades and obtaining credentials for well-paying jobs than in learning for its intrinsic value or the broader societal contributions for which an education could prepare them. This unfortunate phen o m e n o n is reinforced by traditional classroom teaching and grading methods, and by some corporate recruiting practices that pay top dollar for highly specialized skills--sometimes measured in tenths of a grade point average. Third, the reductionist nature of much faculty research, the narrow academic interests and analytical empiricism of many faculty members, and the inadequate, antiquated pedagogy that exist in most university-based business schools are of limited value to students, practicing managers, or the larger society. Because all too many highly specialized faculty members tend to be isolated from one another as well as from practitioners, it can be no surprise that many lack a vision or an understanding of how a contemporary high-pep> formance organization functions within a local community--not to mention within the global context. A recent article in Business Week describes the frustration of the new dean of New Business Horizons / May-June 1991
York University's business school about the "overemphasis placed on scholarly research" which basically says "nothing" and in "a pretentious way" ("Is R e s e a r c h . . . ?" 1990). The same article quotes another B-School dean who feels that "as much as 80 percent of management research may be irrelevant." Fourth, American business education has long been strongly influenced by the AACSB, its primary accrediting agency. The standards set by the AACSB, though initially having many favorable effects, have tended to encourage a 1960s cookie-cutter approach to management education even while the environment has changed. European schools of business have been spared this homogenizing influence and are more successful with highly difl'erentiated programs that meet new and diverse needs. THE EUROPEAN RENAISSANCE IN MANAGEMENT EDUCATION t is somewhat humbling that American hegemony in management education is now being effectively tested by the institutional flexibility of the Europeans. Among the better-known schools of business in Europe are those that were formed by corporations without a university base, such as ISA (Institut Superieur des Affaires, created by the Paris Chamber of Commerce and Industry in 1969), INSEAD (the European Institute of Business Administration begun in 1959) in Fontainebleau, France, and IMD (the International Institute for Management Development, which resulted from the merger in 1990 of IMEDE--International Management Development Institute--and IMI--International Management Institute) in Lausanne, Switzerland. The focus of the better-known European schools has been on management education with a strong international orientation that is created by both an international student body and faculty, participant major corporations, and an internationally focused curriculum. The MBA degree offered by these programs usually requires fulltime attendance for one year. The degree prepares students to work in a multinational environment, without any one dominant culture, where a global, integrative view of management is developed. Two languages of instruction are often used in these programs, and sometimes knowledge of three is required. Program structure and emphasis varies within the international framework, but individual career and leadership assessment and group process skills are c o m m o n components that are emphasized, along with the dynamics of complex, uncertain, and rapidly changing organizational and economic environments. Action learning or experiential learning is stressed by class projects that
I
Reinventing the MBA the European Way
are company based, within learning modules, or by consultancy-internships that can be of substantial duration. International Institute for Management D e v e l o p m e n t The European innovations in management education offer some creative examples for American management educators. As we struggle to develop more relevant, interdisciplinary, and realitybased models, we can turn to those who have had experience in this area, "Given the competitive test what may be state of the world econappropriate for our context, and reframe omy, m a n a g e m e n t the most salient feaeducation in the U.S. is tures. Because the Europeans exist too important to be left within narrow geoexclusively to a c a d e m i c graphic borders that ally based m a n a g e m e n t are distinguished by multilingual and educators. " multicultural configurations, they have considerable experience in conceptualizing educational approaches for managers who must work in these variegated social and economic environments. The new International Institute for Management Development (IMD) provides comprehensive, innovative, and international education for managers around the world. In addition to the traditional management disciplines, it also seeks to address several broad emerging needs: 1) developing a keener awareness of new trends in human thought--its political realities, its scientific discoveries, and its patterns of social and cultural behavior; 2) developing the individual manager's tools for judging correctly in the absence of analytical certainty--this is not just analysis, but a combination of vision, intuition, and the capacity to thrive in ambiguity. Four core values underpin IMD's program: • International perspective--students are prepared to face business and management situations in an international context. • Integrative capabilities--the program is organized into issue-oriented modules that integrate several functional areas and disciplines. Basic skills learned in one module are reinforced in subsequent ones, so that there is a progressive development of knowledge and skills. • Interactive skills--these skills are developed through activities and groups in which students t W to reach a common position and present and defend proposals before other students, the faculty, or industry leaders. 85
Consortium MBAs University o f Warwick Business School Integrated Consortium MBA Program The Warwick Business School began a consortium MBA program in 1988~ with 23 participants. The initiative came from three original consortium members: National Westminster Bank, BP, and Coopers and Lybrand. They were interested in an MBA focusing on practical applications and integrating their respective corporate management development programs. They did not believe traditional, theoretical business school MBA programs met their needs. After the corporations made their needs known, several universities submitted applications. The Warwick proposal to be the academic member of the consortium was accepted because of the school's previous experience with consortium programs. Program participants are limited to employees of consortium members; however, the consortium is open to additional organizations if they meet its:requirements. More recently the Metropolitan Police and British Telecom have joined the Consortium. The Warwick program has three special areas of focus: global competition, management of change, and general management. Participants normally hold a first degree and have demonstrated high executive potential. The program is especially designed to integrate the individual managers' career development with the MBA program. Company mentors also provide assistance and support in the plan's implementation. Before undertaking the six-course functional core program, participants tak e an individually tailored foundation course designed to bring them all to a similar level of knowledge and skill. Four special topic modules comprise the third part of the program. Each module is made up of a week-long classroom-based topic followed by a related company-based project that can be done in groups with participants from other organizations. Topics focus on global competition or the management of change and are directly related to the participant's company and career goals. The last part of the Warwick program integrates the group projects and the basic core through an individual consultant project within a consortium organization. These special consultant projects are done concurrently with two courses: strategic management and business policy. The individual projects center on a specific client; and a Warwick faculty member guides the consultant/change agents through:to their final report. As in most consortium MBA programs, the companies' managers and training departments are fully involved in the development, teaching, and assessment of the MBA programs along with the faculty of the School of Business. Source.. Robert W. Baston, "The Company-Based MBA, "Harbridge Consulting Group Ltd., London, May 1989.
• Innovative abilities--students' abilities are developed to manage change and an environment in which people are e m p o w e r e d to nurture their talents in pursuit of the corporate vision. Several learning approaches, including participative and interactive methods as well as computer-based models, are presented. An intense experiential learning opportunity takes place w h e n participants serve as team consultants to the m a n a g e m e n t of client companies in international consulting projects extending over the second half of the program. The 80 corporate partners of IMD provide some of the project learning experiences. 86
In 1989, at least 20 company-based MBA programs were under way in Britain alone. More than 40 major British and international organizations were involved in such programs. These innovations arose in response to several national studies documenting the shortcomings of management education in Britain. Cuts in higher education funding by the Conservative government have also played a role in bringing business and academe together. Company-based MBA programs are essentially of two general types:
1) In-company MBA programs---those in which a business school offers an in-company program restricted to employees of one organization. In-company programs are currently being run by (a) the University of Bradford for the N.G. Bailey Organization, a West Yorkshire-based electrical engineering company; (b) H e n l e y - - t h e Management College for Shell U.K., BICC, Pedigree Peffoods, and Turner & Newhall; and (c) the University of Lancaster for British Airways, as well as others.
2) Consortium MBA programs--those in which a business school provides a focal point for the coordination of an MBA program serving participants from a consortium of private and/or public organizations. In 1988 500 managers were enrolled in consortium MBA programs in Britain alone. According to a recent survey of these programs, all of them a p p e a r e d to be meeting some of the more significant criticisms of traditional MBA programs b y being "flexible and modular in structure, . . . [and by] provid[ing] advanced functional and strategic s k i l l s . . . [in a format] integrated with career development and w o r k experience" (Baston 1989). A n u m b e r of academic and polytechnic institutions are involved in consortium-type programs. For example, the University of Bath is part of a consortium in which 11 companies are members, including British Gas, Hewlett Packard, Avon Rubber, and Clark Shoes. The University of Leeds is a m e m b e r of a consortium that includes three manufacturing c o m p a - . nies, a police force, and a public utility. The University of Glasgow is also a m e m b e r of a consortium. The S i d e b a r s on the University of Warwick's Consortium MBA and the Ashridge MBA program provide detailed information on the organizational relationships and program format of two such programs. Consortium MBA programs offer particularly promising opportunities to exploit the complementary attributes of the academy and the affiliated organizations. Such arrangements not only present opportunities for participants and business schools to utilize h u m a n and organizational resources of private and public sector consortium Business Horizons / May-June 1991
Content and Format o f Ashridge MBA Program Module 1 (at Ashridge) 6 weeks
Global perspectives in changing organizational environments, intro to business policy and strategy, identify major international business issues, and intro to main business/management disciplines.
Social, ethical, and economic factors, selfassessment and skills development, projectmanagement and management research skills.
Module 1A Away; 6 weeks
Putting the project into action.
Assignments and mini-projects.
Module 2 (At Ashridge) 4 weeks
Development of main management disciplines and functions, government and business relations, management decision making, global competition, and new technology.
An overview of organizational development, leadership and visioning, and research skills and writing.
Module 2A Away; 6 weeks
Implementing the project, and data collections and analysis.
Assignments and mini-projects.
Module 3 (At Ashridge) 4 weeks
Diversification and acquisition strategy, further integration of main business disciplines and functions, and innovation and management of change.
Single European Market implications, forecasting and risk analysis, and new product development.
Module 3A Away; 6 weeks
Evaluating and working on the project.
Preparing the interim project report.
Module 4 (At Ashridge) 4 weeks
Role of the general manager, development and revision of international business policy and implementation of strategic plans, and business/media/PR workshop.
International financial management, developing an effective information systems strategy, and cross-cultural aspects of organizations.
FORMAL ASSESSMENT (At Ashridge); 3 days Module 4A Away; 13 weeks
Completion of the project report and assignments.
Progress meetings with sponsor, mentor, and Ashridge tutor.
Weekend (At Ashridge)
Final project presentations.
Re-entry into the organization: the next step.
Adaptedfrom the Ashridge MBA Programs 1991, AshridgeManagement College,Ashridge, England, p. 12.
members; they also provide other synergistic linking opportunities for m e m b e r organizations. It is interesting to note that in some consortium programs the university m a y not be the sole determinant of curriculum and program development. The authority for such decisions m a y rest in the consortium itself. The City University Business School of London, for example, is part of a consortium that includes American Express, the International Stock Exchange, Sainsbury, and the Training Commission. Ownership of the program is vested in all m e m b e r s of the consortium, and control is by the Consortium Board, which consists of four people from the university and one from each of the other members. The board controis fees and program development. This is a radical departure from the traditional B-School model and implies that faculty must share p o w e r over decisions heretofore considered under their exclusive purview. Reinventing the MBA the European Way
A consortium-type MBA program was develo p e d by the Ashridge Management College (with the degree awarded by City University, London) in 1987. An action-oriented program, it combines four residential learning modules with companysponsored projects. The action-learning design is a basic underpinning of the program along with an issue-based rather than discipline-based approach on the premise that real managerial and organizational problems require multidisciplinary solutions. Participants can be self- or organization-sponsored, but throughout the project they work with a company. The sponsoring organizations are thus in a position to reap immediate returns through their involvement in the Ashridge program. The participant is supported by a comp a n y mentor and a peer group (facilitated b y an Ashridge tutor and a project supervisor) throughout the project experience. The project m a y be in a firm's out-of-country office. 87
AN ALTERNATIVE FOR AMERICA: THE LEARNING ALLIANCE APPROACH otally new conceptual frameworks for management education are long overdue in the United States, but there is little reason to believe that another revision of the curriculum in university-based schools would result in much more than another unsuccessful attempt at a quick fix. Transformation involves much more than curricular change; it necessitates evolving long-term collaborative learning alliances among corporations, universities, and public sector organizations. The components of one alternative model for management and leadership education proposed by the authors is compared to the traditional B-School model in the Figure. This figure highlights the major characteristics of each of the interrelated subsystems of management education and contrasts the two models. The Learning Alliance MBA (LA-MBA) model enhances opportunities for participants, managers, and faculty members to develop their vision, values judgement, and skills, broaden their global perspectives, integrate theory and practice, and develop the capacity to learn h o w to l e a r n - much or all of which has largely been ignored in U.S. management education's 30-year love affair with reductionism. This model builds upon some of the new European innovations in management education and totally reframes business education by addressing the future needs of managers that are so widely discussed today in the United States and Europe.
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Reframing Education t h r o u g h Learning Alliances Given the competitive state of the world economy, management education in the U.S. is too important to be left exclusively to academically based management educators. A wealth of learning resources and research opportunities await the motivated learner in corporations and other organizations outside the university. Tapping these resources and combining them to complement those of the business school ranks as one of today's critical challenges for U.S. management educators. The university, the corporation, and other public and not-for-profit organizations all offer valuable learning resources. Business schools can bring to an alliance or consortium a talented faculty with its traditions of academic freedom and business research. Academic freedom is essential in a truly open educational environment, though there is little experience with it in most corporate cultures. Although some university-based business research, as we have noted, has been seen as narrow and even trivial, some of it has made meaningful contributions. 88
For example, whereas there is little understanding or systematic study of organizational behavior in most corporations, schools of business in North America and Europe have contributed a great deal to our understanding of organizations as complex sociotechnical systems. A major corporate challenge during the 1990s will be to develop managers to transform "dynamic conservatism," and the university can be a powerful partner in meeting this challenge. Learning Alliance MBA programs can operate in the following way: One or possibly more business schools affiliate with a group of corporations or other sponsoring organizations. The initiation of the alliance may be undertaken by any organization, corporation, university, or public sector organization that identifies this development need and seeks an innovative, cooperative solution. In Europe the initiators of the consortium approach have often been one or more corporations; however, business schools have also taken the lead. Necessarily, any given LA-MBA program reflects the shared values and objectives of its sponsoring organizations, including the business school. For example, a strategic consortium consisting of sponsoring corporations representing several industries wishing to emphasize the development of transformational leaders necessary for corporate adaptation and change might establish a Learning Alliance with an established graduate school of management. A chamber of commerce concerned with economic development might initiate a Learning Alliance including a local business school, several small businesses, and perhaps a state agency to provide learning opportunities focusing on entrepreneurship and small business development. Another variation is the Leaders for Manufacturing Program at MIT, which seeks to educate and develop future leaders for manufacturing firms and is thus a consortium comprised of such firms. Nonprofit organizations, state and local governments, labor unions, and other such organizations, who have as much need for competent management and visionary leadership as their profit-seeking counterparts, can establish appropriate Learning Alliances to serve the needs of their stakeholders. The variety of configurations is unlimited. The alliance energizes and coordinates largely heretofore untapped but highly complementary educational and organizational resources. Learning Alliance faculty can be drawn from a wide range of universities, corporations, and public sector organizations, depending on their teaching and learning skills, their experience and research interests, and their motivation. Such faculty members offer a breadth of professional and academic experience and are better able to understand and integrate theory and practice. Business Horizons / May-June 1991
Figure The Traditional B-School and the Learning Alliance Models TRADITIONAL B-SCHOOL
LEARNING ALLIANCE
Strategy and Vision
Strategy and Vision
Goals
Goals
• Growth in school facilities, financial resources, and numbers of faculty and students; increase in market share
• Empowerment of all participants, development of leaders and managers for new competitive and creative organizations
Emphasis
Emphasis
• Functional coursework, technology, planning, budgeting, controlling • Quantitative indices form evaluative criteria: grades, test scores, numbers of publications, amounts of grants and contributions, and salaries • Numbers of job offers and starting salaries of graduates
• Integration of disciplines, people, and process; theory and practice • Balance of technological and human needs within organizational and ecological contexts • Progress measured in terms of motivation and ability of organization participants, faculty, and students to contribute in significant ways to their organizations, communities, and nation
Culture, P h i l o s o p h y and Values
Culture, Philosophy, and Values
Assumptions about Students
Assumptions about Students
• Motivated by grades, competition, degrees, job opportunities
• Motivated by desire to learn, develop potential, and contribute to organization and society
Faculty Role
Faculty Role
• Emphasis on reductionist and specialized research, reputation, and self-promotion • Minimize teaching responsibilities and student contact in general
• Ongoing collaborative effort to improve the quality of learning experiences • Balance of theory, research, practice, and teaching • All types of contributions valued--qualitative, quantitative, specialized, and interdisciplinary.
Learning
Learning
• Equated with academic performance, mastery of facts, ability to recall, and passing exams • An accumulation of classroom information disseminated and evaluated by faculty and other "experts"
• Complex, dynamic interactive process that occurs throughout one's life in a variety of contexts • Equated with self-development, active participation, and critical analysis • Judgment, "common sense," creativity, and breadth of perspective are elements
Human Nature
Human Nature
• People are passive, can't be trusted, and require close supervision • Hierarchical and adversarial relations are the norm
• People desire to realize their potential, assume responsibility for their efforts, and actively participate in problem solving and decision making
Organizational Structure and Climate
Organizational Structure and Climate
• Management education largely confined to the university classroom • Tendency toward hierarchical bureaucracy with specialized, highly structured academic departments • Centralized planning, performance measurement, bottom-line measures of efficiency predominate • Most communication in writing from the top down • White male traditional power relations and occupational sex segregation • Non-constructive criticism, alienation, and adversarial environments for stakeholders all too common
• Management education as a lifetime learning process taking place in a variety of stakeholder settings • Flat, collegial organization with strong stakeholder involvement in planning, decision making, implementation • Power and rewards equitably distributed to reflect diversity and power sharing • Sharing of information throughout organization and its networks • Nonsexist, nonracist relations • Emphasis on goal sharing, team learning, and research involving all stakeholders and cutting across disciplines
Reinventing the MBA the European Way
89
The challenge to the LA-MBA faculty is to create a motivating and empowering environment necessary to realize the participants' real potential. Faculty and other LA-MBA participants have opportunities to work closely with one another and learn a great deal in the process. Faculty-participant teams provide unusual opportunities for the mid-career participants as well as academic and corporate-based management faculty to learn the value of testing out and integrating both theory and practice. The LA-MBA model, then, is a broad collaborative effort between the university and allied organizations jointly establishing goals and objectives, pedagogy, program development, implem.entation, and review. Admission decisions are made together and can be based on all relevant information; history and longitudinal research both clearly show that traditional admissions criteria do not necessarily foreshadow management and leadership accomplishment. The Learning Alliance coordinating body includes faculty members, student participants, and corporate or university representatives. This group can assume substantial responsibility for the design and implementation of a wide variety of creative learning modules. These learning modules ideally draw upon the human and organizational resources of all of the Alliance members. Each module provides opportunities to explore and identify appropriate learning goals, strategies, settings, and modalities. Learning modules can rotate among the organizational facilities of the Alliance members to take advantage of the unique learning opportunities, resources, and centers of excellence. There is no better way to emphasize that learning is something not uniquely associated with a university or school, but rather a process that can and does take place in a variety of settings, is ongoing throughout one's life, and depends on the learner assuming a high level of responsibility and self-direction. Interdisciplinary or integrative learning modules such as those developed by IMD or Ashridge reframe the traditional MBA curriculum in a way that places high value on the integration of specialized business and organization topics and the complex issues that confront management and the global economy today. For example, accounting can be approached as an aspect of business information systems in general, its relationship to other types of information and control processes, and its influence on the organization, the individual, and society. Similarly, research and development, production, and marketing need not be viewed alone as discrete topics but as interrelated aspects of "total quality management" systems. In addition to interdisciplinary learning opportunities covering more traditional subjects in integrative modes, learning modules can be de90
veloped in such important but often overlooked or underemphasized areas as the management of technology, ethics in decision making, managing a multicultural workforce, transformational leadership, the global political economy, government and business relations, alternative methods of dispute resolution, and the development of learning organizations. As part of such learning modules, participants also have opportunities to identify and conduct special learning projects and action research on a collaborative basis. These projects can be built around a consulting opportunity and continue through one or more cycles. Learning can be relevant, alive, and exciting in a Learning Alliance environment. An alliance might include one or more international modules taught in appropriate overseas private or public sector organizations or schools of business. For example, the University of South Carolina master's program in international business includes language and area studies and a six-month internship abroad where students become fluent in a foreign language. But this example is rare in the American experience. Although we have international borders to the north and south where non-English languages are spoken, our curricula typically do not require foreign language fluency. As our border countries work with us in developing free trade agreements and increasing interdependence, bilingual managers with sensitivity to and ability to work with nonWestern and non-English cultures will become essential. Accreditation associations, which historically have tended to freeze narrowly defined academic programs, now have the opportunity to dramatically alter their mission to foster creative diversity, responsible experimentation, and change by brokering Learning Alliances and other innovations and disseminating information about successes and shortcomings. ur ability to compete abroad will reflect in some sense our ability to cooperate at home. As individuals, groups, organizations, communities, and nations, we need to do a better job of building strategic alliances with one another. Partnerships and joint ventures between arch corporate rivals are already common. Within the corporation, non-adversarial cooperative relationships with labor, suppliers, customers, and governments are now essential. In America-the land of the ragged individualist, where adversarial, highly competitive, win-lose relationships have long been dominant cultural realities--we will have to work extra hard to meet present and future challenges. America's schools of business, with rare exceptions, have done little to develop the transformational leaders able to engender trust, create shared visions, and build the strate-
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Business Horizons / May-June 1991
gic alliances essential to our nation's future. In a world of extraordinary change and shifting power alliances, Americans, like Europeans, must experiment with dramatic new ways of creating learning opportunities. Learning Alliances can b e c o m e laboratories of change at home and abroad. We believe they offer a promising alternative for the development of people able to deal with challenges both k n o w n and as yet unrealized. References
Robert W. Baston, The Company-BasedMBA (London: Harbridge Consulting Group Limited, 1989). Burton Bollag, "University-Industry Collaboration in Europe Called Mainly Positive and Likely to Expand," Chronicle of Higher Education, November 7, 1990, p. A37.
"International Institute for Management Development--MBA Program Description," Lausanne, Switzerland, 1990. "Is Research in the Ivory Tower 'Fuzzy, Irrelevant, Pretentious'?" Business Week, October 29, 1990, p. 62. Jeremy Main, "B-Schools Get a Global Vision," Fortune, July 17, 1989, p. 80. H. Muller, R. Rehder, and J. Porter, "Have Business Schools Let Down U.S. Corporations?" Management Review, October 1988, pp. 24-31. J. Porter, H. Muller, and R. Rehder, "The Making of Managers: An American Perspective," Journal of GeneralManagement, Summer 1989, pp. 62-76. L. Porter and L. McKibben, Management Education
and Development: Drift or Thrust into the 21st Century? (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1988).
Earl Cheit, "Business Schools and Their Critics," California Management Review, Spring 1985, pp. 43-61.
Donald A. Schon, Beyond the Stable State (New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 1971).
"The Condition of Professoriate Attitudes and Trends, 1989," commissioned by The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, referenced in The Chronicle of Higher Education, November 8, 1989, p. A18.
Robert J. Sternberg, The Triarchic Mind (New York: Viking, 1988).
Michael L. Dertouzos, Richard K. Lester, and Robert M. Solow, Made in America: Regaining the Productive Edge (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1989). Jean Evangelauf, "American Business Schools Seek to Internationalize Curricula to Meet Demands of the Global Economy," Chronicle of Higher Education, July 5, 1989, p. All. T. Harrel and B. Hanson, "Predictors of Business Success Over Two Decades: An MBA Longitudinal Study," Stanford University Graduate School of Business Research Monograph #788, January 1985.
Reinventing the MBA the European Way
Alvin Toffler, Power Shift (New York: Bantam Books, 1990). Ross Webber, "Building a Better Business School," Best of Business Quarterly, Fall 1990, p. 66.
Helen J. Muller and James L. Porter are associate professors of management and Robert R. Rehder is a professor of management, all at the University of
New Mexico, Albuquerque.
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