Learning strategic thinking through MBA
- 관리자
- Hit1282
- 2015-01-19
KOREA TIMES 2014-02-16
By Paik Tae-young
Korean MBA programs have been evolving, directed by academia and also influenced by government regulations and initiatives. There have been several stages in the evolution of Korean MBA programs up to now.
The first stage was a period with only two kinds of business master’s programs — evening part-time MBAs and full-time Master of Science degrees in business administration. Even though a Master of Science (MS) earned in a business program is called an MBA in English, they differed from Western-style MBA programs in that they required dissertations and recruited mostly students without work experience, belonging to general graduate schools.
Even evening part-time MBA programs belonging to specialized graduate schools asked and later allowed students to write dissertations, but their orientation was practical re-training of middle managers and not as academic as MS programs. Total credits required for part-time MBA degrees in two-and-a-half years were 24 with a dissertation and 30 without one.
The second stage of evolution started with the introduction of professional graduate schools of business by the Ministry of Education (MOE) at the end of the 1990s. For some reason only Sungkyunkwan University was at first approved to run a professional graduate school of business. As a condition for approval, the MOE asked approved universities to give up either specialized graduate schools or general graduate schools of business. It seemed that this condition prohibited others from starting professional graduate schools of business for a long time.
The third stage was again initiated by the MOE with the Brain Korea (BK) Phase II Projects starting in 2007. With the intention to allow professional graduate schools in law, medicine, and business, the MOE decided to provide the BK grants only to professional graduate schools in these three areas.
The MOE removed the requirement of giving up other graduate programs for professional business schools and set the standard for the MBA degree requirement to be a minimum 45 credits for both full- and part-time programs of professional graduate schools of business. Most major universities applied for professional graduate schools of business and got approval from 2006 and soon thereafter.
Only four business schools — Korea, Seoul National, Sungkyunkwan, and Yonsei — later joined by Sogang University had received the BK MBA grants for seven years from 2007 to 2013. Those MBA programs supported by BK grants were asked to make annual reports and they were disclosed publicly and evaluated by the Korea Research Foundation, an agency of the MOE.
The continuous process of competition for grants, information sharing and relative evaluation helped MBA programs to evolve to higher levels. The MOE was also very active in monitoring all the MBA programs of professional graduate schools of business, collecting their statistics, and promoting them by passing out related press releases quite often.
Now in the fourth stage with no more government support and interest but regulation, most of the full-time MBA programs are in trouble with a larger supply (admission slots) than demand (applicants). This is partly because tuition has been raised as high as some European schools and there is still an insufficient middle managers job market.
The overall full-time MBA program size in Korea has been reduced gradually and will continue to be reduced. Some programs will stop running, not meeting the break-even point of student size.
Which full-time programs will survive and prosper? I conjecture that a truly global program like the Tri-Continent MBA at Sungkyunkwan University is an answer.
In that program, students from all over the world are recruited by several partner schools, educated in the three different continents of America, Asia and Europe by the faculty of the partner schools with tons of team projects for cross-culture teams. Thus, they encourage and develop multicultural and global mindset and human networks. The class of the 2014 of the program has 11 nationalities.
Columbia, London and the University of Hong Kong Business Schools are running the Executive MBA-Global Asia program together from 2008. It is a part-time joint MBA degree program having four- or five-day class weeks once a month for 20 months in Hong Kong, Shanghai, London, and New York. The 35 students in the class of 2015 represent 19 countries.
One MBA, a similar joint Global Executive MBA program, has been operated by five American, Asian and European universities: the Chinese University of Hong Kong Business School, Rotterdam School of Management at Erasmus University, Tecnologico de Monterrey Graduate School of Business Administration and Leadership, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s Kenan-Flagler Business School, and Escola de Administracao de Empresas de Sao Paulo da Fundacao Getulio Vargas.
These two joint Global Executive MBA programs provide intensive classes for several days once a month for part-time students, while the Tri-Continent MBA of Sungkyunkwan University with Gustavson Business School at the University of Victoria in Canada and Neoma Business School in France has the full-time joint coursework for about eight months, providing in-depth cultural experiences in different countries.
Joint part-time Global MBA programs result in high travel expenses and opportunity costs of time for frequent international travels, making it affordable only to those executives supported by their firms. That might be why the Chinese University of Hong Kong is pulling out of the partnership of One MBA from 2014. Joint full-time Global MBA programs have less financial burden to students.
Full-fledged globalization of MBA programs is the best way to improve the competitiveness of Korean MBA programs to a world class level in the future, as perceived by academia and regulators. A joint global program can be a better alternative to simple student exchanges, creating tighter and deeper cultural and interpersonal experience and networks.
Full-fledged globalization of MBA programs is the best way to improve the competitiveness of Korean MBA programs to a world class level in the future, as perceived by academia and regulators.
Paik Tae-young is a director of the Tri-Continent MBA program at Sungkyunkwan University.
http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/2014/02/332_151673.html