UK schools can give global benefits
THE PRESSURES of globalisation have inspired many senior managers either to leave Britain for their executive MBA (EMBA) or to join one of a growing number of joint programmes between British and foreign business schools.
One such course is the Trium, a partnership between the LSE, New York University: Stern and the HEC School of Management in Paris. It offers a “unique, international curriculum”, which challenges “entrepreneurial-minded, senior-level executives to think and act within a socioeconomic and geopolitical context.”
Some, of course, need to study outside the UK because they work abroad and the EMBA allows students to work full-time alongside their studies. They must be close to their workplace, or at least within an easy commute if EMBA classes take place at the weekend.
Still, the hyperbole around foreign study demands closer attention. Is this really a unique experience for executives, or can potential candidates get similar advantages by remaining in Britain?
One benefit of studying abroad is national and cultural diversity within the student cohort. Executives want and need to make a wide range of new contacts to help them in their career progression. Global networking opportunities will assist managers in multinational corporations or those who want to expand their businesses into foreign markets.
But domestic British business schools are hardly monocultural. The current Said Business School EMBA cohort is only 20 per cent British and includes many students from developing economies in Africa and Asia. The Imperial College EMBA is less mixed but manages to get along with 34 per cent of foreign students.
Ebrahim Mohamed, director of the MBA programmes at Imperial, says that the school’s “diverse mix of nationalities” provides a “stimulating mix of views and potential for learning.” Global networking opportunities can clearly be found in Britain. The fact that so many foreign executives come to the UK for study suggests that Britain itself is at the forefront of globalised contact-making.
Another benefit of studying abroad is the chance to gain foreign business experience on the ground. The London Business School (LBS) EMBA in Dubai claims that it offers “unrivalled access to the world’s most influential markets”, and its students can “gain the global business skills and insights to operate successfully anywhere in the world”.
But candidates should separate the general from the specific. The LBS course in Dubai may be excellent in itself, but this international dimension is not necessarily a reason to choose it over a similar EMBA in Britain.
Many UK-based programmes allow students to travel abroad for electives in these same influential markets. The Imperial EMBA, for example, includes an international study tour. In 2011 it took students to China and Brazil to explore emerging economies through site visits and talks from top local executives. Business schools do not necessarily need a campus outside Britain to offer international study opportunities to their students.
EMBA students should instead consider diversity and global business experience in their broadest sense. Steve Cousins, MBA recruitment and admissions manager at the Cass Business School, says it is “very easy to get fixated on nationality or location”. The wider purpose of diversity is to encourage students to challenge their preconceived ideas about business conduct, and to assist them in carrying these ideas through flexibly in any context.
If prospective students want to gain the greatest value from their studies, they ought to seek out EMBA programmes that attract students of different ages, of different levels of experience and from different economic sectors. As Cousins says, “An engineer tends to think like another engineer, regardless of where they are from or where they are.”