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

The Future of Management Education-Vision 2020

Richard Remedios
richie_remedios@yahoo.com
S.V.E.T Commerce & Management College, Jamnagar

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

Keywords: People, Challenge, Management Education, Business School

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

2. Methodology
This research is mostly done on existing literature of management education. The firs two sections of the
research have been done on reviewing the literature of the issues raised in the study. So, a good number of
published papers on the issues has been reviewed and examined to get clear idea on major aspects of the
research. This exercise gives a clear understanding of the changing scenario of managing business today and the
management skills required to face the challenges of management. Then, the research has got today’s situation
of management education to meet the needs. This critical review of management education has been used to get
the roles played by leading business schools of USA and of Asia Pacific. In selecting the leading business
school, the research used the ranking given by different organizations. So, the required information according to
the research question have been collected from web sites of ten top ranking business schools of each of the two
regions; the USA and Asia Pacific (Table 1). The thoughts on management education according to literature
review have been used to analyze the information from MBA brochures of top ten business schools of two
regions studied in the research.
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Table 1: List of Top Ten Business School in the USA and in Asia Pacific
Sr. No U.S. Top Ten Management Institutes Asia Pacific Top Ten Management Institutes
1. Harvard Business School Melbourne Business School
2. Stanford Graduate School of Business Indian Institute Of Management, Ahmedabad
3. University of Pennsylvania(Wharton) Asian Institute Of Management(Philippines)
4. Massachussets Institute Of Technology Asian Institute Of Technology, Thailand
5. University of Chicago National University of Singapore Business School
6. Tuck School of Business, Dartmouth Chinese University of Hong Kong
7. University of California Korean Advanced Institute of Science &
Technology
8. Columbia Business School, Columbia Graduate School of Management, Uni. Of Japan
University
9. Europe International Business School Chinese International Business School
10. University of Michigan-Ann Arbor(Ross) Nanyang Business School, Singapore
Source: All India Management Association, 2010

3. The Paradigm Shift of Management

In today’s rapidly changing business environment, capable managers are crucial to organizations’ success in
gaining and sustaining competitive advantage. This must be achieved against a background of intensified
competition, incessant change, a power shift to the customer, collaborations across organizational and
geographical boundaries, and a need to maintain high levels of talent (Tannenbaum, 2002). Business programs
across the nation recognize the need to change in response to external pressure from key stakeholders. An
important dimension of such change is the redesign of business 651 Mohammed Abdullah Mamun and Ariffin
Bin Mohamad curricula. Achieving greater integration across curriculum is often a central focus of such efforts
(McCuddy & Pirie 1988). Business organizations continue to transform themselves in response to the challenges
posted by increased competition, the globalization of business, and rapid change in information technology
(Hammer & Champy 1993). Pfeffer (1994) argued that because of the accelerating rate of change, the workforce
in terms of human and social capital should be seen as one of the critical factors in developing and maintaining
competitive advantage, joining traditional factors such as technology and protected market. He also claims that
an appropriate development of the workforce is closely related to appropriate management. Related to this
perspective and from a knowledge based view of the firm, Leonard-Barton (1995) saw core capability as
comprising managerial activities and systems or what she describes as “the whole system of knowledge
management” bound up with a particular competitive advantage. Conger, Spreitzer, and Lawler (1999) argue
that intense and global competition, rapid technological change, new complex organizational forms,
organizational alliances, and international capital markets are creating an increased demand for change
leadership at a time when such leadership is increasingly difficult to find. Quinn and Snyder (1999) suggests
that before expecting others to change, a leader must understand strategies such as those based on confrontation,
facilitation, persuasive discourse, and the management of meaning to ensure that their actions are consistent
with their vision of the future. These scholars and others are suggesting that individual employees, not just top
management, must become leaders who can work with the technological revolution and globalization of
business and can continually acquire new knowledge and remain flexible (McDonald 2000). Therefore the
business schools, responsible to educate future leaders of business organizations, need to understand the
challenges faced by the organizations. This is how; they can try to bring necessary changes in their curriculum
according to the needs of the changing situation of the environment.
Which challenges are important to consider is more important to them? The following section of the paper
describes the nature of the organizational challenges today. It can be termed as ‘paradigm shift’ of managing
today’s businesses. The management of business organizations has changed in significant ways since early
1990s (Drucker 1995; Naisbitt 1997; Ohame 1995; Rohwer 1996). The sources of these changes include the
following:
 Growth and integration of a global, increasingly free market economy has raised standard of
competition in all sectors providing goods and services.
 Greater openness of political systems among nation states allows grater aces to global information and
exchange of cross broader business.
 Developments in information technologies have fundamentally changed the way in which business is
conducted, allowing for less expensive communication, easier sharing of information, and greater
efficiencies in production and management of goods and services.

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Reviewing the literature it is revealed that today’s business management faces tremendous pressures from
globalize economy. Against this backdrop of the study the driven forces of globalization can be analyzed to
understand the nature of implications. Globalization is being driven on the one hand by the spread of economic
logics centered on freeing, opening, deregulating, and privatizing economies to make them more attractive to
investment, and, on the other hand, by the digitization of technologies that is revolutionizing communication
(Barkema et. al. 2002). So, opening market increases scope of investment to anywhere in today’s world, and
movement of technology, money and people in some place increase to avail of the opportunity of deregulation.
At the same time it poses challenges to existing players of economy and to new entrants as well. Globalization is
speeding up industry life cycles by accelerating the pace and the rhythm at which firms must develop new
technologies and produce and roll out new products and services on a global scale to stay competitive. So, the
new management challenge gets in with managing team of experts from different culture as dispersed
worldwide using digitally adopted organizational structure (Barkema et.al. 2002). To use the words of Bettis and
Hiltt (1995), new competitive landscapes are emerging, marked by increased levels of uncertainty and
ambiguity, leading to what is now known as hyper competition (D’Aveni 1994).
Management educators may be interested in accompanying these challenges to help managers in shaping
organizations in such a way as make them willing and able to respond to complex organizational challenges. In
brief, it may be advantageous to expose business students and managers to complication (Cunha et. al. 2004).
The other challenges of managing businesses are created from the need to speedy decision making in resources
deployed, managing diversity, searching right direction of knowledge management for the people, timeliness of
the process and innovative approaches, synchronization need of process and activities, industry life cycle effects
on the firms operations, and finally social responsibility of present generation for future generations (Barkema
et. al. 2002).More specifically, global change forces have brought fundamental changes to the way in which
business organizations are managed.
For example, we find the following management trends:
 Organizations are more restructured in response to more open competition
 There is an increased emphasis on entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial management as engines of
global economic growth (Drucker 1995).
 The recognition that ethical crises and environmental problems located in a single nation or
organization are magnified in a global society has led to a greater emphasis on moral leadership and
corporate social responsibility among business leaders (Csikszentmihalyi 2004).
 The ability to manage and use information for decision making is now a core competency required of
managers throughout business organizations (Drucker 1995).
 There is increased emphasis on linking corporate goals with human resource practices, especially
through the use of performance management and measurement (Norton an Kaplan 1996).
 Knowledge is viewed as a key currency of organizations that requires conscious, proactive
management (Buckman 2004; Stewart 1997, 2001).
 Capacities for innovation and change are viewed as competencies that distinguish organizations that
thrive vs. others that flounder in a rapidly changing, turbulent environment (Drucker 1995; Kotter
2002; Rohwer 1996).

These changes have required a cadre of business leaders who possess a broader set of both leadership and
management capacities (Hallinger and Snidvongs 2008). More recently, attention from both academics and
practicing managers has focused on the formulation and implementation of strategic initiatives within the realm
of human resource management (Beer et. al. 1984; Szilagyi and Schweiger 1984; Foulkes 1986).
Organizational survival, development and prosperity reflect the extent to which an organization is able to
obtain, allocate and control its resources to take advantage of changes in its environment perceived as
opportunities: and avoid or overcome the threat posed by changes perceived as constraints (Buckley and Kemp
1987). Managerial competency is vital in such responsibility of the organizations. The more dynamic the
environment, the more strategically important management development is to the organization (Buckley and
Kemp 1987). There is a growing awareness that survival and future success reflect to a considerable extent the
ability of an organization to develop its management resource in appropriate and anticipated ways (Hendry and
Pettigrew 1986). In response, educational institutions have made significant adaptations in the curriculum
designed for business leaders. The next section of the research describes the dynamics of business school to get
a picture of redesigning or reshaping of management education addressing the contemporary challenges of
managing business organization.

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4. Reshaping the Management Education

Corporate leaders have been placing demands to the business school to redesign the programs while they need
management skills to face the challenges described in the previous section of the research. This reshaping of
management education goes to the context. So, a critical review of management education has been given first.
Then the evolution of management education has been described to know the changes happened with the
contemporary challenges. Finally, the restructured MBA program has been examined to evaluate the roles of
business school. Business schools have come under attack in recent years for the poor job they do of providing
relevant training and skills for their students (e.g., Hambrick 1994; Jorgensen 1992; Linder and Smith 1992;
Porter and McKibbon 1988; spender 1995). There is growing corporate demand for pedagogical techniques that
focus on their immediate problems rather than on lofty theories or even case studies (Raelin 2000). Business
speakers at a recent international Association for Management Education (AACSB) symposium on continuous
learning continued to make this plea as they challenged business schools to “be more proactive and partner with
business leaders in their communities…and to make their curricula more relevant” (AACSB 1999).Teaching
about uncertainty and increasing environmental turbulence is not new – these concepts have been discussed
since the late 1960s (Lawrence and Lorsch 1967). Most teaching model and materials are geared toward
enhancing the ability of large organizations to adapt to change. Those that are more person-centered treat change
as necessary evil and present topics such as resistance or coping with change (McDonald and Mansour 2000).
Teachers and learners are facing increased uncertainty, paradox, pervasive rapid change, and dramatic
challenges to the status quo and traditional mindset. In response, the individual’s ability to adapt to change and
embrace ambiguity should be more central in the curriculum (Bickford and Van Vleck 1997).Even the actors in
business school mostly tried to accommodate the change issue into their curriculum, there were resistances
everywhere. But three had been pressure from different stakeholders to bring necessary changes into the
programs of management education. Change is driven by many other factors as well, including the increasing
importance of international rankings, public pressure on teaching performance and the more focused agendas of
governmental funding agencies (Huff and Huff 2001). Primarily as a result of the changes in the way business
organizations function, colleges of business are subject to pressures form a number of stakeholder groups,
including employers, advisory boards, accrediting bodies, alumni, legislators, and students (Forman 1998). As
institutions of higher education are perceived to exist for the public good, they are increasingly held accountable
for the quality of outputs produced (Kearns 1998). The previous section of literature suggested that the business
curriculum has to be changed remarkably to address the issues raised as challenges before the organizational
management today. The business organizations those have been increasingly trying to cope with the changing
demands of the environment looking for managerial expertise with required skills. So, an emphasis on skill
development has transformed the curriculum debate. The discussion has moved away from determining the
appropriate balance of content, which is a discussion rooted in traditional functional areas, to a determination of
effective methods for developing softer skills, self directed learning, an a holistic understanding of the internal
and external environment of organizations(Hamilton, Diane et. al. 2000). Traditional functional curricular
approaches often do not address these issues (McCuddy and Pirie 1998). Hence business curricula are gradually
shifting from functionally fragmented to convergent and coherent, with a focus on developing specific
competencies (Hyslop and Parsons 1995). The redesigned curricula must cut across traditional boundaries to
develop and reinforce the Management Education for Contemporary Challenges: The Role of Business School
654 appropriate bundles of technical knowledge as well as social and organizational skills (Hamilton, Diane et.
al. 2000). In the 1950s, business schools in the United States were criticized for being overly narrow and
vocational in their orientation (Gordon and Howell 1959; Pierson 1959). To remedy this, they were encouraged
to, and did, hire faculty from a variety of acidic disciplines relevant to organizations and management so as to
enhance their scholarly legitimacy. Now, however, the faculty who were hired to achieve academic
respectability for business schools are being criticized by the corporate community for their lack of experience
in business firms, for the perceived irrelevance of their research, and for their unwillingness to provide the kinds
of training in practical professional skills the corporate world feels in need (e.g., Behrman and Levin 1984;
Hambrick 1994; Porter and McKibbon 1988; Raelin 2000).

5. The Leading Business School

In the context of today’s changing need of management education, and the way an MBA program has to be
designed, as these issues discussed in the research, the leading business school’s performance standard has been
examined. The following section of the research gives a contrasting picture of leading business schools of the
US and of Asia Pacific. The evolution in management education and the subsequent changes in MBA program
suggest a framework to understand the performance standard of leading business in the USA and in Asia-Pacific

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region. The basic criteria used in such framework are; a) vision to create talented leaders of the corporation, b)
curriculum fitting to understand the environmental dynamics, and c) quality management of the program.
The vision statements of leading business schools today give clear message to the corporations that all of the
leading business schools have got useful vision or purpose satisfying the needs of today’s challenges of business
management. It is found that such a vision statement can be perceived as proper role played by a business school
to produce talented leaders with necessary skills to fulfill the need s of today’s contemporary challenges in
business management. At least the remark column of the table corresponding to the vision statement of each
business school reveals that the schools are playing the role effectively in this concern. The vision statements of
Asia Pacific business school can be examined to find the contrast.

Table 3: Vision Statement of Leading Asia Pacific Business School

Sr. Asia Pacific Top Ten Business Vision Statements of Top Ten Business Schools in Asia
No School Names Pacific
To equip professionals with fundamental business knowledge
1. Melbourne Business School and analytical skills required for management roles Build
professionalism
The program nurtures world-class managers by exposing them to
Indian Institute Of Management,
2. real life unstructured situations along with analytical tools and
Ahmedabad
business philosophies.
To provide rigorous training, conceptual foundations, up-to-date
Asian Institute Of Management,
3. knowledge, analytical tools and people management and
Phillipines
leadership skills.
To develop skills and attitudes of listening and understanding
Asian Institute Of Technology, others, holistic thinking, collective decision making, leading by
4.
Thailand example, communicating, negotiating, being sensitive to societal
concerns etc
Vision for the NUS MBA Program is for it to become a top
National University of Singapore
5. provider of effective and responsible business leaders. Produce
Business School
talented leaders
6. Chinese University of Hong Kong To equip business leaders with sound business acumen
KAIST is the best model that leads a globalize with the
Korean Advanced Institute of Science accumulated capability in education and research, and the
7.
& Technology graduate school-oriented educational system, Focus on system
development
Graduate School of Management,
8. To Prepare and train the talent to face the future proactively
Uni. Of Japan
To prepare talented young people with career aspiration,
9. Chinese International Business School managerial potential, and international orientation for a career of
global business leaders in the future organizations.
To take advantage of this rare opportunity to build regional
10. Nanyang Business School, Singapore
business networks. Unique features for confidence
Source: MBA Brochure shown on the web site of the school

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

Table 4: Summary of Curriculum Integration & Program Management

Sr.
Aspects of U.S. Business School Aspects of Asia Pacific Business School
No
1. Aim at developing student’s necessary capacities Combination of core and specialized requirements
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2. Diverse range of electives are offered Lead to develop required skill level
Covers all the areas required to address the changes in
3. Core courses for foundation
business management
4. Participant has found flexibility Skill level help to achieve professional development
Scope of getting knowledge of interdependencies and
5. Scope of getting competitive advantage
interrelationships
6. Curriculum Integration Courses required to improve management skills
7. Interdisciplinary approach Exposed to diverse environment
8. Capstone Experience The Case Method
9. Seminar & Workshop Internship Program
10. Exposed to realities through Experience Elite Mentoring Program
Source: MBA Brochure Downloaded from the Website of the School

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

6. Challenges for Management Education Worldwide

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

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

6.2. Balancing Global Aspirations and Local Needs

A recurring theme throughout this report has been tensions between global aspirations of countries, schools,
faculties, and students — and pressing local needs. These tensions are revealed on many dimensions: curricula,
strategy, and collaboration, for example. Further economic integration calls for strengthening our curricula
emphasis on global perspectives, but we cannot ignore unique histories, politics, and cultures. At the same time,
as many schools seek global recognition for world-class quality, and accreditation focuses on the best schools in
the world, we cannot forget that wider access to quality management education can contribute to economic and
social progress in countries or regions with fundamentally different goals. While supporting national initiatives
to fortify international competitiveness, we must also capitalize on the advantages offered by multilateral
alliances and increasing student and faculty mobility. Although these tensions are quite natural and are to be
expected in dynamic and competitive environments, we should also be mindful that management education can
enable both global and local success. The powerful forces of globalization, advances in information and
communication technology, and further liberalization of services trade will not only demand more from
management education, but also enable us to achieve local and regional goals and objectives. For example,
international alliances and exchanges of faculties and students create opportunities to build banks of localized
case studies, which can be shared worldwide through electronic channels. Expanding global footprints of
individual schools give rise not only to globally savvy graduates, but also represent an investment in local
economies. The real and more important question is, “How will we capitalize on these opportunities to balance
our global aspirations against the needs of our regions, nations, and local communities?” The GFME(Global
Forum For Management Education) is particularly concerned about efforts within some countries to develop
international graduate management schools that, by design, are highly selective and expensive to support.
Achieving, and consistently improving upon, the highest level of quality is certainly important. Doing so can
assist countries to attract knowledge enterprises, serve as a foundation for broader management education
objectives, and attract talented faculty and students. However, the GFME believes that these efforts should be
complemented by broader strategies to expand access to management education, including undergraduate
education, while ensuring sufficient levels of quality across education providers with diverse missions and
stakeholder groups. Not every school in every country need hire from the dwindling supply of doctoral faculty
or attain the highest level of accreditation when, clearly, the most pressing regional concerns are low overall
educational attainment and extreme poverty, for example. At the same time, well-intentioned investments in
world-class business schools should not come at the expense of investments in other quality management
education programs that are accessible to a broader portion of the population. Rather, they should be viewed
together as complementary investments in the future of business and society.

6.3. Quality Assurance

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

6.4. Sustaining Scholarship

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

6.5. Aligning with the Future Needs of Organizations

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

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

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