MBA glut forces school to university

THE Australian Graduate School of Management, one of the countrys few globally ranked business schools, will cease to be a stand-alone institution as it battles an oversupplied market for business education.

AGSM, owned by the University of NSW, would become part of the UNSWs faculty of commerce and economics to give business education a new scale and specialisation, vice-chancellor Fred Hilmer said yesterday.

Were going to be able to extend the AGSM brand with faculty depth that an AGSM standing on its own would not have, Mr Hilmer, an ex-dean of the business school, told The Australian.

The decision followed last years exit from an AGSM joint venture by the Sydney University, amid reports of fierce competition in an oversupplied market for MBAs and a history of poor finances at AGSM.

John Seybolt, dean of the Melbourne Business School, chief rival to AGSM, said the Hilmer strategy could be a viable one for them but the No1 issue was whether the merger would weaken the AGSM brand. He said the merger would be seen as defensive simply because it followed the bad news of Sydney Universitys exodus and AGSMs history of financial losses.

More: theaustralian.news.com.au

MBA hiring, pay soaring

For the second year in a row, recruiters are flocking to B-schools. In fact, 98% of 60 schools polled in a recent survey say theyre seeing a big increase in job offers to MBA students, and 70% report a jump in starting salaries and signing bonuses.

Much of the demand is coming from those traditional stalwarts of MBA hiring - consulting, financial services, and consumer goods companies.

But recruiters arent hiring indiscriminately, says Greg Ruf, CEO of MBA Focus , which maintains a database on more than 20,000 MBAs that it uses to help about 1,800 U.S. employers find job candidates from around the world.

Indeed, 42% of U.S. schools report that theyre playing host to more and more recruiters who are there to find students from other countries, and to woo them for overseas jobs either in their own home countries or elsewhere, according to the MBA Career Services Council, a trade group for B-school career counselors and corporate recruiters, which conducted the survey.

More: money.cnn.com

University of Phoenix to Offer Next-Generation MBA

As the Midwest emerges from the dark, cold days of winter, now is the time of year when many employees are looking to switch jobs. In fact, according to a nationwide online survey of working adults by University of Phoenix, more than two-thirds (67 percent) are looking for a job on some level. As the number of people searching for jobs grows, employers are increasingly looking for candidates with advanced degrees.

In response to feedback from some of Americas top corporations, University of Phoenix is launching a new MBA program throughout the Midwest, which applies proven teaching and learning methodologies to help working professionals solve real-world business problems.

Next-Generation MBA focuses on significant management, growth opportunity and leadership challenges based on business scenarios validated by Fortune 1000 companies. Several simulations are woven into the curriculum to support the learning necessary to solve the problems embedded in the scenarios. They allow students to make real-time decisions, just as they would in the workplace.

More: marketwire.com

Benedictine College Offers Comprehensive Executive Education Course

Benedictine College is now offering an intensive business leadership development course entitled Planning with Vision; Executing with Precision. The 4-day seminar, with dates available in May, July, and August, is geared to benefit senior level managers with experience in one or two functional areas, middle level managers with high potential, and small business owners. The course includes subjects such as finance, marketing and production management and it will be led by Dr. Joseph L. Brickner, a member of the Executive MBA faculty at Benedictine College and former Assistant Treasurer at Southwestern Bell Telephone Company (now known as AT&T).

The course is designed to allow participants to discover how disparate business functions must work together. Brickner uses a computer business simulation program (Capstone Business Strategy Simulation) that bridges the gap between theoretical class work and the real world. The simulation allows his students to run a business using the tools required in the real world while not encountering the risks.

The Capstone Business Simulation makes learning fun while the student gets to test management theories in a surprisingly real life simulation, said Jeff Caudle, Vice President of Bank of Atchison and a former student. Seeing how the cumulative effects of multiple decisions result in positive, or negative, bottom line outcomes is invaluable.

More: benedictine.edu

IIM-B submits Singapore proposal

A 4,700 sq ft of space on Singapores Mei Chin Road, classes held only in the evenings between 7 and 10 pm and just one faculty at any given time on campus.

Thats pretty much what Brand IIMs maiden global venture — IIM-Bs Singapore campus — proposes to have. While legal hurdles are being cleared for the overseas campus, IIM-B has submitted a detailed proposal to the HRD ministry on the Singapore initiative.

To begin with IIMB-S, as it will be called, will offer two programmes — a two-year part-time MBA and executive education for senior and middle-level executives. The part-time MBA will involve 12 to 15 modules, with classes held during evenings between 7 pm and 10 pm.

More: timesofindia.indiatimes.com

Hong Kong team wins WFU elevator competition

Students from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology took top honors in Wake Forest University’s annual MBA Elevator Competition for their plan for a device that distinguishes between acute bacterial or viral infections.

The Hong Kong team is the first international competitor to enter the seven-year-old event, during which budding entrepreneurs pitch their business ideas to judges in a two-minute elevator ride meant to simulate the need to be clear and concise when dealing with investors.

A team from Wake Forest University also made the finals with its pitch for AudioFusion, which has a technology to retrain the brain to tune out tinnitus through a combination of sound therapy and directive counseling. Other finalists were from Harvard University and the University of Georgia.

More: bizjournals.com

B-schools just teach ‘theory’

In today’s rapidly changing global economy, upper management in most companies are becoming increasingly dependent on junior managers to take “complete ownership” in their areas of activity.

In fact, asking them to function more or less as entrepreneurs themselves! That can be exciting. But are most of our MBA graduates ready?

A tremendous amount of learning happens both inside and outside the classroom. While the breadth of material covered does not leave room for as much depth, the degree definitely leaves the graduating student confident of the theoretical exposure that he has acquired, coupled with the urge to try it out in practice.

But B-schools seldom provide the intermediary layer between theory and practice, especially in the context of running a business unit as a whole - as an entrepreneur.

I felt this strongly when I faced the first major crisis in my company and the core team of MBA’s that we had were unable to step up.

More: inhome.rediff.com

Study: Avg. investor doesn’t realize importance of fund fees

A study that examines the demand for high-fee mutual funds found that many investors don’t realize that fund fees are important for making investment decisions, and often buy high-cost funds even though they sense they may be making a mistake, the Yale School of Management said in a release Tuesday. The study, “Why Does the Law of One Price Fail? An Experiment on Index Mutual Funds,” was conducted by James Choi of the Yale School of Management, David Laibson of Harvard University and Brigitte Madrian of Wharton using MBA and undergraduate students from Ivy League universities as subjects. The students, who had trouble navigating fees, were found to have a higher degree of financial literacy than the typical American investor.

Soure: marketwatch.com

Domestic Business Schools Facing Development Bottleneck

Forbes China has published a listing of the best MBA programs in China according to those that help graduates’ incomes rise the fastest. But meanwhile an insider says domestic business schools are faced with growth bottlenecks after one and a half decades of development. Our Shanghai correspondent Xiaoyu has the details.

The survey involves MBA graduates from 50 domestic business schools in 2002 and lists the 10 best full-time and 25 best part-time MBA programs. The Shanghai-based China Europe International Business School and Peking University’s International MBA program rank first respectively on the 2 lists.

How long does it take for students to see a direct return on their investment? – Apparently it takes an average of about 2 years and 8 months for graduates from the best full-time programs and 1 year 7 months for those from part-time ones.

More: en.chinabroadcast.cn