The New World of Management Education

In an era when there is increasing pressure for universities to become more entrepreneurial and generate revenue to fill the gap left by ever-declining public funding, it is often the university business schools that have led the way through the provision of full-fee paying post-graduate management education courses. Invariably, the flagship program is the Master of Business Administration (MBA) degree, enrolments in these courses experiencing huge growth during the 1990s, creating something of a ‘cash cow’ for universities. In the 2000s, however, there are signs that the MBA market has matured, and enrolments have fallen from the dizzy heights of the late 1990s. As a result, there has been some rationalisation of the ‘business school industry’ leading to mergers and staffing restructures for some, but expansion for others as they have tapped into the lucrative executive education market. The defining characteristics of these courses are that they are custom-built, typically short and intensive, and flexibly delivered. Significantly, companies are becoming more discerning and demanding learning outcomes that are consistent with their corporate objectives rather than those defined by business school academics. In this new world of executive education, a new paradigm for management education is required