2016 Financial Times
EMBA Rankings
The 16th
edition of the Financial Times Executive MBA rankings was released last month. The
Financial Times states:
“[The ranking] rates the best 100
programmes worldwide for working senior executives. It is based on a survey of
business schools and another of their alumni who graduated in 2013. The data
measure how successful alumni have been in their career in terms of salary,
seniority and achievements since graduating.”
(1)
What
we have found is that this survey is fundamentally flawed as the information
that is gathered to facilitate the ranking is highly biased. The overproportion
of men doing these courses skews the figures on salary attained, post seniority
and achievements.
One
therefore has to wonder whether the methodology and heavy weighting of salary that
the FT uses is fair in determining which school has the best EMBA programme. This
is also raises the question – what is the best way for women to choose a course?
Women and the EMBA
Much
has been written about the participation of women in EMBA programmes. Women comprised a mere 36% of EMBA applicants
in 2013 (2
). Research from the University of
Cambridge’s Judge Business School sheds some light on why women are more
hesitant to apply for EMBA programs than men. They found that there are
many barriers to female students applying for these degrees which range from financial
concerns and stage of life commitments to the admissions test itself
(
2). The EMBA is generally taken at a later
stage in life due to the necessity of prior work experience for this executive
course. The average age for men starting an EMBA is 38, and for women 36 (3). This is often an age when many women
are starting or rearing families, as well as maintaining a career, which can
make finding time to study and spending periods away from home problematic.
This Year’s Top MBA Programme
Of the top
10 schools ranked here, only Washington University’s Olin has an EMBA programme
with a female student cohort of over 30%, and only three schools have a female faculty of
30% or above
─ IE Business School, Nanyang Business School and Shanghai
Jiao Tong University’s Antai. Additionally, all the schools on the list have boards
that are at least 95% male.
In
this year’s top 100 ranked schools, only 12 of the schools have a female body
of more than 40%, whereas a staggering 60 have less than 30%.
|
Female students |
|
|
Above 40% |
12 |
|
30 ─ 40% |
28 |
|
Below 30% |
60 |
Kellogg
School of Management and the Hong University of Science and Technology’s joint
programme takes the top spot in the 2016 ranking.
“The programme is aimed at very
senior executives. It is ranked fourth for work experience and its alumni have
the highest salary on average three years after graduation at nearly $470,000,
a 55 per cent increase compared with their pre-EMBA salaries.”
(1)
A large
proportion of this programme’s ranking score is based on salary today and the salary
increases of the alumni of the 2013 class. In fact, 22% of the overall scoring
is given to these two factors. We also see that 80% of their current admissions
are male.
The Kellogg-HKUST
EMBA programme is an 18 month course, so students that graduated in 2013 started
in 2011, and that class reported 83% male enrollment. We cannot help but speculate
as to whether if there is an underlying relationship between the proportion of
males on this course (and other male dominated courses) and the high absolute
salary reported this year for its alumni.
In
conclusion, the overall scenario for EMBA programmes seems neither balanced nor
gender equal. Men overwhelmingly make up
the majority of the student cohort and there are few female professors or women
on business school boards. Students taking this course are in the middle of
their career cycle, often at a time when organisations are looking for the
latest leadership talent. But are the men and women on these courses
experiencing a diverse range of leadership potential? And are the companies who
send their executives on these courses giving their employees the best
experience of a gendered and diverse workplace? We think not.
References
(1) Financial Times, taken from https://www.ft.com/content/134cfbac-817f-11e6-8e50... on 07/11/2016
(2) Poets & Quants, taken from http://poetsandquantsforexecs.com/2014/07/23/the-e... on 07/11/2016
(3) Financial Times, taken from Infographic https://next-geebee.ft.com/image/v1/images/raw/htt... on 07/11/2016