Alfa Schools

When it comes to how business schools address globalization and how this translates into global MBA programs, nine American schools (Harvard, Wharton, MIT Sloan, Columbia, Stanford, Chicago, Kellogg, NYU Stern and UC Berkeley- Haas), five European schools (Insead, London Business School, IMD, HEC Paris and IESE), and one Asian school (Hong Kong UST) make it into the "Alfa" cluster, according to our research.  Global schools are able to put an international diverse class together (both students and faculty), produce globally relevant knowledge, including the field of global management itself, do it all in a relevant location on the global scale, which is also part of a competitive country. Finally, these schools provide graduates with a tremendous brand value for their global careers. In general terms, Alfa European schools do it better when it comes to a global classroom experience and offer incredibly attractive global cities as a setting for the MBA experience, as is the case of London or Paris. However, US schools fare better in producing globally relevant knowledge and offer a more competitive setting for a successful global career, which sometimes has to do with the size and dynamism of the US economy and its global companies.

Harvard Business School, an iconic brand

The making of the GBS MBA Index

Click here to see the full methodology

The GBS MBA Index is a piece of research aimed at understanding which is the level of exposure of MBA students to a global experience. First of all, we assume that globalization is not a goal "per se", but a circumstance of today's business environment and social context. That's why we consider quality to be previous to any globalization assessment. Thus, only schools ranked in the top 50 of the Financial Times MBA ranking can be eligible for this Index (unless that a school -though not ranked in the top 50 of the FT, is considered a leading school in the teaching of global management, as is the case of Thunderbird). Second, we have assessed globalization from a value-chain perspective: assuming that we need first to bring in a globally diverse cohort of students within a class where faculty is also as internationally diverse as possible; then we need this faculty to produce as many globally relevant knowledge as possible, and this has to be translated into a globally relevant curriculum. All these interactions need to happen in a city which is globally attractive (for its appeal, its cultural attractiveness and its human and physical capitals), and this city has to set itself in the context of a globally competitive country. The location factor should be a trigger for the global career that MBA graduates would supposedly be willing to start after the program. Once they graduate, they will have to rely on a globally relevant business school brand, according to its reputation among alumni from other schools and also according to the worldwide extension of this network of graduates. All these components put together (21 metrics which are explained in The Making of the GBS Index) are just a sample that we pretend to be at least an indication of which programs are relevant when it comes to approaching the challenges of the global economy. By the way, we consider all of these ranked programs, from Alfa+ to Gamma schools, to be excellent and relevant, and also many others which don't appear in the Index. The categorization into Alfa, Beta and Gamma schools tries to show a picture where ranks are less relevant and where grouping or clustering can give us a rough idea of different levels of impact.

Why global student mobility matters

According to an OECD survey, 3.5 million tertiary students studied abroad in 2011, a volume which is projected to double in the upcoming two decades. Global student mobility is one of the main consequences of globalization. The English-speaking universe is the dominant destination: the US, UK, Australia and Canada combined account for 40% of the world's international student population. From these 3.5 million global students, about 25% choose business studies. In just a few years, there will be around 1 million business students studying abroad. However, when it comes to top business degrees -defined as those for which a GMAT exam is necessary- these globally mobile population could be narrowed to about 50,000 students, or 5% of the whole business student population studying abroad. Having said that, with an average tuition of $50,000 in 2011, these 50,000 students could involve a market volume of $2.5 billion in a single year. If we considered the remaining 95% international business students, the volume would still be higher, though not proportional, because programs that not require a GMAT exam  would most likely have much lower tuition fees. All in all, global student mobility matters, and will increasingly matter. This is why developing a Global Business School MBA Index, which addresses specifically the international dimension, was a meaningful research, which hopefully will help out both students and schools. 

The Global Business School MBA Index

See the Index (its four main components in ordinal values, by clicking here)
See the Key to the Index for an explanation of the 21 criteria which have been taken into account. For the full version of the GBS MBA Index, please contact gbsindex@gmail.com

Welcome to the Global Business School Index (MBA)

When it comes to MBA programs,
does location matter?

The Global Business School Index (GBS Index) is a piece of research with which MBA programs are clustered into four levels of global impact: Alfa+, Alfa, Beta (the main group) and Gamma business schools. The GBS MBA Index considers four main dimensions - each with a weight of 25%- in order to assess globalization of MBA programs and business schools: 1) global diversity in the classroom (international students and faculty); 2) a globally relevant curriculum and production of knowledge; 3) a globally relevant location both in terms of city appeal and country competitiveness; and 4) a global business school brand as a trigger for a global career. One of the main innovations of this Index is the consideration of location as one of the main drivers of success. In an increasingly interconnected world and also with rapidly-changing MBA formats, with more blended/hybrid learning, we consider location as one of the remaining strategic assets for business schools. Offering a "location experience" for participants, connecting them to the unique characteristics of each city or region, will be something distinctive of top programs. Within this framework, we think that global hub cities, countries with rapid growth, or a global corporate critical size, offer an advantage for an after-MBA global career. Finally, the GBS MBA Index does not pretend to add more confusion into the fragmented business school industry, but the opposite. Actually, understanding globalization has been a major topic on top of any Dean's agenda, and some of the most respected international organizations, like AACSB, have written about what globalization means for a business school. This Index translates some of these discussions into specific metrics and will help business schools in formulating their global strategy, as well as prospective students when choosing the best business school in order to boost their global career. Finally, this Index is initially focusing on the Full Time MBA program, which is the standard and most widely spread program in this industry. I considered it to be too pretentious to evaluate from scratch the globalization of business schools as a whole; then I chose to narrow the analysis to the MBA program.