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.