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.