This presentation was based on a paper written by Dr Nick Barter and Prof. Evan Douglas. The paper was written for a conference titled 'Revisiting the MBA' in the Asia Pacific Context - 30/31 January 2014, ABBS, Bangalore, India. The presentation was delivered by Prof. Douglas

1. THREE HEADWINDS IMPACTING
THE FUTURE OF MBA PROGRAMS:
AN AUSTRALIAN PERSPECTIVE
Nick Barter & Evan Douglas
Griffith Business School
Griffith University
Queensland, Australia

2. Overview
 What is the problem for MBA providers?
◦ Declining demand due to declining value proposition
 Three strong headwinds we are sailing against
◦ The social imperative of Sustainability
◦ The increasing digital literacy of our clientele
◦ Unmet thirst for meeting client’s needs
 What should be done about these to ensure the survival of
MBA providers?
 What are we doing currently on these fronts at Griffith?

3. The problem facing MBA providers
 Declining student numbers
◦ Expensive tuition fees
◦ Ambiguous evidence that MBA is a good investment
◦ Rise of alternative sources of business information
- Coursera, Wikipedia, and googled information
- Business experience with more savvy co-workers
◦ The decline of relevancy of MBA course content for
- Sustainable development
- Practical application
- Self-employment
◦ Increasing time poverty of our customers
- Unwilling to absorb material on a ‘just-in-case’ basis

4. The ‘path-dependence’ problem
 We arrived here via an historical path
◦ MBA was invented to qualify ‘business administrators’
◦ Based on 19th century scientific management philosophy
- Profit maximization was the sole goal
◦ 1959 Gordon & Howell (and Pierson) reports were critical
- Need for softer side => business ethics, leadership
◦ 1988 Porter & McKibbin investigation of MBA curricula
◦ 2002 Mintzberg & Gosling, Pfeffer & Fong papers critical
◦ Global Financial Crisis – MBA graduates implicated
◦ Criticism continues to present day
- We are not teaching what managers want to know
- Nor delivering in their preferred format for learning

5. Headwind #1: Sustainability
 Sustainability is not just nice, it is necessary now
◦ Profit maximization is no longer appropriate
◦ Corporate Social Responsibility is now expected
 Sustainable development is about enabling economic
growth and human progress
◦ The environment does not exist as a sphere separate from
human actions, ambitions, and needs
◦ Rather than being a challenge to business, sustainable
development is a core requirement for business strategy.
 Consequently the challenge of sustainability is actually a
business growth challenge
◦ We must seek business growth within a context of ensuring
inclusiveness, reduced inequality and human progress.

6. Incorporating Sustainability
 Shifting social mores now require and expect CSR
◦ Investors now preferring ‘sustainable’ companies
◦ Employment in ‘sustainable’ firms and organisations
◦ Consumers increasingly preferring ‘sustainable’ firms.
◦ Suppliers preferring to be associated with ‘sustainable’ firms
 Candidates will choose programs that better equip them for
employment and career advancement in CSR companies
 Sustainability must become thematic in MBA programs
◦ No longer take short-horizon profit-maximizing focus
◦ Incorporate social and environmental issues into decisions
◦ Integrate longer-horizon CSR focus into all courses

7. Headwind #2: The Digital Revolution
 Universities are no longer the store of knowledge
 Digitally-stored knowledge can be accessed
◦ More quickly – waste less time
- We read faster than we speak
- Avoid travel time (and annoyances)
◦ More relevant to immediate needs
- Avoid required courses not considered relevant to needs
- Just-in-time rather than just-in-case
◦ More inexpensively
- Little or no monetary cost
 But there is an enormous volume of information available
◦ Where to start, which path to follow?

8. Our role is ‘Packaging’ knowledge
 Sifting
◦ Through the mountain of business information, opinion, data
and case studies, including recent research that may be
difficult reading for aspiring managers
 Selecting
◦ Choosing which elements are most important for our courses
and which elements can be taken as already understood
◦ Translating research findings into common parlance such that
they are appropriate to business practice
 Sequencing
◦ Putting these in an order of delivery that is most conducive to
learning and retention of the information by aspiring managers

9. MBA delivery modes
 Full-time face-to-face cohort
◦ Traditional format in classroom, weekly classes
◦ Student have minimal management experience
- Little or no prior business knowledge
 Part-time face-to-face cohort
◦ Week-night classes for students who work full-time
- Have greater knowledge of business practice
 Executive mode,
◦ Monthly distributed-block classes on weekends
- Candidates have the most knowledge of business practice

And a greater need to customize knowledge …

10. Delivering the Package
 The ‘Body of Knowledge’ (BOK) must be accessible on-line
◦ Supplied in ‘chunks’ not monoliths or monologues
◦ Use multi-media – Talking heads; YouTube; Websites, etc
 Treated as ‘prior reading’ before class sessions
 Reduce face-to-face time to ½ of previous time
◦ I.e. Adopt ‘blended learning’ format – both OL and F2F
 Use F2F sessions for application of BOK to specific
management decision problems
◦ Including those brought forward by class members
◦ Capture these on video for later viewing
 Supplement with on-line chats, collaborate workshops
◦ Synchronous and non-synchronous communication

11. Differing Needs of Cohorts
Cohort
Cohort needs
Knowledge
Credentials
Social networking
Business networks
Discretionary time
Not testing patience
Knowledge
specificity
Full-time face-toface MBA student
with 2+ years of
business
experience
Part-time face-toface MBA
student with
typically 5-10
years business
experience
EMBA student with
>10 years mid- to
senior-level
business
experience
Greatest
Greatest
Greatest
Least
Median
Median
Median
Median
Least
Least
Least
Greatest
Least
Least
Least
Median
Median
Median
Greatest
Greatest
Greatest

12. Headwind #3: Incentivizing Academics
 Academics are creatures of habit, and many are nearing
retirement age
◦ Reluctant to change teaching material or teaching methods
◦ Opportunity cost of time spent revising teaching materials
 Performance incentives in business schools are related to
research grants and publications in high-status journals
◦ Teaching quality must simply surpass minimal standards
 Also little incentive to spend time listening to business
people and their views on the curriculum
◦ Business views are often disparate, mutually conflicting
◦ Bureaucratic internal process to change curriculum
◦ Rewards for changing curriculum are distant, if at all

13. What is the solution to this?
 Increased incentives needed to make course material:
◦ More practical and applicable to business decision making
◦ More digitally accessible and more efficiently delivered
 A different performance metric for MBA teachers?
◦ AACSB Academically Qualified – Professional Teachers
◦ Exclude from ‘Research Active’ denominator
◦ Encourage and support consulting income for these
◦ Awards for currency and digitalisation of teaching materials
 A greater proportion of ‘Professionally Qualified’ teachers
◦ Business Practitioners who are highly respected in their
subject areas
- Guest presentations by CEOs, Entrepreneurs, etc.

14. The MBA as a stand-alone
award, outside the University?
Currently MBA programs are charged their ‘fair
share’ of University overheads
◦ Library
◦ Car parks
◦ Cafeterias
◦ Computer Laboratories
◦ Large lecture theatres
◦ Marketing efforts geared to attracting undergraduate and
international students
◦ 40% of salaries provided for research activity
 Most of these are of little benefit to MBA students…

15. What is Griffith University doing?
 Re-developed all MBA courses on theme of Sustainability,
Responsibility, and Asia-Pacific Focus.
 Digitised all MBA course material for on-line delivery,
concurrent with face-to-face delivery on campus in 2014
 ‘Chunked’ all course materials into 10-20 minute slide
presentations with voice-overs
 Provided links to relevant YouTube and TEDtalk videos
 Provided links to websites and digitised reading materials
 Set up asynchronous chat rooms for student-to-student
interaction with professor oversight
 Set up periodic synchronous ‘Collaborate’ sessions for virtual
face-to-face meetings and discussion of specific topics

16. Conclusion
 MBA providers within Business Schools within Australian
Universities are facing declining enrolments (generally)
◦ Griffith MBA enrolments are now rising, against the trend
 MBA programs need to revise course material to reflect the
sustainable development paradigm
 Hard copies of textbooks and course materials are obsolete
◦ All course materials need to be provided on-line (and free)
 Contact time for F2F classes needs to be reduced by half
◦ With prior reading & viewing of course materials
◦ Use F2f time to apply and synergise course materials
 Incentivise MBA instructors to update, digitise and apply
course materials to business decision problems.