The MBA is changing. Content, programme design, competition, teaching formats, outcomes — everything is now up for discussion.
The 2016 MBA reaccreditation process forced all schools to revisit the format and purpose of their programmes.
Three years on, a climate of self-examination still prevails.
At Milpark and IIE MSA (formerly Monash) business schools, relatively new shareholders are still considering their options. Milpark is now part of the Stadio education group and MSA sits within the Independent Institute of Education (IIE).
"We had a lot of plans for MBA changes but the new ownership caused us to put them on hold," says IIE MSA director HB Klopper. "We are looking for innovative ways to improve our programme and to change business for the better."
Milpark dean Cobus Oosthuizen says his school and Stadio are engaged in a strategic review. "We are taking time to reflect on where we are and where we want to be."
Substantive changes — which Oosthuizen hopes will include more MBA students — will kick in once Stadio determines exactly how Milpark fits into its "multiversity" concept with other education holdings.
At Tshwane University of Technology Business School, director Kobus Jonker is one step ahead. Since joining early this year, he has begun implementing changes that will see the MBA programme reduced from three years to two, including direct control of the bridging postgraduate diploma in business administration, and a redesign of the research component. Jonker hopes to introduce the changes from 2020. He has also made inroads into the large backlog of students who haven’t written their final dissertation from the pre-2016 MBA.
Other schools are implementing changes thick and fast. Wits Business School will offer only a part-time MBA from 2020, in response to falling demand for the full-time programme. All over the world, students are shifting to online and part-time programmes that offer more flexibility and allow them to carry on working while they study.
At the University of Stellenbosch Business School, the full-time MBA will continue even though programme head Martin Butler says demand for blended MBAs is "going through the roof". An online MBA, once unthinkable to Stellenbosch and other traditional schools, could follow soon. Earlier worries that schools would not be able to properly monitor students and that students might not work together in syndicates are being overcome by new technology.
"You can still have a collaborative team experience in an online teaching environment," says Butler. Actual classroom time, when students and lecturers meet in person, will also diminish, he predicts, "but it won’t become entirely redundant".
Online programmes are "sleek and sexy", says Regenesys CEO Leoni Grobler.
"Schools must be conscious of changing market demand. Lots of students don’t have time for classroom study. We have to focus on digital."
At the Management College of Southern Africa, the emphasis is on postgraduate employability, says director Zaheer Hamid. "We’ve looked beyond the basic requirements of the programme, to what it is that allows our students to compete in the market. Our positioning is to create accessibility, affordability and impact."
Regent Business School director Ahmed Shaikh says: "We’re not here just to put out graduates but to provide them with the skills and aptitudes the market needs. Companies are laying off thousands of people so there’s no point preparing people for jobs that no longer exist."
Shaikh is betting that changes in the health-care industry, particularly if the government’s contentious National Health Insurance scheme goes ahead, will provide major opportunities, which is why Regent is considering a health-care MBA. "If we don’t change the way we teach and what we teach, we won’t change the outcomes."
Regent academic Dhiru Soni thinks it’s already too late: "The MBA is becoming irrelevant. I don’t think it will exist in five years."
Others beg to differ. At the Johannesburg Business School, which will launch its MBA in 2020, director Lyal White says interest has exceeded expectations — even if research shows many people apply to several schools to increase their chances of acceptance. White hopes his programme’s emphasis on small and medium business development will find a different audience.
Yet, with other newcomers still waiting for MBA accreditation, isn’t the market becoming oversubscribed, wonders Randall Jonas, director of Nelson Mandela University Business School and chair of the SA Business Schools Association. "I’m not sure how many delivery outlets it can take," he says.
That shouldn’t be an issue as long as schools remain relevant and provide business, the government and the economy with the innovation and leadership skills they need, says Rhodes Business School director Owen Skae.
In SA, as globally, the need has never been greater for innovative education to help individuals and companies navigate changing dynamics, constant crises and what often seems like impenetrable uncertainty.
"It’s not easy, but if we get it right, we can make an enormous positive difference to business and society," says Skae.
One way is to recognise that core MBA subjects must be taught differently.
Finance, marketing, operations, research and human resources don’t happen in isolation in the business world, so rather than teach them separately, it makes sense to do so in an integrated way.
Segran Nair, head of the MBA programme at the University of Cape Town’s Graduate School of Business, says issues like leadership, social innovation and entrepreneurship are no longer peripheral but at the very heart of modern business. This changing attitude is already seen in the school’s MBA offerings but will accelerate from 2020. The university has approved what he calls a "stream" of changes.
Gordon Institute of Business Science (Gibs) dean Nicola Kleyn says: "Business problems are multifaceted, yet the central design of MBAs has barely shifted in the past 100 years."
Gibs is taking a cross-disciplinary approach. Instead of innovation, ethics, sustainability and strategic implementation being add-ons to finance and the other traditional subjects, now it’s the other way round. Finance, marketing and the rest must fit into the broader themes.
"There’s a strong focus on application," says Kleyn. "It’s no longer about teaching technical skills in isolation but about being able to implement them in a real leadership situation. It’s all very well being able to critique and identify a solution, but can you implement it?"
Stellenbosch’s Butler agrees. "Innovative thinking is only half the equation," he says. "Can you also execute it?" Their MBA is also evolving. "We want to turn out graduates able to make sense of the world around them. We want people able to think differently but also to accept others who think differently to them."
Seventeen business schools took part in market research for this edition of SA’s Top MBAs. They were:
• Gordon Institute of Business Science at the University of Pretoria;
• Henley Africa Business School;
• IIE MSA (formerly Monash);
• Management College of Southern Africa;
• Milpark Business School;
• Nelson Mandela University Business School;
• North-West University School of Business & Governance;
• Regent Business School;
• Regenesys Business School;
• Rhodes Business School;
• Turfloop Graduate School of Leadership at the University of Limpopo;
• Tshwane University of Technology Business School;
• University of Cape Town Graduate School of Business;
• University of the Free State Business School;
• Unisa Graduate School of Business Leadership;
• University of Stellenbosch Business School; and
• Wits Business School.
For the inside view, 1,210 graduates representing these schools gave us their views on the MBA programmes they participated in.
Finally, 300 employers who sponsor or otherwise enable staff to undertake MBAs shared their opinions on business schools and the impact of MBA graduates on the workplace. Of these employers, which come from all over SA, 79% were from the private sector and 21% from the public sector or state-owned enterprises.
Market research was conducted by Lodestar Marketing Research, which provided all the tables for this Cover Story.
— RESEARCH: How we came up with the tables on these pages
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