What Is The Future Of Management Education?

The Wharton School is the latest business school to offer an MBA predominantly online, launching a Global MBA for Executives with a price tag of $214,800. While Harvard Business School, Stanford GSB, MIT Sloan and other prestigious schools offer a growing range of exec ed courses and certificate programs online, this is the first of the M7 schools to provide a blended option that will be delivered 75% online.

It’s another reminder that digital is a key focus of the future for virtually all business schools. But though Wharton describes leveraging the extensive online teaching skills they gained while guiding hundreds of students through the pandemic, many schools have been developing, strengthening and refining their digital learning delivery long before Covid forced them to do so.

The Future of Management Education (FOME) Alliance was launched in 2018, “gathering a group of like-minded business schools with a total commitment to a quality student experience in hybrid and online settings”, explains Nick Barniville, former Associate Dean of Degree Programs at ESMT Berlin, one of the founding members of the Alliance. Leveraging the power of content sharing and virtual exchange through insendi, a state of the art learning platform developed by Dr David Lefevre and Marc Wells for Imperial College London, partner schools can copy or share content at the click of a button.

The growing list of members include leading business schools from across Europe, North America and Asia Pacific. They were specifically chosen on “what they can bring to the alliance, be it through their expertise with blended or online learning, their geographical reach, or their intention to invest and adopt novel technologies.”, says Pascale Crama, Academic Director of the Blended Masters of Science Management programme at Singapore Management University.

Belgium’s Vlerick Business School recently joined the FOME Alliance and for the dean, Marion Debruyne the member schools all share the common goal of wanting to invest in an impactful online learning experiences. “What we can learn from each other – best practices, do’s and don’ts, what worked, what didn’t work – is really helpful, because that creates a better learning experiences for all of our students, and assures that we remain at the forefront of digital learning.”

It is the emphasis on the student experience that made many of these leading business schools turn from competition to collaboration, to ensure that their students all receive the most innovative, immersive, accessible experience possible. “Collaborating allows us to jointly address common challenges, share best practices and deliver a better experience to all students across the world, with student wellbeing and development at the forefront of our decisions,” affirms Leila Guerra, Vice Dean of Programmes at Imperial College Business School, another of the founding member schools of the Alliance.

“One school rarely has the resources needed to experiment with pedagogy and technology in order to develop sustainable concepts.” says Anne Berit Swanberg, Associate Professor at founding Alliance members, BI Norwegian Business School. “In FOME we have built a community of practice to help each school progress and succeed. As is the old saying: together we become stronger.”

Becoming stronger together is a motto echoed by Nick Barniville, who has now set up an EdTech consulting company, Gomera Tech to help universities, and business schools in particular, to implement a successful online or digitalisation strategy. He highlights technology scouting, learning analytics, content sharing and instructional design as some of the key benefits of collaborating together. “Putting together some of the best brains in the industry to address challenges together allows us to develop a better student experience. Many brains are better than few,” he says.

But business schools face further challenges than just implementing new technologies and improving the student experience. Students want more from their graduate management education programmes, and the student experience must be adapted to incorporate these challenges in their chosen sectors.

Drawing on Imperial’s globally acknowledged excellence in innovation, data analytics, healthcare and climate change, the business school already offers a growing range of specialized Masters from an MSc Climate Change, Management & Finance to an MSc International Health Management. “Societal impact and actions to tackle climate change will be an integral part of all business school programmes,” asserts Leila Guerra. “Business Schools have a significant role to play and will act on it.”

Nick Barniville agrees that climate change is a key issue for the future of management education, though he warns against the overuse of buzzwords. “I don’t understand why we need to use the word “sustainability” all the time, as it sometimes comes across as nebulous”, says “The real issue I feel we need to address is whether business will continue to have legitimacy in democratic societies if our environment can no longer sustain current human and business practises.” he says.

So how is the FOME Alliance likely to respond to future management education challenges, as well as wider, global challenges? “The challenge is how to create an enriching learning experience that our students value, shifting from a traditional brick-and-mortar business to an integrated model with fluid use of both face-to-face and online learning.”, says Pascale Crama at SMU.

“The Alliance will continue to innovate both as individual schools, but also as an academic collaboration”, adds Leila Guerra, who believes schools have to “adapt to hybrid environments and cross-school programme experiences which integrate cutting-edge technology to further personalise the student journey.”

And with all schools facing similar future challenges, it’s clear that collaborating is key for tackling these issues head-on and implementing solutions. Nick Barniville believes “growth of the Alliance is based on a willingness and an ability of potential new members to contribute to our understanding of the future of management education.”

“No business school alone has the knowledge needed to approach future challenges”, says Anne Berit Swanberg, and collaborating, instead of competing, is clearly the best way to enhance student experience, further implement technologies into programmes, and tackling the challenges of future management education head-on.