Are Quantitative Skills Critical for Business Education Program or an Entry-Barrier for Diversity?

Abstract

Two prominent criticisms of business education programs are that they disproportionately focus on cultivating quantitative skills (i.e., the ability to use and analyze numerical/mathematical concepts) and that the programs lack diversity in terms of gender, social class, and undergraduate backgrounds of students. We tested whether the emphasis on quantitative skills is linked to this lack of diversity in business education programs. We drew data from a Master of Business Administration (MBA) program from a leading business school in India (N = 275). We analyzed three key outcomes (entrance test scores, program grades, and salary offers) for three attributes (gender, social class, and quantitative undergraduate degree) before and after partitioning of the quantitative and non-quantitative components of the academic outcomes. Before the partitioning of components, our regression models explained 63% of variance in entrance test scores, 42% in program grades, and 21% in salary offers, which was suggestive of the suitability of our predictor variables. Post-partitioning of the outcomes into quantitative and non-quantitative components, the key results were: (a) social class disadvantage was in both the quantitative and non-quantitative components of the entrance test, and in course grades; (b) female-disadvantage was in the quantitative coursework of the MBA program, but not in the entrance test, or in salary offers (p < .05); (c) individuals with a quantitative undergraduate education had no advantage in the quantitative section of the entrance test, or of the coursework; (d) social class, gender, and quantitative undergraduate had no effect on salary offers. However, salary offers were higher for those with work experience (p < .01), and most notably, for those who performed well in the non-quantitative courses (p < .01). On addressing lack of diversity, the results suggest that unlike individuals from a more marginalized social class, females’ deficit is selective and identifiable in the form of lower scores on the quantitative component of MBA coursework. Apart from identifying entry-barriers for diversity, our results are also helpful in discarding certain unfounded beliefs surrounding business education. For example, contrary to popular belief, quantitative undergraduate training has no advantage in business education. Moreover, quantitative course grades are not disproportionately valued in the job market for MBAs.