Full-time MBA Research Articles

Gender, Race, and Network Advantage in Organizations

Universities and colleges often engage in initiatives aimed at enrolling students from diverse demographic groups. Although substantial research has explored the impact of such diversity initiatives, less understood is the extent to which certain application strategies may continue to favor historically privileged groups, especially white men, as they seek admission to selective programs. With this study, I begin to address this gap by investigating the gender and racial implications of application endorsements—a common, often informal, network practice of signaling support for certain applicants that is shown to significantly boost an applicant’s chances of admission. Using unique data on the applicants and matriculants to a full-time MBA program at one elite U.S. business school, I first assess whether the endorsement advantage differs across demographic groups. Building on the social networks, selection, and inequality literatures, I then identify and test three key theoretical mechanisms by which the endorsement process may potentially benefit white men more than women and racial minorities. Although I do not find evidence in the studied program that the application endorsement is valued differently by key admissions officers or that it provides a different quality signal depending on the applicant’s gender or race, I do find that white men are significantly more likely than women and minorities to receive application endorsements. I conclude by discussing the implications of this study for understanding how gender and racial differences in accessing advantageous (often informal) network processes may undermine organizational efforts to achieve demographic equality and diversity. Funding: Financial support from the James S. Hardigg (1945) Work and Employment Fund and the MIT Sloan School of Management is gratefully acknowledged.

Why Students Should Be Taught Differently: Learner Characteristics, Learning Styles and Simulation Performance

Background Business simulation as an instructional tool helps in developing integrative thinking and decision making skills. It is being taught to audiences who differ considerably in age, work experience (learner characteristics) and learning styles. The use of simulations is likely to grow further with advancements in internet technology and the fact that simulations are very amenable to remote modes of instruction. Aim This study aims to assess how learner characteristics and learning styles impact business simulation performance. It further assesses the combined effect of learner characteristics and learning styles on performance in business simulations, we specifically consider the manner in which learning styles moderate the impact of learner characteristics (age) on simulation performance. Method The study was conducted with 605 students of full time MBA and executive MBA programs with age group varying from 21 years to 53 years. They were taught using the same business simulation by CAPSIM. The learning styles were measured using Felder-Solomon’s instrument ‘Index of learning style’. Regression analysis was conducted with predictor variables of learner characteristics and learning styles and outcome variable of simulation performance. The moderating effect of specific learning styles on learner characteristics was identified. Results The findings indicate that age is a significant predictor of simulation performance (younger, tech savvy students do better). Also, the use of reflective learning style enables better performance in business simulations. Older students are able to draw on experience and benefit more from reflective learning, for business simulations which involve integration across functions. Conclusion The study enhances our conceptual understanding of the factors enabling performance in business simulations and provides specific direction on how instructors must adapt facilitation approaches for different age groups of participants. Reflection is important for learning with business simulations; hence, the reflective learning style should be encouraged particularly among older students.

The ties that cope? Reshaping social connections in response to pandemic distress.

The COVID-19 pandemic introduced unprecedented challenges for individuals in organizations to maintain their interpersonal connections, which are critical for resource exchange. Because prior research has focused on how networks gradually evolve over time, there is little insight into how an exogenous shock, such as the pandemic, would reshape informal ties among colleagues that comprise their social networks. Drawing upon the optimal matching theory of social support, we develop a psychological perspective on how individuals recalibrate their social ties to enable coping with the uncertainty and anxiety introduced by the pandemic shock. We test our theory using a three-wave network data set from a sample of colocated, full-time MBA students before and after the onset of the pandemic. Following the onset of the pandemic, we found there was an overall reduction in the maintenance of advice ties. We also found that emotional exhaustion exacerbated this effect, and when emotional exhaustion was high, racially homophilous advice ties were just as likely to be dropped as heterophilous advice ties. We also found, unexpectedly, that COVID-19 reduced the maintenance of friendship ties, perhaps because social distancing reduced emotional support opportunities. Thoughts of anticipated inclusion mitigated this negative effect, particularly for racially heterophilous friendships. Individuals in organizations have psychological agency for reordering their social networks to respond to demands created by existential crises.

Does MBA education benefit women more than men? A longitudinal study

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to see if women value power less than men do and if MBA education reduces this gender difference in power value.Design/methodology/approachThe impact of a two-year residential full-time MBA program on students’ values was studied using a longitudinal design and data collected over two years from a business school in India. Values were measured when students entered the program and again when they graduated. The sample consisted of 230 students (90 women and 140 men).FindingsWhile entering the MBA program, female students considered power less important than male students did. Results of matched sample t-tests show that power, hedonism, stimulation and tradition become more important and benevolence, universalism, conformity and security become less important over two years of MBA education. The increase in the importance of power value is significantly higher for women than for men.Originality/valueTo the best of the author’s knowledge, this is the first study to show that women’s value ratings for power value increase much more than that of men over two years of management education.

Pricing of higher education: The case of top-ranked MBA programs

Tuition fees of full-time MBA programs with similar structure can vary greatly from around USD $20,000 to USD $220,000. This paper explores the effects of post-graduation salary, reputation, and their interaction on such high discrepancy in MBA tuition. Using a unique dataset of international MBA programs, we found that program value is positively correlated with post-graduation salary. This relationship is stronger for more prestigious programs whose values are impacted more by graduate outcomes. In addition, this relationship is greater for North American programs, but smaller for European programs, suggesting a geographical effect. These results provide managerial implications for program administrators and universities offering professional business programs. These insights can be extended to other industries of intangible experience goods.

GoUNESCO: achieving strategic growth

Learning Outcomes The case provides learning opportunities in strategy, planning and control in a social entrepreneurial setting. Following are the learning objectives of this case discussion: learn to develop a Strategic Service Vision (SSV) framework ; appreciate scalability challenges specific to service organizations; evaluate franchising model as a growth enabler; and understand the approach to internationalization as a growth strategy. Case Overview/Synopsis GoUNESCO is a not-for-profit startup formed in January 2012, with an objective of providing platform for laypersons to engage with places of heritage value. Eight years into existence, in February 2019 GoUNESCO was experiencing substantial growth and faced need for pursuing alternate growth models that do not demand a lot of organizational bandwidth. Ajay Reddy, the founder of GoUNESCO was piloting “franchising” as a domestic growth strategy. He was keen on evaluating fitment of “franchising” (both for domestic and international expansion) in his strategic service vision. He wanted to understand what would be changes required in the strategic service vision on account of ‘franchising’, and decide whether those changes were acceptable or not. Complexity Academic Level The case can be positioned in strategy, service and/or operations management introduction courses for both full-time or Executive MBA students. This case is also quite relevant in Entrepreneurship (or Social Entrepreneurship in particular) courses. Supplementary materials Teaching Notes are available for educators only. Please contact your library to gain login details or email support@emeraldinsight.com to request teaching notes. Subject code CSS 11: Strategy

When Supervisor Support Backfires: The Link Between Perceived Supervisor Support and Unethical Pro-supervisor Behavior

Perceived supervisor support is widely studied in terms of its positive outcomes. This paper, in contrast, investigates employees’ unethical pro-supervisor behavior as a negative consequence of perceived supervisor support. Drawing upon the multifoci approach of social exchange theory and the reciprocity principle, we hypothesized that perceived supervisor support can engender unethical pro-supervisor behavior via employees’ feelings of reciprocity towards the supervisor. Building on the instrumental reasons that underlie social exchanges, we further hypothesized that this mediation relationship is stronger for employees high in Machiavellianism. We collected data for three experimental studies from full-time MBA students of a European business school (Study 1: N = 72) and from U.S. working professionals (Study 2: N = 320; Study 3: N = 325), and the results provided consistent support for our proposed model. Taken together, the current study highlights the “dark side” of perceived supervisor support, in that it can lead to unethical behavior and that this effect can be accentuated by employees’ Machiavellianism.

Process Analysis Simulation

This interactive exercise emulates a process wherein a virtual Card is created in a series of steps. It can be used to expose students to ideas and concepts in process analysis, management, and improvement. It may be used in classes focusing on operations management, project management, and software development. The simulation is run on the project-management web application Trello. It allows for simultaneous, real-time observation and collaboration between players. Students can observe other students working at the same time they are performing specific tasks. This exercise is suitable for students in either full-time or executive MBA programs, as well as executive education programs. Excerpt UVA-OM-1718 Dec. 16, 2020 Process Analysis Simulation Introduction A potential recruiter is looking to invite a team of high-performing individuals to a new software-development initiative they are initiating. Time and quality are of utmost importance to the recruiter, so they have developed a competition to test velocity and attention to detail. This task involves creating a set of virtual Cards. You and your team will be competing against several other teams for the positions. Production Process . . .

A Study on the Success Factors of Full-time MBA Program: The Case of NUS Business School

A Study on the Success Factors of Full-time MBA Program: The Case of NUS Business School

Is management education preparing future leaders for sustainable business?

Purpose The study aims to examine whether management education can successfully cultivate the competency of empathy that is needed in future corporate leaders to promote sustainability initiatives catering to diverse stakeholders. Design/methodology/approach The research highlights the impact of management education on cognitive and affective empathy by analysing the interpersonal reflectivity scores of entering students enrolled in a two-year, full-time MBA programme and the scores of the same students at graduation. Findings The findings show that management education has a positive impact on cognitive empathy, while it reduces affective empathy and general empathy. Further, findings show that the management curriculum brings cognitive and affective empathy to an equilibrium level that is needed for a competitive business environment. Research limitations/implications The research focussed only on the change in empathy of the participants (students) during management education and not during actual corporate work. Practical implications The research infers that current management education creates future executives with higher cognitive empathy. It argues that they would care more about the sustainability of the business in terms of profit or access to capital rather than care and concern for all the stakeholders, society and the environment. A new paradigm in management education also needs to be focussed around inculcating how to empathise affectively. Originality/value The study presents an empirical analysis suggesting that management education is opening the mind but not the heart. It raises a significant concern that higher management curriculum is not developing future executives who can lead the sustainability initiatives.

Impact of Coaching on Team Performance among MBA Teams

Coaching is a fast-growing trend and has gained much significance in the recent years. Research suggests that several organizations are looking at team coaching, as a great tool towards the achievement of collective goals which in return is expected to deliver an additional value through the creation of high-performing teams. Team coaching is distinct from individual coaching because in team coaching, the team is the client and collective performance is the goal, versus the individual focus of one-on-one coaching. The objective of the current study is to do an evidence-based coaching research and its effect on MBA teams’ performance that is based on the coaching model developed by the leadership development program at the Goizueta Business School. The sample of the present study comprised of 170 first year Full Time MBA (FTMBA) students in 31 teams and 46 selected second year FTMBA Leadership Coaching Fellows (LCFs) who serve as coaches to the first year FTMBA student teams. The results of the paper shed some light on how coaching not only an effect on team performance has as seen in the FTMBA teams but also has a positive effect on the academic grades achieved by the teams in group assignments. BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY: The objective of the paper was to do an evidence-based coaching research and its effect on MBA teams’ performance that is based on the coaching model developed by the leadership development program at the Goizueta Business School. Goizueta Business School: Leadership Coaching Fellows Program. The purpose of the Goizueta Leadership Coaching Fellows Program is to help 2nd Year MBA students understand, practice, and enhance their skills of providing individual and team performance feedback. This is done by training them to be peer-coaches for 1st Year MBA students in selected team settings of the curriculum and one on one coaching sessions. Fellows learn how to coach and to be coached. They work with an Executive Coach one-on-one, develop essential skills as a leader to provide individual and team coaching, and be provided the opportunity to engage with business and community leaders in various settings.

A Study on Success Factors of Full-time MBA Program : The Case of CEIBS Business School

Global MBA industry is in crisis. According to GMAC (2016), forty-eight percent of 133 two-year MBA programs in 16 countries have undergone significant decline of applicants. However, China Europe International Business School (CEIBS) has been enjoying a remarkable year in 2018. According to the Financial Times Global MBA Ranking 2018, CEIBS is ranked 8th in the world and 1st in Asia. The positioning statement of CEIBS is “China Depth, Global Breadth (中国深度 全球广度).” In this paper, we seek to examine the success factors for the CEIBS full-time MBA program. We find that the success factors of the CEIBS MBA program are Shanghai advantage, China focus, world-class esteemed faculty members, diverse student population, flexible curriculum, international exchange program, and promising career. We hope that these findings help the Korean MBA industry improve their competitiveness in global MBA markets.

Training the CSR Sensitive Mind-Set: The Integration of CSR into the Training of Business Administration Professionals

Current corporations are subject to stringent requirements in terms of sustainable development; however, a relevant problem is highlighted on the basis of the studies conducted. On the one hand, corporations experience greater or lesser pressure, while on the other hand, it must be admitted that the problem of demand for professionals, which is presupposed by the insufficient quality of training in higher education institutions, is important. This is somewhat strange given that the issues of business ethics, corporate social responsibility, and sustainability have attracted increased attention in management education in recent years, and a five-fold increase in the number of stand-alone ethics courses has been noted since 1988. This interaction could contribute to the development of CSR, however a certain dissonance of cooperation between higher education and business exists, as there is a lack of leadership in this area in the study programs of business administration approved by the states, as well as in higher education institutions. Given these facts, the goal of the paper is to analyze the Master of Business Administration programs in North America, Europe, Asia, and Australia to offer direction to the challenge of integrating corporate social responsibility (CSR) into management and training. The method of analysis of professional business and administration training program content in terms of the integration of CSR was used during the survey. Using panel data of 28 full-time MBA programs, our findings show that that the core parts of MBAs under analysis merely—and mostly indirectly—cover CSR issues through one core course on business ethics. However, the leading MBA programs are currently missing an opportunity by ignoring their responsibility to support the training of CSR-minded future business administration professionals. The results of our research may act as a guide to which areas should be modified and/or changed.

Best in Class: The Returns on Application Endorsements in Higher Education

While scholars have shown that well-connected applicants are advantaged in selection processes, less understood is whether such applicants produce important returns to the organization when key decision makers favor them. We begin to address this gap by investigating whether and why application endorsements―an informal practice whereby certain individuals (i.e., endorsers) advocate for particular applicants―affect organizational selection during the screening of applicants. Through the analysis of the population of 21,324 applicants to a full-time MBA program over a seven-year period, we find that even after controlling for individual qualifications and competencies, endorsed applicants are advantaged over non-endorsed applicants in admissions interview and offer decisions. In seeking to explain this advantage, we develop and test four key theoretical explanations pertaining to the potential returns on application endorsements for the organization. We find inconsistent evidence that endorsed applicants are “better qualified” compared with non-endorsed applicants during screening: while endorsed applicants are sometimes assessed to be stronger “on paper,” they generally receive lower competency assessments than non-endorsed applicants later, during the admissions interviews. Further, our analysis of data on matriculating MBA students reveals that those endorsed as applicants are not “better performers” academically (measured by grade point average) or in the job market after graduation (measured by full-time salaries or signing bonuses) compared with non-endorsed individuals. In contrast, individuals endorsed as applicants appear to be “better citizens” upon joining the organization—in our research setting, they are more likely to participate in student club leadership roles than non-endorsed individuals. We also find that they are “better alumni”―that is, they make larger monetary donations to the school after graduating than their non-endorsed counterparts. We conclude with implications for understanding the impact of application endorsements on labor and educational markets.

Using New Case Studies for Evaluation of Marketing Student’s Academic Performance

Case method has been a popular pedagogy in management education. It is a preferred evaluation tool which is inherently subjective in nature. This article compares the results of case-based evaluation in marketing discipline, in announced and unannounced settings, for full-time and part-time management programmes and discusses its implications. The data were collected from the formal evaluation made by a faculty of an Association of MBAs (AMBA) accredited management institute of India. The results suggests that for full-time residential MBA programmes, use of relative marks for grading each component of the evaluation is likely to be a more robust evaluation mechanism than using just the marks or using the consolidated marks for final grading. However, neither surprise quiz nor announced quiz provide any robust and unbiased method of evaluating the performance of the students of part-time non-residential MBA programme as the result are also dependent on variables like work and family, which are extraneous to the student’s interest and proficiency in the subject.

Assessing Leader Development: Lessons From a Historical Review of MBA Outcomes

Graduate management education seeks to enhance the likelihood that graduates will be effective leaders, managers, or professionals. This requires programs that are designed to enable students to develop the related competencies, and increasing regulatory pressures require programs to document evidence of success. However, both the design of competency development efforts and the assessment of those efforts remain a challenge for contemporary business schools. Here we examine a 25-year assessment program to illustrate the challenges associated with developing emotional, social, and cognitive competencies among full-time MBA students. We discuss key interventions that yielded positive assessment results and the challenges of maintaining a longitudinal assessment data set. We then examine patterns of competency development across nine cohorts to propose five factors that appeared to affect the variations in competency development over time and cohorts: (a) sequencing effects of emotional versus social competency development; (b) the sawtooth or alternating cohort effect; (c) leadership and organizational climate in the school; (d) events in the world at large, like a global recession; and (e) program structure and design.

PageWell 2.0: Using Customer Research for Product Development

PageWell, an e-reading platform provider, was preparing to launch PageWell 2.0 to the larger full-time MBA student market after a successful trial of PageWell 1.0 in Executive MBA (EMBA) classes at the Kellogg School of Management. Research had shown that full-time MBA students would be very interested in using products that allowed electronic access to course materials everywhere and across many platforms and that allowed electronic note-taking and storage. To better understand this user group, PageWell conducted a market research survey of students, faculty, and administrators to gauge their needs, preferences, and potential interest in the PageWell product. The study revealed that MBA student usage patterns, scenarios, and behavior varied significantly from EMBA student needs and perceptions. PageWell now had the task of prioritizing the product requirements and recalibrating the market requirements document to more accurately reflect student needs and thus create a viable productAfter students have analyzed the case, they will be able to: Use customer feedback to help define requirements for a new product Understand the role of personas and scenarios in defining requirements Understand how to use scenarios and scenario templates to derive scenario implementation requirements Understand how to prioritize scenarios based on customer, company, and competitive criteria Write a market requirements document for a next-version technology produc

Idea Generation and Selection

This exercise teaches participants how to generate ideas and brainstorm and helps to remove the perception that idea generation is a process that only “super-creative people” can do well. It not only shows participants how to generate valuable ideas, but also highlights barriers to doing so. Suitable for students in either full-time or executive MBA programs as well as executive education programs, this exercise can also be used in any setting aimed at exposing students to the benefits of idea generation by providing some structure for the process. Most commonly, this exercise is used in classes aimed at teaching product development, design thinking, and innovation processes. It has been used in classes focusing on entrepreneurship as well as those focused on innovation within large organizations. Excerpt UVA-OM-1580 Aug. 30, 2017 Idea Generation and Selection Your group's task: Generate three novel ideas for the next generation vending machine. Process 1. Problem definition . . .

Saying goodbye: The nature, causes, and consequences of employee resignation styles.

Although much is known about why employees decide to resign from their jobs, scant research has examined what occurs after employees decide to leave their jobs but before they exit their organizations. As such, employee resignations are not well understood. This is unfortunate, because the manner in which employees resign from their jobs may have important implications for both individuals and organizations. In this paper, we use social exchange theory to argue that exchange-based correlates of employee turnover influence the manner in which employees resign, and that resignation styles affect managers' emotional reactions to employee resignation. We test our hypotheses in 4 studies. In Study 1, we inductively identify a taxonomy of resignation styles among full-time MBA students who have recently resigned from a job. In Study 2, we qualitatively examine the extent to which this taxonomy of resignation styles is represented in the accounts of supervisors of recently resigned employees. In Study 3, using a sample of recently resigned professionals, we demonstrate that employees' exchange relationships with their organizations and their supervisors influence their resignation styles. Finally, in Study 4, we provide evidence that resignation styles affect supervisors' emotional reactions in a sample of managers. Directions for future research on resignation and practical implications are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record

Do, but don’t tell

Purpose – The purpose of this study is to investigate the degree to which business schools, in particular MBA programs, have developed academic programs and centers specifically focused on corporate social responsibility and sustainability (CSRS) and, for those that have, promote them on their Web sites. The instruction of CSRS in institutions of higher education is increasing worldwide. The extent to which US MBA programs have developed academic programs and centers focused on CSRS could potentially be a way for business schools to distinguish themselves from other schools. Design/methodology/approach – The authors use a Web-based search of the Web sites of the top-100 US MBA programs to ascertain the extent to which they have developed CSRS-related academic programs and centers. They then look specifically at the full-time MBA main Web page to ascertain to what extent these programs promote CSRS material. Findings – The results suggest that schools in the top quarter and bottom quarter, as well as private schools, are more likely to have CSRS academic programs and centers. The authors also find that very few full-time MBA programs promote CSRS on their main MBA Web pages. Originality/value – This study is unique in its focus on the top-100 US MBA programs and the collection of primary data directly from their Web sites. Additionally, a summary of the data gathered from the MBA programs is provided in Table I of the study.