University MBA Research Articles

Analysis of The Readiness of Tan Tao University to Offer an MBA Program

This study provides a strategic analysis of the Tan Tao University MBA Program. The main objective of this study is to analyze the readiness of the Tan Tao University to offer an MBA Program and the effectiveness of the curriculum of the proposed MBA Program focusing on four areas such as human resources, facilities and equipment, research aspect and opportunities for development and formulate recommendations based on the findings that would boost the SBE MBA Program. Data is collected through a questionnaire using convenience sampling in order to give a comprehensive view of student's and faculty members’ perceptions. Data collected have been presented in tabular forms using weighted mean and percentage to facilitate understanding of the study. Managers of today’s organization must comprehend the essentials of individual and group behavior if they are to motivate and communicate with others in the organization. They must understand administrative processes if they are to plan and organize their operations. They must familiarize themselves with mathematical and statistical procedures if they are to efficiently control what goes on in an organization. Every company has its leaders and managers. They are the people who get things done, make things happen, and make the decisions that will make the difference between success and failure. It is this special breed of accomplished professionals for whom the Graduate School of Business of Tan Tao University is designed.

Global pressure or national identity: Strategic challenges for Russian business schools

In the context of globalization of the business education market, Russian business schools face a complex managerial problem - how to preserve a business school's identity. The parameters of demand for managerial education in Russia have become significantly more complicated, new global competitive pressure forces have arisen, compelling business schools to adjust and revise their strategies and comply with international standards of the global business education market. Normative pressure is one of the key reasons that encourage business schools to adapt successful overseas education models. However, the impact of market logic often covers normative appeals to adaptation, as reflected in copying and adoption of the US MBA model. Our research aims to show what the priorities of Russian business school MBA students are today in choosing a business school, as well as which of the competencies of graduates are most on demand in the Russian labour market. The research was conducted over a period of three years (from 2014 to 2016), 358 Lomonosov Moscow State University MBA program graduates who study in Russia and Kazakhstan participated in our questionnaires. The structure of qualities stated by our graduates raises serious challenges to the content and standards of MBA programs in the global context, especially considering the cultural code of the nation, manifested in the practice of doing business. Globalized and marketable specialized managerial knowledge is clearly a priority among graduates today. Greater attention is being devoted to new innovative models in the field of managerial education (edtech platforms, on-demand platforms, subscription model, freemium model, etc.). The development of innovative models by traditional business schools may cause tension between efficiency and innovation as well as conflicting managerial tasks. Among strategic priorities for Russian business schools under the influence of globalization we highlight: diversification of educational products and services; learning of a complex nature, which increasingly represents the integration of three types of activity: research + learning + consulting; reengineering of educational, organizational, administrative, and marketing processes performed at business schools. The forms of these directions implementation and their effectiveness in the context of the global education market should be the subject of further study.

Forming Student Online Teams For Maximum Performance

What is the best way to assign graduate business students to online team-based projects? Team assignments are frequently made on the basis of alphabet, time zones or previous performance. This study reviews personality as an indicator of student online team performance. The personality assessment IDE (Insights Discovery Evaluator) was administered to 450 students in the first six-week course of a proprietary online university MBA program. The IDE was utilized for the study because the university had selected the IDE as a part of its business curriculum. In the second week, students were randomly placed on 138 virtual teams and quantitative data collected from an assignment where students self-reported their IDE type. A qualitative method was used to determine subject IDE type in those cases where subjects did not clearly identify their type. Performance was measured using three instructor- graded assignments completed during the course. Student virtual teams were categorized as random, variable and dominant, contingent upon the composition of team personality types. This study found no statistically significant relationship between IDE’s personality types or the cognitive trait variables of attitude (extroversion and introversion) or trait function (thinking and feeling) on team performance. Personality trait did not appear to be a variable with the intentional formation of higher performing online student teams. All personality traits performed equally as well. Personality Bias (IDE type homogeneity) was the closest to being statistically significant as a factor in virtual team performance. A model is presented suggesting the relationship between personality and performance.

Concrescent Conversation as a Group Communication Tool in a Chinese University MBA Course

In order to be more competitive in the global marketplace, China has adopted a long-term plan to reform their higher education system. One specific aim of this plan is to facilitate the achievement of China’s goal of building a world-class market-driven economy through the development of an adequate supply of MBA-trained professional managers to lead their organizations. This case study presents an exploratory and descriptive research approach to assess the effects of an instructional delivery scenario in which concrescent conversation was used as a communication tool to create a cooperative learning setting in a mainland Chinese MBA course. The Index of Learning Styles (ILS) model was used to determine the learning style preference of the Chinese students. The study also investigated the relation between a student’s preferred learning style with gender and major (business, engineering, math, and science). Sensing-intuitive was the only ILS subscale with a significant difference across gender and major. Females exhibited a moderate preference for sensing learning while males exhibited a mild preference for sensing learning. Among majors, only business and engineering were significantly different from each other. Business majors tended to prefer the moderate sensing learning style and engineering majors indicated a preference for mild sequential learning style. Contrary to the literature on learning style differences attributed to specific cultural orientation, additional observations and results revealed that the Chinese MBA students accepted the instructional delivery scenario in which concrescent conversation was used to implement a student-centered learning setting.

Case studies in MBA strategic management curriculum development from Australian universities

AbstractIn recent years the Business Council of Australia (BCA) has drawn attention to the importance of the availability of a well-trained supply of employees for the Australian workplace. Specifically the BCA highlighted the benefits of a quality education imparting skills in the areas of collaboration, teamwork and leadership all of which greatly assist the effective practice of creativity, innovation and strategy. This paper makes a useful contribution to teaching practice in several ways. The paper links comments from the BCA to a significant and ongoing debate in the strategy literature on the best approaches to teaching the practice of strategy. The paper then demonstrates, with case studies from the RMIT University MBA and the Central Queensland University MBA programs, different approaches to how this can be done. This is followed by a critical discussion of the literature and case studies. Suggestions are made for future research and teaching practice.

Case studies in MBA strategic management curriculum development from Australian universities

AbstractIn recent years the Business Council of Australia (BCA) has drawn attention to the importance of the availability of a well-trained supply of employees for the Australian workplace. Specifically the BCA highlighted the benefits of a quality education imparting skills in the areas of collaboration, teamwork and leadership all of which greatly assist the effective practice of creativity, innovation and strategy. This paper makes a useful contribution to teaching practice in several ways. The paper links comments from the BCA to a significant and ongoing debate in the strategy literature on the best approaches to teaching the practice of strategy. The paper then demonstrates, with case studies from the RMIT University MBA and the Central Queensland University MBA programs, different approaches to how this can be done. This is followed by a critical discussion of the literature and case studies. Suggestions are made for future research and teaching practice.

Business Students Chart a New Course for Promoting the University Library

The Monmouth University Library undertook a collaborative project with a promotional strategies class in the university's MBA program to develop a promotional plan to increase awareness of library services. This article describes the process of approaching teaching faculty to participate in a collaborative project, developing a case study scenario, interacting with students to insure successful project results, participating in presentations of their findings, and ultimately taking the recommendations presented and turning them into an actionable plan for the library.

Eastern University's MBA in Economic Development

Evangelical Christian development organizations have long realized that mission effectiveness is largely contingent on the skills and abilities possessed by their human capital. A crucial way to create that human capital is through development-oriented academic programs, especially those focused on developing skills required by grassroots personnel and their support organizations. A review of Eastern University's MBA in economic development, celebrating its 25th anniversary, provides six conclusions and recommendations for implementing and assessing effective NGO management educational programs.

An online library service for Open University MBA alumni — challenges and opportunities

This article outlines a pilot project to offer a personalized online library service to Open University MBA alumni. A review of the literature and results of a desktop analysis of other UK Higher Education alumni library services are included. Content procurement and systems issues are considered along with the underlying organizational, resource and technical challenges experienced by the librarians involved. An analysis of initial usage and the results of a user survey are presented. Finally, practical advice is provided for other libraries considering similar initiatives.

Learning to learn online: A study of perceptual changes between multiple online course experiences

This paper reports on changes in students' perceptions of technological, course conduct, and course outcome variables as they participated in multiple online courses over a 4-year period in a Midwestern U.S. University's MBA program. While there was little to no significant change in students' perceptions of learning between their first online course and subsequent online courses, there were significant positive changes in their satisfaction with the Internet as a course delivery medium, their perceptions of participant interaction, and the usefulness and ease of use of the course software. Most of the significant changes in these perceptions occurred between the first and second times that the students participated in the study. These findings suggest that students need to take at least two online courses before drawing conclusions about this delivery medium, and that degree programs should provide focused attention to first-time online learners to encourage their participation in subsequent online courses.

Towards an ethnography of the MBA classroom: a consideration of the role of interactive lecturing styles within the context of one MBA programme

The need for MBA programmes to prepare managers for international business requires an international, interactive learning environment. This article considers the role of interactive lecturing styles within the context of the Edinburgh University MBA programme. A broad ethnographic perspective is adopted in order to provide ‘thick’ description of the learning context. Illustrations are taken from five different MBA classes of which three are core courses: Marketing, Economics and Statistics. The other two examples are from the second term options: Financial Institutions and Management of Technology. The examples show a variety of ways of including student oral participation within the lecture framework. Implications of this and future investigations of the MBA classroom for both EAP/ESP professionals and subject lecturers are considered.

Introduction

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Additional informationNotes on contributorsMargaret GholsonJohn K. Urice is Professor of Theart-e at Illinois Stare University. From 1975 to 1978 he held senior positions, including director; with the Fine Arts Council. From 1978 to 1984 he was both jiicuhy and administrator at the State University of New York at Binghomton, where he directed the MBA/Arts Program and Center for the Arts. From 1984 to 1998 he served as a dean twice and as a provost at three major public universities. Margaret “Molly” Gholson is on accomplished musician who is currently enrolled in Illinois State University's MBA program truck in arts administration.

Managers’ perceptions of strategic HR change

Describes an ongoing research project investigating how human resource strategies are conceived, designed and implemented in organizations as perceived by the managers involved. Data has been gathered using questionnaires completed by 723 managers studying the Open University MBA, over a five‐year period. The evidence shows most HR changes are organization wide and are intended to enhance organizational performance and support the achievement of primary business objectives. Whereas there is clear board level involvement at the initiation and planning stages, the responsibility for implementation is unclear. This absence of clarity, together with the citing of poor communications as the main reason for the failure of change initiatives, raises a number of questions about leadership, vision and direction, which are considered. The evaluation of the initiative is shown to be a difficult area, often involving inappropriate criteria and is perceived as having few links with the business strategy. From the perspective of their managers, it appears that organizations are still not effective in managing HR change and continue to make the same mistakes, despite the theories and prescription available in the literature.

Choosing a language for an MBA system modeling and simulation course

Simulation languages develop and evolve over time, and the courses in which modeling and simulation are taught must also evolve to keep pace. In the McMaster University MBA program, a study was undertaken in order to select a new simulation language for a system modeling and simulation course in which GPSS had previously been used, in order to demonstrate a broader possible selection of possible application areas for simulation. The language which was selected was SLAM II, and this selection was confirmed by monitoring the reactions and perceptions of the students to both the old and new languages, which were taught concurrently in two separate sections.