Here's the full post, as promised!

Frank pointed me at two Financial Times surveys yesterday: both concerning MBA programmes ... the world's best. They rank the programmes according to a list of variables.

Being the way I am, I set up a correlation matrix for each of the two survey results and here is what I found: interesting stuff! I know it might be seen as a bit esoteric and far removed from GCSE and A level but since MBAs and other Business School offerings are at the top end of what we do, here is my full listing of correlation coefficients based on the FT’s surveys of International MBA and Executive MBA Programmes.

Note the top ratings in both surveys are salary related issues … they are negative because the top ranking value is 1 and the bottom ranking is 100 or 50 depending on whether it’s the International MBA programme or the Executive MBA programme under review; whereas the highest salary is the largest number in its series. I should add that a recommendation from a friend/alumnus is also a key variable for the International MBA programme.

I also think these results are telling because the only variables that are worthy of mention are salary and career prospects: highly focused people as I said last night. Art for art’s sake be damned!

Notice that MBA students consider it a DISADVANTAGE to have someone on the faculty with a doctorate! Languages are relatively unimportant although the International stream sees them as more important than the executive stream: this makes sense! Even the international MBAs, though, don’t see the internationalisation of faculty as important: globalisation is clearly a home grown issue!

The executive MBA students see research rankings as a barrier to a good programme whereas the international students see research as being among the more important features of a good MBA programme.

One factor that isn’t included in the list of variables is the respondents’ age, length of work experience and similar factors: I think they would be revealing.

Summary of Comparisons
International
MBA FT top 100
EMBA
FT top 50
Salary (USS)
-0.8218
-0.6945
Weighted Salary (US$)
-0.8343
n/a
Salary % increase
-0.6406
-0.3295
Value for money
0.1121
n/a
Career progress
0.1359
-0.2629
Aims achieved
0.507
-0.225
Placement success
0.6158
n/a
Employment at 3 months (%)
-0.135
n/a
Alumni recommend
0.8377
n/a
Women Faculty {%)
0.0973
0.1566
Women Students (%)
-0.0107
-0.0535
Women Board (%)
0.2218
0.1507
International Faculty (%)
-0.1409
-0.4782
International students (%)
0.0343
-0.5498
International board (%)
-0.0965
-0.2898
International mobility
0.1166
n/a
International experience
-0.0896
-0.0761
Languages
0.112
-0.0756
Faculty with Doctorates (%)
-0.2008
-0.2664
FT Doctoral rating
0.2737
-0.2855
FT Research Rank
0.636
-0.464
Work Experience Index
n/a
-0.1048

Where a cell has n/a, this indicates that that variable was not measured or reported in that survey.

You can find the raw data here on the FT.com web site, at least for a while: look for the MBA Rankings table in the middle of the page.

Thanks to Frank for pointing me at these data.

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Duncan Williamson
24 January 2003