经济学人商业 || 美国商学院正在重塑MBA教育模式

Management education

管理教育

The next business revolution

下场商业变革

American business schools are reinventing the MBA. About time

美国商学院正在重塑MBA教育模式。是时候了。

On a visit to New York in October Marc Benioff, boss of Salesforce, compared Facebook to cigarettes and backed a corporate tax hike to deal with homelessness in San Francisco. If badmouthing a fellow technology giant and cheering the taxman were not heterodox enough for a billionaire entrepreneur, Mr Benioff laid into American management education. It “programmes” students to favour profit over the public good. This, he noted, is out of step with “the new capitalism”.

去年十月，Salesforce的老板马克•贝尼奥夫（Marc Benioff）访问纽约时，把脸书（Facebook）比作香烟，并支持加征企业税来应对旧金山流浪汉的问题。对贝尼奥夫这样亿万身家的企业家而言，如果诋毁同业科技巨头为征税摇旗呐喊还不够“与众不同”的话，更异乎寻常地是，他的炮火又攻向美国的管理教育。这一教育“指使”学生将个人利益置于公众利益之上。他指出，这样的教育与“新资本主义”格格不入。

注：

Salesforce：客户关系管理（CRM）软件服务提供商，创建于1999年3月，总部设于旧金山。2004年6月，公司在纽约证券交易所成功上市。2019年10月23日，Salesforce在最新公布的2019《财富》未来50强榜单中排行第9位。

Many deans concur. “We need our students to be thoughtful about the role of business in society, particularly at a moment in time when capitalism is coming under attack,” says William Boulding of Duke’s Fuqua School of Business. Nitin Nohria of Harvard Business School (HBS) reports how younger alumni and incoming classes want “the place of work to reflect purpose and values”. Jonathan Levin of Stanford’s Graduate School of Business (GSB) talks of business schools’ responsibility to recognise the societal consequences of corporate actions. “Corporations, their leaders and owners need to act to restore trust,” he intones.

很多商学院院长认同这一观点。杜克大学福库商学院（Duke’s Fuqua School of Business）的威廉·博尔丁（William Boulding）表示：“我们需要引导学生思考商业在社会中的角色，现如今资本主义遭人诟病，我们更应如此。”哈佛商学院（HBS）的尼廷•诺里亚（Nitin Nohria）称年轻毕业生和入学新生渴望“工作场所能反映出企业宗旨和价值观”。斯坦福大学商学院（GSB）的乔纳森·莱文（Jonathan Levin）提及，商学院有责任明确企业行为引发的社会后果。他娓娓道来：“企业、企业领导人及股东都需要采取行动，恢复社会对自己的信任。”

America’s business schools still dominate our annual ranking of the world’s top MBAs (see table). But the industry is being shaken up. According to the Graduate Management Admission Council (GMAC), an industry association, American MBA programmes received 7% fewer applicants this year than last. Nearly three-quarters of full-time, two-year MBA programmes reported declines from coast to coast. Not even the most illustrious ones were spared: HBS (located in Boston) and Stanford’s GSB (in Palo Alto) both saw applications dip by 6% or so. Schools face growing competition from overseas and online programmes—and, as Mr Benioff’s critique implies, questions over hidebound curriculums. “We’re being disrupted left, right and centre,” confesses Susan Fournier, dean of Boston University’s Questrom School of Business.

美国商学院仍在全球顶尖MBA年度排行榜上占有优势（见表）。不过，这一产业正经历动荡。管理专业研究生入学考试委员会（GMAC）的数据显示，今年美国MBA项目的申请者相比去年减少了7%。全美近四分之三的两年全日制MBA项目申请人数出现了下滑。即使是最著名的商学院也未能幸免：哈佛商学院（位于波士顿）和斯坦福大学商学院(GSB)（位于帕罗奥图Palo Alto）的申请人数都下降了6%左右。美国商学院面临海外众学院和线上项目日益激烈的竞争，不仅如此，正如贝尼奥夫先生批评的那样,其自身课程设置同样也很僵化。波士顿大学奎斯特罗姆商学院（Questrom School of Business）院长苏珊·福涅尔（Susan Fournier）坦称：“我们目前内忧外患，四面楚歌”。

注：

Shake up : to subject to a drastic rearrangement or reorganization

2. from coast to coast：

from one side of the country to the other. Typically refers to the United States, which is bordered by oceans in the East and  West.

When management education boomed in the 1960s, American schools taught mostly American students. As the world economy globalised in the 1980s and 1990s, so too did American curriculums and student bodies. Sangeet Chowfla, who heads GMAC, now discerns a “third wave”: improved schools outside America are letting foreign students study closer to home (and future employers). Many offer cheaper one-year MBAs, popular in Europe but uncommon across the pond. Whereas three in four two-year MBA programmes in America saw declines in overseas applicants in the latest application cycle, numbers applying to Asian business schools rose by 9% from 2017 to 2018. A recent uptick in America’s anti-immigrant sentiment is accelerating the trend.

20世纪60年代，管理教育十分火爆，美国学校主要教授本国学生。上世纪八九十年代，随着世界经济的全球化，美国的课程和学生群体也全球化起来。管理专业研究生入学考试委员会(Graduate Management Admission Council)首席执行官桑吉特•乔弗拉(Sangeet Chowfla)察觉到如今出现了第三波浪潮。美国地区之外学校授课方式不断完善，外国学生可以在离家（离未来雇主）更近的地方求学。许多学校提供一年制工商管理硕士，价格低廉，这种形式风靡欧洲，但大西洋彼岸却不太盛行。最新的申请周期数据显示， 2017到2018年间，美国四分之三的两年制工商管理硕士项目海外学生申请数量下降，但同期亚洲各家商学院申请数量上升9%。近期美国反移民情绪的高涨更加剧了这种趋势。

Americans, too, are cooling on MBAs. More than half of American schools report fewer domestic applicants. Soaring tuition costs, which have far outpaced inflation, put them off as much as they do foreigners. A top-notch MBA will set you back more than $200,000 (including living costs). Even with financial aid, many students are saddled with $100,000 debts at graduation. The opportunity cost of forgoing two years’ worth of paycheques is higher when the economy is booming and labour markets are tight. Weak demand has caused the number of full-time MBA programmes in America to fall by nearly a tenth between 2014 and 2018, according to the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business, another industry body.

美国本土工商管理硕士项目申请热度也不断降温。逾半数美国学校报告本土申请数量在不断减少。增长速度远超通货膨胀的学费，迫使国内学生如同留学生般对该项目望而却步。就读顶尖工商管理硕士项目花费将超二十万美元（含生活费）。即便政府提供了助学金，许多学生毕业时还是会背负多达十万美元的债务。经济繁荣，就业市场供大于求之时，放弃两年赚钱时间去读书的机会成本更为高昂。美国全日制管理硕士项目需求下降，根据国际商管学院促进协会联盟的数据，全日制工商管理硕士项目的数目在2014年到2018年间下降近百分之十。

Geoffrey Garrett, dean of the Wharton School, at the University of Pennsylvania, believes that a flight to quality is benefiting top institutions like his—and their graduates. Add non-wage compensation and alumni often recoup their investments in a few years. Not counting signing bonuses, the average base salary for graduates of the five American schools with the highest earning potential was $139,000.

宾夕法尼亚沃顿商学院院长杰夫里·加雷特(Geoffrey Garrett)表示，注重质量对包括沃顿商学院在内的顶尖商学院及其毕业生都有益处。算上非工资报酬，这些研究生的学费投资几年就能回本。不算签约奖金，美国收入潜力最高的五所商学院，其毕业生的平均起薪为十三万九千美元。

Consultancies and investment banks, historically the keenest MBA recruiters, claim their appetite for holders of elite degrees has not diminished. A prestigious MBA “puts a floor on your career”, explains Kostya Simonenko, a 28-year-old consultant on leave from Oliver Wyman (which is paying for his course at Columbia Business School). Silicon Valley, which used to dismiss MBAsas overpaid know-nothings, has become less hostile. As startups grow into large corporations, they need managers to help run things, not just software engineers to run code. A survey of recruiters by GMAC this year found that 80% of technology companies planned to hire MBAs, on a par with consultancies (82%) and financial firms (77%).

咨询机构和投资银行，历来最热衷聘用管理硕士，他们对拥有顶尖学位的人才的需求并未下降。奥纬咨询公司顾问克斯特亚·西莫年科（Kostya Simonenko），今年二十八岁，请假攻读MBA（就读哥伦比亚商学院的费用由该公司买单）, 表示知名管理硕士学位是事业发展的垫脚石。硅谷企业曾经认为工商管理硕士薪资过高，没有真才实学，而今这种敌意也消退了许多。初创公司不断发展成为大型企业，不仅仅需要软件工程师编写代码，更需要管理人员负责公司运营。管理专业研究生入学考试委员会今年对雇主进行的调查发现，80%的科技公司计划雇佣管理硕士，与咨询公司（82%）和金融公司（77%）数值接近。

Even the finest schools, though, are not sheltered from the forces buffeting business education. Global competition and new technology platforms enable a lower cost structure for the delivery of high-quality courses. This forces “a reckoning of the MBA value proposition”, says Ms Fournier.

面对各种势力对商业教育的冲击，即便顶尖商学院也无法全身而退。 全球化的竞争以及新技术平台正以更加低廉的成本提供高质量的课程。福涅尔女士表示，这种状况促使“重新考量MBA的价值”。

As part of that reckoning, Questrom has teamed up with EDX, a big online-education firm, to offer a full MBA degree online for just $24,000, less than a third of the cost of its on-campus equivalent. Better to cannibalise yourself than let others do it, as Ms Fournier puts it. MIT’s Sloan School of Management provides similarly affordable bundles of online courses, dubbed MicroMasters, in areas like supply-chain management and finance. These grant certificates but the credits will be honoured if a student one day decides to pursue a full degree. 2U, an online-education platform, is introducing deferred-tuition schemes for some hybrid MBA degrees. It will share the upfront costs with its business-school partners; students will pay only when they get a job.

重新考量MBA价值的重要体现，奎斯特罗姆商学院与大型在线教育公EDX合作，以24,000美元的价格提供完整的在线MBA学位教育课程，该价格不及同等线下学校教育成本的1/3。正如福涅尔女士所说，与其被人取代，不如取代自己。麻省理工学院的斯隆管理学院在供应链管理和金融等领域，提供价格实惠的系列课程，称为微硕士（Micro Masters）项目。该系列课程提供结业证书，如果学生决定进一步攻读学位，则可兑换为学分。在线教育平台2U，正在为某些混合制MBA学位引入学费延期交纳计划。该平台将与商学院合作伙伴共同分担前期费用；学生只需找到工作后再支付学费即可。

注：Micro Masters 项目在中国

http://news.cnnb.com.cn/system/2017/05/11/008634005.shtml

It is not just how MBA courses are taught that is changing. So, too, is what they teach. Many budding woke capitalists agree with Mr Benioff—and demand to be taught business beyond the primacy of shareholder value. At Stanford Luisa Gerstner, a millennial MBA student from Germany, notes that sustainable capitalism plays a more central role in European schools. Julia Osterman, her American classmate, laments how, despite some social, environmental and ethical topics in its curriculum, core classes are still “too Finance 101”.

MBA转变的不仅仅是授课方式，授课内容也在发生改变。许多展露头角的资本家都赞成贝尼奥夫的观点—MBA传授给学生的价值取向不应该仅是“股东至上”。路易斯•格斯特纳（Luisa Gerstne）这位在斯坦佛攻读MBA的德国千禧一代，发现可持续发展资本主义在欧洲的大学更为核心。路易斯的美国同学朱莉亚•奥斯特玛(Julia Osterma)则遗憾地表示，课程虽然包括了一些社会、环境和伦理内容，然而整体上仍然过于侧重基础财经知识。

注：

Finance 101 :

https://www.google.com/search?ei=SO6_XfOmL4TStAX3y4HoCA&q=Finance+101&oq=Finance+101&gs_l=psy-ab.3..0i7i30l10.43668.44180..44798...0.0..0.339.1196.2-3j1......0....1..gws-wiz.GG9AAwKB34U&ved=0ahUKEwjz6reNntDlAhUEKa0KHfdlAI0Q4dUDCAs&uact=5

Some of their professors are not so sure. One greybeard at HBS estimates that a third of its faculty (and many older alumni) view the embrace of cuddly “stakeholder capitalism” as an unrigorous sop to political correctness. It certainly introduces lots of grey areas, Mr Boulding concedes. But, he says, schools can at least provide students with “frameworks for making choices”. A new course at Duke is entitled “Capitalism and Common Purpose in a World of Differences”. HBS has made “Leadership and Corporate Accountability” (which delves into “the responsibilities of business to the broader system in which it is embedded”) a required first-year course, with case studies weighing up things like the morality of looking beyond financial metrics at Japan’s Government Pension Investment Fund.

而一些教授则持不同看法。哈佛商学院的一位资深学者估计，该院三分之一的教员（以及许多早期校友）认为，信奉讨人喜爱的“利益相关者资本主义”是对政治正确的不严谨迎合。博尔丁（Boulding）先生承认，毫无疑问，“利益相关者权益理论”还有很多不明确之处。但他认为，学院至少能为学生提供“做出选择的框架”。杜克大学开设了一门新课程，名为“差异世界中的资本主义和共同目标”。哈佛商学院已将“领导力和公司责任”（深入研究“企业在其植根的更广泛体系中的责任”）作为一年级的必修课程，运用案例教学，诸如抛开财务指标衡量日本政府养老金投资基金的道德性等。

Recoding academies

商学院内课程大洗牌

Curriculums are being transformed in less lofty ways, too. Employers, who partly or wholly bankroll half of all executive education, which earns elite schools between $100m and $150m a year, want it to impart technical skills. In response, deans such as Costis Maglaras, the newish head of Columbia Business School (and an engineer by training), are bolting courses >tech-savvy MBAs are “very attractive”.

课程改革的理由并非皆是体面高尚（还有来自雇主的要求）。诸位雇主提供了半数工商管理教育所需的部分甚或全部资金，每年为知名学院带来1亿至1.5亿美元收入。他们希望学院传授一些专业技能。作为回报，院方听取他们的建议。譬如哥伦比亚商学院，新任院长科斯蒂斯•迈格拉瑞斯(Costis Maglaras)（一位训练有素的工程师），在院内新设了数据、分析和编程等课程。这些课程越来越受欢迎，很可能会取代之前那些乏味空洞的课程。过去哥伦比亚商学院会开设多门有关债务市场的课程，但现在每学年可能只开设一门。与此同时，新开的编程课上座无虚席。迈格拉瑞斯先生表示，课程调整的目的不是让学生成为专业技术人员，而是为他们之后如何与技术人员共事并且管理后者做好准备。一家大型咨询公司的招聘人员明确表示公司会更青睐通晓技术的MBA学生。

注：

1. What's engineer by training ？It means he was trained (in school/university) as an engineer, but emphasizes that he may not be currently working (or perhaps didn't subsequently work) as an engineer (but perhaps as a business executive)

2. tech-savvy ：knowing a lot about modern technology, especially computers

Richard Lyons, former dean of the Haas Business School at the University of California, Berkeley, sees the future in providing lifelong professional education as a service: “Give alumni know-how on demand, searchable online.” Scott DeRue, dean of the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business, is giving alumni tuition-free access to executive education. “The new stuff will come from insurgents, not the big MBA schools,” thinks John Kao, a management guru who formerly taught at HBS. He wants training benchmarks and standardised transcripts to make skills portable and universally recognised.

加州大学伯克利分校哈斯商学院的前院长理查德•莱昂斯(Richard Lyons)认为未来学院将会提供终身职业教育服务，“为校友提供量身定制的职业技能课程，可在线学习”。密歇根大学罗斯商学院的院长斯科特•德鲁(Scott DeRue)提到学院为校友开设了免费的工商管理课程。曾在哈佛商学院任教的管理学专家高约翰(John Kao)认为这些变革将会自下而上发生（即应学生的要求而生），而非知名学院自上而下主动寻求改变。他希望能够统一培训基准实现成绩单的标准化，以便学生的技能可以充分施展并得到广泛认可。

At HBS, home to perhaps the most hallowed MBA, Mr Nohria accepts that the market for its traditional offering is shrinking. In a sign of the times, his school has frozen tuition fees. He sees a dramatic expansion for “unbundlers” of online education, who “separate knowing, doing and being”. In time, he says, they will converge with “bundlers” like HBS. Far from collapsing, he reckons, management education will the richer for it. 

诺里亚(Nohria)先生承认，即使是世界首屈一指的MBA圣地哈佛商学院，其传统教学课程也在日渐没落，不那么受欢迎了。作为一个时代的标志，哈佛商学院学费不再上涨。他发现线上教育因其“拆分”性而发展迅速，但也存在把“知学、知为和知之”这三者孤立开来的弊端。他认为线上教育最终会和哈佛商学院这样的传统教育合流，而管理学这一专业非但不会没落，反而会因此更加蓬勃发展。

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