|
This is an exciting time to prepare
for a career in business management. There are
many changes in how business is being conducted
around the world. Clearly, this is a time of great
transition in the creation and distribution of
goods and services globally.
While times of transition often look
chaotic, new patterns will emerge that establish
the new order. Men and women entering business
careers in the coming decade will be a part of
creating the new patterns in the new order.
One of the most exciting features
of the current transition is the globalization
of business. Creation and exchange of goods and
services involves an increasing portion of the
world's population. Every year, the scope of participation
is greater. More countries, more cultures, more
people are involved in interactive economic trade.
Labor, goods, and services are exchanged more
broadly, and only a relatively small portion of
the world's population is left out of the global
economy - a portion that continues to shrink.
This globalization has made fundamental changes
in business outlook and practices.
Equally dramatic changes are taking
place in technology. Manufacturing, communications,
and transportation technologies are all producing
innovation on a scale and at a rate unimaginable
only a few years ago. This means the old mind
sets about how things are done, and with whom
transaction are made, are obsolete. Men and women
entering business management careers in the next
decade will literally be changing lives throughout
the world through techniques and transactions
not yet imagined.
All of these changes make this a
particularly propitious time to be acquiring a
business education. With so much change taking
place, persons acquiring a business management
education now can learn the techniques on the
leading edge of change. They can prepare themselves
to participate in the new patterns of business.
They will enter business careers as new patterns
are emerging, and they will participate in building
the operational practices twenty-first century
businesses.
With this amazing opportunity available
to them, it is especially important that persons
planning business careers get an education that
is reliable, current, and relevant. They need
to be certain that they experience educational
programs capable of preparing them for the excitement
ahead. Those programs must be in touch with the
latest techniques and practices. They must combine
the theoretical understanding of global economic
developments with a practical understanding of
how things get done. A student who invests his
or her time, effort, and opportunity in an educational
experience must be sure that the return on that
investment will be great. The best educational
experience will not just inform students, it will
transform them. At the end of the educational
experience they will see the world in ways they
had not seen it before, and they will behave differently
than they behaved before.
In this situation of opportunity,
the good new and the bad news comes from the same
phenomenon. There are more educational opportunities
for students wishing to enter into business management
careers than ever before. The bad news is that
the demand for business education is so great
that it has encouraged institutions of dubious
merit to enter the market.
Not all management education programs
are the same. Some do not have the resources to
assure that their education is current and relevant.
A shortage of qualified faculty and the expense
of maintaining current technology push costs up
for institutions offering business education.
Some do not have the will to use
their resources to make the education they offer
current and relevant. With high demand in the
market, some institutions can operate at lower
costs and higher profit margins by skimping on
needed personnel and technology. Students need
information as they make choices among education
providers.
AACSB International - The Association
to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business - has
been evaluating and accrediting educational quality
of business education since 1916. It provides
a rigorous peer review process for determining
those schools that offer quality business management
education. Worldwide, 424 schools have achieved
AACSB International accreditation, which assures
not only that they have achieved quality but that
they have mechanisms in place for continuous improvement
of their educational offerings. In making its
accreditation evaluations, AACSB looks at the
educational outcomes, processes that produce those
outcomes, and the processes that manage schools'
resources toward achievement.
The ultimate criteria for decision-making
within the AACSB accreditation process is a judgment
of overall high quality. Through the professional
judgment of the business school administrators
and corporate executives who comprise the peer
review teams, an overall quality judgment results
from the careful and detailed evaluation of this
school on AACSB's accreditation standards. Students
entering an AACSB-accredited business management
program can be assured that accreditation is earned
only after a careful and searching review process.
The coming decade will see a great need for emerging
leaders in business. These must be people with
vision and with values. They will be needed in
every industry and at every level of business
activity. The excitement of the current business
transitions will evolve into economic activity
and participation of a scope the world has never
seen. Today's students will be its creators and
leaders.
Author: Milton Blood, Managing
Director, AACSB International (The Association
to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business)
|
