JOANNE GRAY AND TIM DODD
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Boss 2013 MBA Ranking
MBA: investment or indulgence?
Melbourne Business School, long regarded as Australia’s premiere *Master of Business Administration *educator, has lost its crown to the *University of Queensland, which has topped the 2013 Financial Review BOSS MBA ranking.
After two years at number one, Melbourne Business School slipped to second place behind Queensland.
“We’ve had a long-term vision about where we wanted the MBA to go,” said Andrew Griffiths, dean and head of University of Queensland Business School.
“We want quality and flexibility and we’ve channelled resources into career development and the alumni network, and into providing our students with other opportunities.”
He said the resources investment boom, which buoyed the state’s economy and led to an influx of resources workers, had left a legacy. “A lot of engineers and scientists and people with technical expertise have moved into our economy and I think they’ve looked to us to raise their skill base.”
Queensland business schools took five of the top 10 places in this year’s BOSS MBA ranking, indicating the growing strength and quality of business education in the state.
Queensland University of Technology was ranked third, Bond University fifth, the University of Southern Queensland was eighth and Griffith University ninth for their MBA courses.
“There are a number of business schools in Queensland, so that means we have to be good at what we do and attract good quality students,” said Robina Xavier, dean of the Queensland University of Technology Business School.
MELBOURNE BUSINESS SCHOOL MOST CONSISTENT
Melbourne Business School has been the most consistent high performer in the BOSS MBA ranking since its inception.
Dean Zeger Degraeve said: “While we can expect rankings to change from time to time, the quality of our *programs and our personalised learning environment, and our focus on developing entrepreneurial thinking and leadership, remain.”
For the first time, the Boss MBA Ranking has separately listed executive MBAs, which are generally more expensive and aimed at more *senior managers, compared with MBAs whose students generally have five to 10 years working experience.
The top-ranked executive MBA is the University of Sydney Business School Global Executive MBA, a $90,000 “in-depth experience” that, because of the seniority of its *students, includes more experiential learning and less direct information.
The course includes three two-week modules in Silicon Valley, Bangalore and Europe, where the curriculum includes studying wine-growing in the Languedoc region of the south of France.
Apart from its other attractions, the French wine industry was chosen because it is a case study of a mature, low-tech business.
Melbourne Business School was also ranked second for its executive MBA, which is focused on Asia and structured in four-day, intensive modules.
The ranking process took place over the past ten months and involved over 1700 student responses across a number of criteria, and also included assessment of faculty academic credentials, business experience and research output.
The Melbourne EMBA caters to *anybody within an eight-hour flight of Melbourne.
“People fly in on the Wednesday night and then fly back home on Sunday night,” said Professor Degraeve.
The degree seeks to develop a range of skills including leadership, the ability to think about new ways of doing business and the ability to make it happen.
