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Ruth Simpson is a leading scholar in management education. This paper aims to provide a succinct summary of her voluminous work on management education, with a particular focus on her work on the relevance and benefit of the Master in Business Administration (MBA) degree, which is generally considered the flagship of business and management education.

The approach taken is a review that introduces the central themes underpinning the work of Ruth Simpson on the MBA.

The paper elevates the understanding of the skills development and related outcomes from the MBA.

The works reviewed have implications on how to align the MBA curriculum to meet contemporary business requirements in a fast-changing world.

This paper highlights the key findings of Ruth Simpson’s research on the MBA and her scholarly contribution in this area. The paper also generates insights that are anticipated to stimulate management educators to further extend the field and carry it forward in the coming years.

The primary purpose of this article is to report on the opinions and perceptions of graduates of the quality and standing of South African Masters of Business Administration (MBA) programmes. This article seeks to assess specific outcomes of the MBA programmes offered by South African business schools; to gauge the quality of the MBA programmes of South African business schools, based on graduates’ perceptions; to extract factors relating to the MBA programme outcomes; and MBA programme quality; and to elicit the opinions of graduates on the future development of the MBA programme in South Africa. The main findings pertain to the MBA graduates’ perceptions of the outcome and quality of the MBA programme as well as the most prominent findings in respect of the open question on the future development of South African MBA programmes, from the perspective of graduates.

The forces driving change in MBA education in Australia are analysed and the resulting changes that are occurring are described. Reduced government funding, the emerging globalisation of the market and increased institutional flexibility are leading to a wider choice of providers and course types. Choices regarding course length, teaching/learning methodologies, full or part‐time courses, content and costs are discussed. The potential emergence of a project‐based MBA market for corporate clients is also considered through examination of the MBA (Mt Eliza) course.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate Master of Business Administration (MBA) students' performance in handling alternative types of accounting questions in order to generate some insights for future MBA accounting module teaching and assessment design.

The paper employs two approaches: first, statistical analysis is used on a large sample of MBA students' accounting modules results on two different types of questions. Second, common problems are identified from the assessments and summarized for analysis.

There is a statistically significant difference in performance between two types of assessment methods. The difference can be logically explained from analyzing the common problems identified in MBA students' accounting assessment scripts.

This paper provides only preliminary findings for the purpose of “rethinking” of future MBA accounting module design. Further work is required to investigate the impacts of MBA students' personal characteristics, e.g. year of working experience, first degree discipline, etc. on their accounting module performance.

This paper provides some important practical insights that suggest that the current MBA accounting module design “may be” incorrect in terms of topic coverage, delivery schedule and expectation.

The paper will initiate a new debate on how future MBA accounting modules should be, and how to teach and assess it.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the management competencies required by a Master of Business Administration (MBA) graduate to succeed as a global business manager in an increasingly competitive business environment in Asia.

This paper analyzes the differences in management competencies of nearly 600 MBA students from 13 universities in Thailand and Hong Kong. In the questionnaire, the MBA students are asked to indicate the levels of the management competencies which they have gained from studying the MBA program.

The findings indicate that the work competency of the Hong Kong MBA students is significantly higher than the Thai MBA students. The levels of interpersonal competency do not, however, differ significantly between the Thai and Hong Kong students. The findings also show that there are significant relationships between the background variables, e.g. job title and cultural values – namely individual success and social power – and work and interpersonal competencies.

To improve the value of the MBA programs in Thailand, business schools will need to put more emphasis on the work competencies in their curricula. More workshops that actively stimulate work competencies must be emphasized in the Thai MBA programs.

The study of management competencies in Asia representing Thailand and Hong Kong is rare. New management development approaches are proposed for business schools to train their business students to become world‐class global managers.

The purpose of this paper is to review and categorize the different strategies Master of Business Administration (MBA) programs have adopted towards incorporating environmental sustainability into business administration.

Through extensive internet research looking at colleges and universities, data are collected from primary source web sites and administrative school contacts. There are 35 institutions whose MBA programs address sustainability in some way. Each of these institutions is then organized by location, tuition cost, enrollment, year founded, accreditation, and curriculum.

Green educational strategies differentiate themselves by the size and maturity of the program. Larger, established institutions typically opt for the green major, or a dual degree, and tend to leave systematic integration of sustainability to the individual student. Newer and smaller entrants tend to either dabble in green with a few sustainability courses, or completely embrace and systemically integrate sustainability throughout the program.

The sample focuses on US institutions and treats sustainability as an externally validated curricular choice when it may merely be an educational fad. The sample excludes potential green MBA programs that lack a strong internet presence.

Four archetypes are identified: dual degree, all‐green, green major, and green coursework. Institutions can analyze their performances and see where they fall on the two major continua – integration and maturity/size.

Green MBA programs are relatively new on the academic landscape, and this research paper is one of the first to systematically analyze and categorize them.

One of the characteristics of the Japanese management education has been the near absence of domestic MBA programmes on the one hand and the prevalence of in‐company education on the other. Yet many large companies have increasingly been sending their employees to overseas MBA programmes. The sudden emergence of part‐time MBA programmes in the late 1980s, which might have appeared to go some way to addressing this seeming paradox, has not in fact been the answer, since the benefits the businesses seek from the overseas MBA programmes are those which the domestic MBA programmes cannot provide. There is also a big gap between the aspirations of the MBAs and the corporate HRM reality. Examines the reasons behind the recent development, and explores the more general issues which the domestic MBA education is likely to encounter for some time, through the findings of the recent research and the experience of the Kobe University in this area.

The 170-year-old Master in Business Administration (MBA) program is becoming obsolete and inefficient to address today's real-world problems, and is facing mounting criticism from business scholars, management deans, and academic scholars alike. Reviewing major criticisms, this chapter suggests a new design for the MBA program that will not only address the criticisms but also accept a paradigm shift that will spearhead it in coming decades. The redesigned MBA “structure” proposes a four-semester full-time program, during which each semester delves into deeper marketplace problems of increasing complexity (i.e., from simple to complex to unstructured to wicked problems) and deals with these problems with new levels of critical thinking skills and ethical reasoning processes tempered by corresponding entrepreneurial knowledge, skills, and values. The “content” of the redesigned program is anchored around five major themes of business learning: namely, intrinsic motivation management, creativity and innovation management, productivity management, revenue management, and eco-sustainability management, each geared to generate professional entrepreneurial knowledge, and skills and values urgently needed today. Numerous beneficial features of this newly redesigned integrated business management program (MBA) are also discussed.

This chapter presents through a case study detailed concrete experiences of the implementation of an entrepreneurship-focused MBA within the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

Review of the UAE context, the formation of Abu Dhabi School of Management, the development of its MBA program and components, and the impact to date of the MBA program. An analysis of the challenges associated with the design and delivery of the MBA program is also presented.

Launching an entrepreneurship-specific MBA in an emerging market based upon an existing world-class entrepreneurship MBA program is feasible and desirable. Specific cultural norms and practices need to be taken into account to ensure that the program and its delivery are fit for the local country.

Provides insight into specific MBA program attributes that need to be customized for the UAE, including assessment, case study use, and delivery format. Furthermore, it also emphasizes the importance of having local faculty for effective program delivery and the risks of, and approaches to, using international faculty who are not based in the country of delivery.

The purpose of this chapter is to develop a deeper understanding of the CSR perspectives of MBA in the European context. The chapter will review literature from the USA and Europe focused on business school ethics and the CSR. The chapter will then present the findings generated from research into MBA students’ ethics and corporate social responsibility (CSR) from a European business school research site.

This was inductive research that used qualitative, semi-structured interviews, along with other qualitative techniques, to collect data. The research population was purposely selected from two cohorts of MBA students, one comprising P/T, the other F/T students.

The research confirmed that there are broad similarities between the USA and Europe, in terms of students’ experiences of business school scholarship and pedagogy. The research also confirmed, however, that these European-based students wanted a greater focus on CSR, for instance in terms of addressing the relationship between business and the environment, which students do not consider is adequately addressed in their programmes. Furthermore, and reflecting US experience, students reported at the completion of the MBA that they were conscious that they had become more focused on their individual ‘rational’ self-interest, with the goal of increasing their own material success. Not all of these students were content with this change, but they reported that it had been embedded within them, as a consequence of studying for an MBA.

US-based research and this example from the European context both point to the conclusion that there is dominant instrumental paradigm in HE business and management pedagogy. This paradigm needs to be challenged to restore society’s ethical and CSR expectations, and also to facilitate the moral education of more socially responsible MBA graduate managers. The research confirmed that students are very much in favour of CSR framed changes to the MBA programme.

This chapter contributes to a developing research stream into MBA programmes and CSR in a European context.