Top 20 Asia-Pacific Business Schools

29th March 1997

The excellent and underrated World Executives Digest reports findings from the MBA Career Guide Recruiter Survey in their March issue. The survey uses a sample of 1,000 leading MBA recruiters in the Asia-Pacific, Europe and the United States, rating business schools on the criteria of international management, language ability, strategic thinking, prior work experience, interpersonal skills, finance skills, leadership skills, marketing skills, academic acheivement, and IT skills. As such the survey focusses specifically on skills underlining a "global" manager, prepared for international assignments. In alphabetical order, and containing many of our partners the Top 20 schools as rated by this sample are:

Australian Graduate School of Management	Sydney, Australia
Asian Institute of Management	Manila, Philippines
Australian National University	Canberra, Australia
Bond University	Gold Coast, Australia
Curtin University of Technology	Perth, Australia
Chulalongkorn University's Sasin School of Management	Bangkok, Thailand
Hong Kong Chinese University	Hong Kong
Hong Kong University of Science and Technology	Hong Kong
Hong Kong University Business School	Hong Kong
Indian Institute of Management	Ahmedabad, India
International University of Japan	Nigata, Japan
Indonesian Institute	Jakarta, Indonesia
Keio University	Japan
Macquarie University	Sydney, Australia
Monash University	Melbourne, Australia
University of Melbourne	Melbourne, Australia
Nanyang Technological University	Singapore
National University of Singapore	Singapore
University of Otago	Dunedin, New Zealand
University of Queensland	Brisbane, Australia

Our own view is that the list makes sense and there are few surprises. The World Executives Digest notes that "the management education arena is still relatively new in the Asia-Pacific" and that local schools are "still not established as a regular source of top talent for international conglomerates, consultancies or banks". That is probably not a bad thing. The "old school tie" has always been a "cop-out" criteria for recruiters and fosters inbreeding. And the success of graduates from the key US schools may be a result of a self fullfilling prophecy rather than anything else in the prestige rating mad US. Then again, they DID invent the MBA!

Truth is of course, that a top performer at a little known school is often a better prospect than a poor performer at a top school. MBA's, despite efforts such as Harvard's case study approach, links to industry and industry trained professors still continue to churn out excellent observers of management but far less effective practioners. While recruiters and industry continue to believe that management talent can be fully developed by the age of 25 to 30, by class room teaching as a replacement for 5 years of sound on-the-job training will continue to be dissappointed Neverthless, action learning approaches at some schools, included and not in the above, list are having good success at combining learning with action and producing excellent prospects as a result.

The approach of savvy recruiters is not to let the name of the school stand by itself, but to ask for actual "samples" of work produced on an MBA and discuss with the candidate what they LEARNED at the school. If you get a mish mash of theory as a response, consider the 2 years of study largely a waste of time. Some more information on the role of management qualifications as a recuitment/selection criteria, consult the Tips for Recruiters in Asia.

For those interested, the top US schools via WED are Wharton, Harvard, University of Chicago, Stanford, and MIT/Sloan. In Europe it is INSEAD, London Business School, IMD, Rotterdam School of Management, and the IESE International Graduate School of Management at the University of Navarra.

The time is nearing where Asian students need not leave the region for sound management education. The schools that come in for special note by WED are the Asian Institute of Management, Australian Graduate School of Management, the International University of Japan, and the Melbourne Business School. All are excellent choices though no school yet can claim the mantle of a "regional school", although AIM has deserved respect as an Asia wide school. Both Australian schools mentioned, while very active on recruitment of students from Asia, have yet to make the break from National Schools to Regional Schools by providing a region wide curriculum.