In this special report on management studies, from an MA in leadership to an MBA in healthcare, Peter Bartram surveys the choices on offer and finds out why an experienced director would want to go back to school

Specialist courses

Fine distinctions

With more than 100 business schools in the UK, directors looking for executive education need to choose carefully. This is particularly true for bosses of small and medium-sized enterprises wishing to hone their management skills in particular areas.

SMEs are well catered for among Britain's business schools but you have to know where to look. The first place to consider is Warwick Business School, whose Centre for Small & Medium-Sized Enterprises, founded in 1984, was among the first to specialise.

Others with offerings for SMEs include Bolton Business School, Southampton Business School at Southampton Solent University, and the faculty of business and management at the University of Ulster, which includes the Northern Ireland Centre for Entrepreneurship.

Fodder for fertile minds
Directors who want to sharpen their entrepreneurial skills are spoilt for choice, with well over a dozen schools running specialisms. One of the best is the Centre for Entrepreneurial Learning at Judge Business School, University of Cambridge.

Dr Shamus Husheer, who graduated from the centre last summer, has already put his learning to good use. With five fellow graduates, he's founded a company called Cambridge Temperature Concepts, which is developing a technology to detect ovulation in women and assist conception. He says: "The business training has really helped transform us from bench scientists to entrepreneurs."

Other options in this area of study include the Hunter Centre for Entrepreneurship at the University of Strathclyde, where Professor Colin Mason is a world authority on business angels and finance. Specialist courses also run at Durham, Edinburgh and Oxford Brookes.

If the business is on course but the captaincy is lacking something, the MA at the Centre for Leadership Studies at Exeter University might be the first port of call.

Kelly Telfer, a student on the programme, will be attending the Women as Global Leaders conference next month in Dubai. "Leadership is one of the most important elements of any business," she says, "not only for production but for the motivation of the team." Those whose team consists of their nearest and dearest may wish to consider the family business MBA at the University of Gloucestershire Business School or the MBA in entrepreneurship and family business at the University of Edinburgh Management School.

Whatever the specialism, getting immediate value  from the course will be a priority for many directors. For instance, students on MBA courses at Ashridge Business School undertake a "live consultancy project"—an opportunity to tap into their tutors' knowledge to tackle issues of current concern in their own companies.

Big shots who want nothing but the best should consider one of the business schools near the top of the annual Financial Times international rankings. Seven UK schools came in the top 50 in the 2007 rankings. They are: London Business School (fifth), Judge Business School, Cambridge (15th), Saïd Business School, University of Oxford (19th), Manchester Business School (22nd), Lancaster University Management School (28th), Warwick Business School (36th) and Cranfield School of Management (37th).

But if those seem too daunting, with an MBA in "football industries" from the University of Liverpool Management School, you're guaranteed to score.

International standards

Around the world in 40 BAs

The international executive of tomorrow will need to be as at home in Lahore, Lima or Los Angeles as in London. This is a hard fact which the most successful UK business schools have already taken on board.
Many have adapted their courses so they have an international flavour. Jonathan Slack, chief executive of the Association of Business Schools, points out that more schools are presenting a global face to the millions of new business students who will be seeking to study outside their home country in the years ahead.

"There's often a broad international mix of students, faculty and what is taught on the courses," says Slack. On three- or four-year degree courses there may be overseas secondments. This approach has been encouraged by the European Quality Improvement System (EQUIS) run by the European Foundation for Management Development in Brussels.

Internationalisation is one of the main requirements that a business school must meet to win accreditation. International standards will be important in the future as schools compete in the worldwide multi-billion-pound market for business students. European schools are hoping that the Bologna Accord, a plan to harmonise more than 40 countries' higher education systems into a single system of bachelors' and masters' degrees, will enable them to compete more effectively on the world stage.

The accord, which is due to go live in 2010, will replace qualifications that are little known in expanding markets, such as the Far East, with a standard set of degrees. This will make European study more attractive to students from those markets. Slack also sees Bologna encouraging more co-operation between business schools in different countries. It will be easier for students to move between courses run within the same European framework.

At the moment, the fast-growth parts of the world—such as the "bric" economies of Brazil, Russia, India and China—can't get enough western business education. But there are already signs that these countries want to provide more of their own management teaching. Last year, it emerged that China will be seeking to attract 120,000 foreign students a year.
In this climate, Slack agrees that UK and other western business schools will need to adapt. "There is, for example, activity to ensure that not everything on a course has to be done in English," he says.
"At the moment, the majority of overseas students want a western learning experience. But the support structures, in terms of marketing to them, inducting them onto programmes and providing a supportive learning environment, are opening up."

Ryan Ahern, head of learning and development at the Institute of Directors, agrees that the international dimension will be increasingly important and that this may mean changes to course content.

"Although there is certainly a demand for UK qualifications," says Ahern, "we have to be flexible on what that means. Just to drop something in that is UK-based doesn't always work."

MBAs

Degree of flexibility

Directors of small and medium-sized companies who believe they're simply too busy to study for an MBA should think again. They may lose time at the office, but they could gain much more, such as the opportunity to develop a fresh perspective on the business challenges they face. "It's a mistake to believe that MBAs are only for high-flyers who go on to work for big firms," says Jeanette Purcell, chief executive of the Association of MBAs (AMBA).

There are now around 120 business schools in the UK awarding MBAs, some of which cater for small businesses. For example, Cranfield School of Management has a business growth and development programme aimed at "ambitious owner-managers", the University of Bolton has an MBA in small business management, and the University of Gloucestershire runs a well established MBA in family business.

Purcell believes studying for an MBA can broaden a director's horizons. "It encourages you to look beyond your own area of experience and pick up new ideas, think about new approaches and look at how a business can be transformed and developed," she says.

As directors of SMEs have found (see case studies below), one of the greatest benefits of signing up to an MBA is the opportunity to meet other directors in a confidential environment in which it's possible to discuss different approaches to common problems.

In view of this, Purcell believes those who gain most from an MBA are directors who can bring some real work experience to their studies. "An MBA is designed to enhance and develop previous experience," she says. "If you come to a course without that experience, you'll be lost because you'll be sitting with students who have a good start in terms of understanding what business is all about."

But not everyone thinks it's a good idea to take time out to study. Canadian management guru Henry Mintzberg has been a consistent critic of MBA teaching, most notably in his book Managers Not MBAs.
Mintzberg argues that MBA courses tend to give the impression that "managing is largely about decision making through analysis; that managers pronounce deliberate strategies for everyone else to implement; and, worst of all, that by sitting in a classroom for a couple of years, you are now ready to manage anything". He backs his case by claiming that 10 of the 19 "great" CEOs mentioned in David W Ewing's 1990 book Inside the Harvard Business School had failed by the time Mintzberg published his own book in 2003 and that the records of another four were questionable.

Yet criticisms such as these don't seem to have blunted students' appetite for MBA courses. British business schools are currently turning out around 10,000 MBA graduates a year—more than any other European country.
The various institutions are seeking to differentiate themselves in order to attract more students. According to David Simpson, associate dean, marketing and admission for the MBA programme at the London Business School, one of the key ways to do this is to offer a choice of study options, for example, full-time, part-time or distance learning.

"The quality and reputation of the programmes and the level of interactions you will get on the course with other people—faculty, students and guest speakers—are also important differentiators," says Simpson.
One trend is for business schools to specialise in a particular vertical market. For example, the University of Aberdeen offers an MBA in international healthcare management. But, speaking generally, Simpson is concerned that vertical market MBAs may appeal to too narrow a group of people. "That will affect the diversity within your class and the ability to learn from that diversity," he says.

With more business schools and more courses, it's not easy for a director to know which to choose. Purcell, not surprisingly, recommends that directors should opt for a programme accredited by the AMBA. But only 40 of the UK's 120 business schools have so far been accredited. To gain accreditation, schools have to meet four key criteria. First, they must ensure that the students they enrol have previous experience of business. Second, the school's staff and curriculum must have an international focus. Third, the teaching staff must be highly qualified with a significant number of doctorates among the faculty. Finally, there must be a wide diversity in the student body. "Typically, you would like to see maybe 20 different nationalities represented on the course," Purcell says.
She adds: "I wouldn't want to suggest the 80 schools that aren't accredited are somehow sub-standard. It may be that they simply decided accreditation is not what they are looking for. Others will have talked to us about accreditation and been advised that they need to develop a bit more, in this area or that, to meet the criteria."

Even so, Purcell advises directors who are thinking of studying for an MBA to look carefully at the qualifications of the lecturers before enrolling on a course. "The faculty don't have to be big names, but they do have to be people who are at the forefront of their field and have published recently," she says.

The best courses don't come cheap. Students enrolling on London Business School's 15- to 21-month MBA next summer will have to find £44,490 to cover their tuition fees. For that kind of money, directors should be looking for a good deal more than a degree certificate to frame and hang on the wall.

Lesson one: MBAs can fit around your own schedule

Student: Peter Badham
Reason for study: Taking over family business

Pharmacist Peter Badham prescribed himself a stiff dose of management training shortly before he took over as managing director of his family's chain of chemist shops. For the past three years, he has been studying part-time for an MBA in family business at the University of Gloucestershire. He reckons the business knowledge he's acquired has been vital since he's taken over from his mother as managing director of the 70-year-old Badham's Pharmacy.

Badham says: "I felt that although I had the qualifications to dispense a prescription, I didn't have the knowledge to run a £7m to £8m business."

Apart from business basics, such as strategy, finance and marketing, the family business MBA focuses on such issues as passing a company on from one generation to the next and managing sibling rivalries.

Badham chose a part-time course. "I didn't want to take time off during the working day and impact the business," he explains. "I've done all the work in the evenings and at weekends. Lots of things have gone on hold and spare time is almost zero."

But he insists it has all been worth it, because mixing with owners of other family firms has proved an eye-opener. "One thing that surprised me when I joined the course was that our firm seemed to be in a greater state of flux than those of my fellow students," he says. "All the issues we discussed seemed to revolve around Badham's. Yet, as the course developed, it turned out that other family firms had their own issues and decisions to make."

Badham will deliver his final dissertation—on customer service in a healthcare business—by the end of this year.

He says: "It's been wonderful being in an environment where I could discuss issues facing our company confidentially with others facing similar problems."

Lesson two: MBAs can help boost your contacts book

Student: Andras Kemeny
Reason for study: Changing career

For Andras Kemeny, being awarded an MBA from the London Business School was a career-enhancing opportunity.

"I think one of the main advantages of an MBA course is to help you change profession," says the Hungarian, who now works in London as global director for systems integration and technology recruitment at the consultancy Accenture.

Kemeny says the MBA has been instrumental in enabling him to move from strategy consultancy into a senior human resources role. He chose the LBS after assessing what leading business schools in Europe and North America had to offer. "I did quite a bit of research about the quality of lectures and the teaching—and the employment prospects for graduates from each of the schools."

He applied to two schools in North America and two in Europe and had offers from the European ones. Kemeny chose to study full-time on a two-year course—even though many full-time MBA students at other universities opt for one year. "The reason for my choice was that there was the opportunity for a significant summer internship between the two years," says Kemeny. He spent the time working with the Boston Consulting Group in the Netherlands.

At the London Business School, MBA students are able to choose from among more than 80 "electives" on their course. "My strategy was to go for a broad exposure to different subjects," says Kemeny. He included
organisational behaviour as a topic that would help him move towards an HR career.

Apart from switching careers, what other benefits does Kemeny feel he's gained? "I think the first job you get after an MBA is about making use of the school's reputation," he says. "After that, the MBA helps because you can use the network of contacts you built on the course."

He adds: "Looking back, the most valuable benefit from the London Business School was the exposure I got to other students and lecturers from around the world. It was all about being taught to be able to work with any culture, anywhere in the world."

Lesson three: MBAs attract  experienced professionals

Student: Pete Rankin
Reason for study: Regrouping after dotcom failure

Entrepreneur Pete Rankin was lying in a hammock on the banks of the Zambesi river, flicking through a business school directory, when he decided to do an MBA at Cranfield School of Management.

Rankin was in Africa licking his wounds after his online art gallery business had crashed in the wake of the dotcom disaster. He was 32 and had never considered an MBA before, but the Cranfield course appealed.

"I'd always had the preconception that MBAs were for 24-year-olds—people with little work experience. What attracted me to Cranfield was that the students were in their 30s, on average, and had experience."

Cranfield's one-year, full-time course and the School's Bedfordshire location were both attractive. "I didn't want to be in central London where all my friends could tempt me away from six evenings a week of work. But I didn't want to be more than an hour and a half from London, because that's where I planned to spend what free time I did have."

He found the course tough-going at first. "The first six months is almost like a boot camp. Everyone is made to be equal and do the same things—and it just gives everyone a very solid foundation in all the different aspects of business."

In the second half of the course, Rankin tailored his studies more to his interests and started to plan the business he intended to set up—IViewCameras, exploiting the new technology of wireless CCTV.
He made a presentation about his business plan to a panel at the end of the course. They tore it to pieces, but Rankin remained undaunted. He thought again about the plan and pushed ahead with the business, which posted a £3m turnover in its last financial year.

The biggest benefit from the course is the international network of contacts he has built. "There were 210 people in my year from 45 countries. It's a great knowledge network, which is still valuable."

Useful websites
FT global MBA rankings: http://rankings.ft.com/
global-mba-rankings
Economist MBA guide: http://mba.eiu.com/
London Business School: www.london.edu/
University of Gloucestershire www.glos.ac.uk/
Cranfield school of Management www.som.cranfield.ac. uk/som/