CLOSING THE GENDER, RACE GAP
Percentage of women, black full-time academics on SA MBA programmes
you can’t expect one group to be immune,” he says. “As business schools, we do our best to encourage ethical conduct, but there might be an argument for revisiting the way we do it.”
Nowhere is this moral dichotomy more apparent than in the relationship with technology. Cheating in exams and dissertations is easier in an online environment, where there are no supervisors looking over your shoulder while you write. Whether it’s plagiarism, by downloading material from the internet, or paying professional “shadow writers” to prepare papers for you, old-fashioned oversight no longer works.
Jako Volschenk, MBA programme head at the University of Stellenbosch Business School, puts the incidence of cheating at “probably less than 5%”, but it’s serious enough that some schools employ specialist proctoring companies to monitor students online. Linked to students’ computers, they are able to monitor the provenance of written work and even compare the writing style to a student’s regular submissions.
Skae admits to feeling uncomfortable with the potential level of surveillance. “There’s something Orwellian about it,” he says.
There’s also disparity between how graduates rate their people skills, and how others view them. A frustrated HR manager talks of a “prevalent know-it-all attitude”.
Whatever their misgivings, employers still think enough of MBAs to pay them more and promote them faster than colleagues. So maybe a sense of one-upmanship is to be expected.
Wits Business School director Maurice Radebe isn’t far off the mark when he repeats the old joke: “How do you know if someone has an MBA? They tell you.”
Law says diplomatically: “There is a perception that MBA graduates are arrogant and might inadvertently contribute to creating conflict in an organisation when they share their knowledge.”
Employers can minimise this friction by having a plan to absorb graduates and their new knowledge into the organisation. What’s the point of encouraging them to study if you don’t know how to make use of what they learn?
Management College of Southern Africa programme managers Martin Motene and Kairoon Nisa Fyzoo say companies must ensure that this knowledge is absorbed painlessly and “matched with corporate rules and culture”.
Amid all these new pressures, business schools are updating their MBA programmes to remain in tune with what business and society require. NorthWest University Business School director Jan van Romburgh says the school is creating a curriculum panel, drawn from industry, to shape its MBA. “The environment is
changing so fast that we need industry to tell us if we are teaching the right things,” he says. The school is also belatedly implementing a structured branding and marketing campaign, having never made proper use of its status as one of the first schools in SA to win international accreditation for its MBA.
Admittedly, not being in a major metropolitan centre will limit growth, but the school could take a brandbuilding tip or two from Gibs, part of the University of Pretoria. Despite being one of SA’s youngest business schools, founded in 2000, it has built a formidable reputation. Once again this year, its MBA rates top among employers in our market research, and is the most sought-after among students.
At the University of the Free State Business School — where a new director, Udesh Pillay, will take over on October 1 after the recent retirement of long-serving Helena van Zyl — acting director Liezel Massyn says the school is in “the final stages” of an MBA curriculum review.
Catherine Duggan, director of the University of Cape Town’s Graduate School of Business, says she and new MBA head Mignon Reyneke have begun a “refreshing” of the degree. “We want it to be applicable but also global in ways that weren’t always possible when people weren’t familiar with digital engagements.”
These will include the opportunity for students to engage regularly with “people, companies and governments” overseas. “Digital technology provides us with an exciting opportunity to broaden students’ experience and engagement in ways that could not be done before,” says Duggan.
That’s just one part of the MBA. Regent research and innovation director Dhiru Soni says the entire programme there is in “a state of flux”. Rather like someone asking what is the meaning of life, Regent is asking itself fundamental questions, like what is the purpose of business education, and what should an MBA graduate be able to do?
At the heart of the answer, says Soni, is the realisation that the MBA should no longer be based around curriculum knowledge but around the development of individual students. “The rapid pace of new technology penetration in all domains of business has disrupted jobs significantly and diluted the relevance of the core curriculum of our MBA,” he says.
At least these schools have existing MBA programmes to build on. Spare a thought for Fulu Netswera, who found himself launching both a business school and an MBA programme during the pandemic.
Dean of the faculty of management sciences at Durban University of Technology, Netswera looked forward to welcoming dozens of students to the MBA programme when it launched in July.
Not only were enrolments down on expectations — most established business schools have had the same problem — but the intended blockrelease study format had to be abandoned in favour of an all-online format.
Netswera says launching a “new and unknown entity” into a disrupted, crowded market has been “nerveracking.”