全球EMBA 合作辦學vs獨立辦學

It was talking recently to the former dean of a UK business school, who related a conversation between himself and one of the professors at the aforementioned institution.

最近和一位英國商學院前院長聊天，他講了他和該學院的一名教授之間的一次對話。

His biggest regret, he told the professor, was that while he was dean he could not convince the academics of the strength of his strategy and how it would propel the school to a higher position vis-à-vis its peers.

這名前院長告訴這名教授，他最大的遺憾，是在自己擔任院長的時候，無法說服教師們相信他的戰略的長處，以及這項戰略將如何推動學院取得相對於同行的優勢。

“Oh, we knew it was a great strategy and would make usamuch better business school,” came the professor’s reply. “We just didn’t want to do it.”

“哦，我們知道這是一個很棒的戰略，會讓我們成爲一所優秀得多的商學院，”這名教授回答，“我們只是不想去實施。”

It is hard to imagine such an attitude holding sway in any kind of institution, public or private, except at a university. Unfortunately, this attitude can stifle change and potentially even kill off the institutions that employ those same professors.

除非是在一所大學裏，很難想象這樣一種態度會在任何公立或私立學院中佔據主導地位。遺憾的是，這種態度會扼殺改變，甚至有可能使僱傭像這位教授一樣的教師的學院走向衰亡。

This also raises interesting questions in relation to executive MBAs — those hugely expensive senior management degrees that are increasingly proving to be the flagship programmes of many business schools — because the programmes’ success depends on the support of the professors involved.

這也提出了有關EMBA課程的有趣問題——這些極其昂貴的高級管理學位項目正日益成爲許多商學院的旗艦項目——因爲這些項目的成功依賴授課教授的支持。

Until 20 years ago, EMBA degrees catered for an almost exclusively local market, determined by a format that required weekend campus-based study. Then Duke University’s Fuqua school launched its global programme, the University of Chicago (now Chicago Booth) started running a branch of its programme in Barcelona and soon after, the Kellogg school at Northwestern University launched its partnerships with universities such as HKUST in Hong Kong.

直到20年前，受週末在校學習的授課方式制約，EMBA學位項目幾乎完全只面向本地市場。然後，杜克大學福庫商學院(Fuqua school at Duke University)推出了全球EMBA項目，芝加哥大學(University of Chicago)開始在巴塞羅那開展一個分支項目（現在是芝加哥大學布斯商學院(Chicago Booth Business School)在做），很快美國西北大學(Northwestern University)凱洛格商學院(Kellogg)與香港科技大學(HKUST)等大學推出了合作辦學項目。

Business schools had begun to realise that programmes that embraced international locations and businesses, as well as online learning, had a real appeal. But two divergent strategies have emerged. Some schools have set up overseas campuses and others have forged overseas partnerships. The two approaches mean business school brains have been taxed over which approach is best.

商學院開始意識到，支持國際地點和企業、提供在線學習的項目，擁有真正的吸引力。然而，出現了兩種不同的策略。一些商學院在海外設立了學院，其他一些商學院則與海外商學院結成了合作辦學關係。這兩種策略，意味着商學院人士爲哪種策略最優大傷腦筋。

One school, Insead, has combined both options, with campuses in France, Abu Dhabi and Singapore and an EMBA partnership with Tsinghua.

歐洲工商管理學院(Insead)將這兩種選項結合在一起，不僅在法國、阿布扎比和新加坡設立了學院，還與清華大學開展EMBA合作辦學項目。

A glance at the FT EMBA ranking suggests the right answer is the partnership model. The top five programmes in the EMBA table are all partnerships. The Insead and Tsinghua EMBA tops the table this year, but Insead’s own MBA, which is taught in all three of its campuses, ranks at just seven.

英國《金融時報》EMBA排行榜表明，正確答案是合作辦學模式。EMBA排行榜上的前五個項目都是合作辦學項目。Insead和清華大學合辦的EMBA項目今年排在榜首，而Insead獨立辦學、在其三處學院開展的MBA項目僅排名第7。

So why should that be so? For those schools that choose to go it alone, persuading students they want to enrol on these multi-location programmes and even persuading them they want to pay the exorbitant fees — up to $180,000 — does not seem to have been the problem. But in some schools it is clear that persuading professors they want to teach on these programmes overseas has proven to be difficult.

爲何如此？對那些選擇獨立辦學的商學院來說，說服學員讓他們願意參加這些在多個地點開辦的課程項目，甚至支付極爲高昂的學費——高達18萬美元——似乎並非難題。但顯然，事實證明在一些商學院，說服教授讓他們甘願在這些海外項目中任教是一件難事。

This reluctance in the academic body might help explain why partnerships are emerging as the dominant model despite the logistical nightmare they present. For example, partner schools must decide at which school students enrol and in what currency they pay. And what happens when exchange rates suffer extreme fluctuations? The partnership model also requires the professors at the partner schools to work together — never a given.

教師的不情願或許有助於解釋，爲何儘管合作辦學在組織協調方面十分困難，這種模式依然成爲了主導模式。比如，合作院校必須決定，學生們在哪所學校入學，他們用哪種貨幣支付學費。如果匯率出現劇烈波動會怎麼樣？合作辦學的模式還需要合作院校的教授們協作配合——這從來都不是一件輕而易舉的事情。

But it seems these issues are easier to manage than persuading professors to invest time in travelling in order to teach. When Chicago Booth moved its European campus from Barcelona to London, there were lots of reasons for doing so. London was (and is) Europe’s business and finance hub and home to one of the highest concentrations of talented managers and bankers in the world, people Chicago hoped to attract.

然而，比起說服教授爲了教課而花時間出差奔波，上述這些問題處理起來似乎都相對簡單。布斯商學院將其歐洲學院從巴塞羅那遷至倫敦，理由頗多。不管是過去還是現在，倫敦都是歐洲的商業和金融中心，還是世界上有才幹的管理者和銀行家最集中的地方之一，布斯商學院希望吸引這些人入學。

But there were other reasons. Professors preferred London to Barcelona because it was easier for them to do private consultancy work there, as well having multiple direct flights between Chicago and London and none at the time between Chicago and Barcelona.

但還有其他原因，教授們比起巴塞羅那更青睞倫敦，因爲在倫敦他們更容易開展私人諮詢工作，芝加哥和倫敦之間還有多趟直飛航班，而當時芝加哥和巴塞羅那之間一趟都沒有。

Of course one of the big headaches for business schools has been that those academics willing to travel are often the younger ones. Given the high fees, EMBA participants are looking for the star professors with high performance skills to teach them, not the newcomers who have just finished their PhDs.

當然，商學院最頭痛的一個大問題是，願意出差的學者往往比較年輕。考慮到學費高昂，EMBA學員希望教他們的是授課技能高超的明星教授，而不是剛剛完成博士學業的新手。