May 16, 2008

Foreign Business Schools Retreating From China

Foreign business schools — bogged down by red tape, problems with local partners, and limited demand — are shutting down their executive M.B.A. programs in China, according to article on BusinessWeek’s Web site.

The article says that European and American M.B.A. programs have faced many of the same problems as foreign companies, which came to China with dreams of tapping into the Chinese market of some 1.3 billion people.

Foreign degree providers are required to become partners with a Chinese university and are closely monitored by China’s Ministry of Education. The biggest problem, providers said, is that relatively few Chinese have the language skills needed to survive in an English-language academic program.

Walter Hutchens, a professor at Whitworth University in Spokane, Wash., who has advised several American universities on establishing ventures in China, called executive-education programs in China “a field of broken dreams.”

According to BusinessWeek, several universities have scaled back or halted their programs in China over the past two years. They include the China Europe International Business School and the Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland. The State University of New York at Buffalo closed its joint-venture program in 2004.

Even as Western universities retreat from China, the number of Chinese-run business schools has grown, said the magazine. Some 30 Chinese universities have been approved by the Ministry of Education to offer executive M.B.A. programs. —Paul Mooney

Comments

1. SO it looks like the opportunity is still there to teach 1.3 billion Chinese some English and then teach business. Some schools need to take a project management course to learn to put things in the right order for success!

   1.3 billion possible students, the US of A is only .3 billion.

   Bubba

   — Good ol' Bubba    May 16, 04:29 PM    #

2. But have you checked out the population of India, for example, as an alternative?

   — Naysayer    May 16, 06:19 PM    #

3. The less people that speak English can only help us better compete in the English speaking world; to wit, teaching English as a second language is the moral equivalent of sharing nuclear secrets.

   — original marcii    May 16, 06:51 PM    #

4. If business schools here in the USA, especially Harvard’s would retreat into non-existence, then perhaps the country could avoid another disaster like the Harvard MBA recipients who ran Enron into the ground, and the mess the current sitting President of the USA has caused for the entire planet.

   JR

   — JR    May 16, 07:15 PM    #

5. So foreign business schools are not doing well in China. A lot are pulling the plug and getting out. Hardly news to me. Many Australian universities have been bitten on the bum as a result of setting up business schools in China and just about everywhere else in SE Asia. No-one ever seems to learn. Unfortunately, political correctness forbids anyone having the temerity to bring up the subject of previous experiences. There is always another western university that wants to set up schools in Asia.

   Willingly getting robbed blind is all part of the oriental experience for a westerner or their institutions. Does not matter if those concerned were Portuguese traders in the 15th century, the Jesuits in the 16th to 19th century or western universities today or an expatriate sitting in a bar in Bali or Bangkok with a pretty bar-girl. The experience is the same. There are two rules in the orient: “You farang – you pay” and “You farang – you lose”. These are as true now as when Commodore Perry landed in Japan in 1853 or Raffles set up Singapore in 1819.

   — Raymond J. RITCHIE    May 17, 01:36 AM    #

6. Oh, well, it all gets very simple then: WE learn Chinese and then WE say “you farang – you come” and “you farang – you pay.” All in Chinese, naturally, while sitting in Bali or Bangkok with a pretty bar-girl. Promotes intercultural relations, diversity, and the love of Ausie methods. Not “Sydney or the bush” but “Beijing or the bush,” what, Mike?

   — Dag von Lubitz    May 17, 02:55 AM    #

7. Fix the education at home first dude

   — dan brown    May 18, 08:25 AM    #

8. I doubt that it is really English language ability that is the problem. It is the level of study required. Why break your b—s to get an MBA from a foreign provider when you can slouch thru at a local school. Even more so for those whose English is weak. I say this even tho I know it is paradoxical. There are great numbers of people in China who are highly fluent in English. The problem is that that set is not the same as the set which wants MBAs.

   — T    May 19, 06:10 AM    #

9. A couple of things that jumped out of this article for me:
   …“Foreign degree providers are required to become partners with a Chinese university and are closely monitored by China’s Ministry of Education…”
   and this:
   “…Even as Western universities retreat from China, the number of Chinese-run business schools has grown, said the magazine. Some 30 Chinese universities have been approved by the Ministry of Education to offer executive M.B.A. programs…”
   It appears to me that foreign MBA programs are purposefully being driven out of China and to China’s advantage. Note, Chinese-run business schools are growing as foreign-run universities are retreating.
   Lack of English speaking skills and control exerted by China’s Ministry of Education is more of an advantage to China rather than the US. The US has become extremely dependent on Chinese manufactured goods much the same as it has become on foreign oil. The diminishing value of the US dollar combined with China owning most of the US debt puts the US in a precarious position. Economically, China is growing leaps and bounds over the US. Lack of English speaking skills adds to another level of control over the US.

   — dp    May 19, 09:19 AM    #

10. You have the WRONG information on the Robert H. Smith School of Business, University of Maryland. We have not pulled out of China. We continue to have an EMBA program running in its 5-th year there.

    — G. Anand Anandalingam    May 19, 10:01 AM    #

11. JR (post #4) blames “…Harvard MBA recipients who ran Enron into the ground.” None of the top officers went to Harvard.

    Kenneth Lay, CEO and then chairman, went to the University of Missouri, and received his Ph.D. from the University of Houston. Jeff Skilling, CEO, graduated from Southern Methodist University. Andrew Fastow, CFO, graduated from Tufts. Rebecca Mark-Jusbasche, head of Enron’s International Division, went to Baylor.

    JR, there are many reasons to criticize Enron, Harvard MBAs, and the capitalist system. Please base your opinions on facts when you do so.

    — FS    May 19, 10:24 AM    #

12. “The less people that speak English can only help us better compete in the English speaking world; to wit, teaching English as a second language is the moral equivalent of sharing nuclear secrets.”

    It simply doesn’t sound it is spoken by a person in academia. It is a common knowledge that common language helps people from different cultural/language background to understand each other better, and therefore it will ultimately promote work peace. Isolation is never a solution. Instead it is only a cold war thing!

    — To Marcii    May 19, 11:02 AM    #

13. Having just come back from China in an educational exchange mission, it was my experience that indeed few students/professors speak English well enough to be taught in that language. Many educated people in China speak some English, but speaking some is a long way from being able to read, write and discuss technical matters fluently. Plus there are barriers in the form of different cultural assumptions. These barriers are often subtle, but they are important, and frequently get in the way of understanding, even between well-intentioned individuals. I am not at all surprised that some Western business schools were unable to establish their programs successfully in China.

    — kal    May 19, 12:31 PM    #

14. I’d say teaching English is the wisest course if you hope for English to remain a language of world communication. We’re a bit past the days where ethnocentric, linguistically isolationist or nationally egocentric approaches are likely to help us to grow, much less maintain a position of any importance on the global scale.

    — bta    May 19, 01:01 PM    #

15. FS (post 11) Skilling earned an MBA from Harvard; Fastow’s came from Northwestern.

    I wouldn’t blame their alma maters, but Harvard did have a link to Enron.

    — dm    May 19, 01:33 PM    #

16. FS #11, and dm # 15,

    Thank you dm # 15. As you knew, and FS # 11 did not, Skilling did indeed earn his MBA at Harvard.

    FS # 11, I’m not in the habit of presenting opinions based in myths. I suggest that before you trash another world class scholar, that, indeed, you verify your own facts. Slander and professional degradation are just that regardless of the format.

    JR

    — JR    May 19, 03:52 PM    #

17. Jamie Doward in a feature article on the hiring practices of Enron back in 2002 in The Observer (UK) (March 24, 2002):

    ‘Skilling brought in a lot of McKinsey employees and the cream of the Harvard Business School,’ says Julian Birkinshaw, associate professor of strategic and international management at the London Business School. ‘The processes and principles he allowed were very McKinsey. The consultants used Enron as their sandbox.’

    — John Trumpbour    May 19, 06:56 PM    #

18. So there was only one Harvard MBA in senior management at Enron? And the presence of one Harvard MBA makes Harvard guilty of something by association? Or having MBAs in management means ….? Perhaps the self-anointed “world class scholar” would explain what the statement “the Harvard MBA recipients [sic] who ran Enron into the ground” has to do with the topic, B-schools leaving China.

    — FS    May 21, 07:26 PM    #

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