How having an MBA work out for you ?

Why Taiwan famous baker desperately needs to attend an eMBA ?  May 2013 news

Wu Pao-chun is an award-winning baker, a master of the breaded arts, hailed as the "glory of Taiwan" alongside Oscar-winning movie director Lee Ang.
He is an award-winning baker, a master of the breaded arts, hailed as the "glory of Taiwan" alongside Oscar-winning movie director Lee Ang. But that is not enough for Taiwanese universities, which have rejected Wu Pao-chun's attempts to get a master's degree, driving him to try his luck in Singapore.
It was at the prestigious Bakery World Cup in Paris in 2010 where Wu, now 43, became a national icon. He beat 23 rivals from 16 countries to clinch the title of Master Baker in the bread category with his rose-lychee bread creation that includes millet wine, rose petals and dried lychees - ingredients that came from Taiwan.

"I fulfilled my dream. I was able to brighten the name Taiwan," he said then.

His Wu Pao-chun Bread bakery, which opened in Kaohsiung in late 2010 to much fanfare, reportedly racked up sales of more than NT$200 million (US$6.68 million) last year. The pineapple tarts he sells are named after his mother, the late Madam Chen Wu-hsien. The youngest of eight children, he was raised by the widow in the southern county of Pingtung.
He quit school after junior high - the equivalent of secondary school in Singapore - to become a baking apprentice in Taipei, as he could not bear to see his mother slog to make ends meet. But, despite his culinary and business achievements, he was turned down in his applications to the Executive Master of Business Administration (EMBA) programme at the National Chengchi University and National Sun Yat-sen University.

EATING bak kut teh and other Singapore favourites would be great, but what celebrity baker Wu Pao-chun really hungers for when he begins an executive MBA course in the country is the know-how to run his burgeoning business, he tells The Straits Times.

Mr Wu's plan to study at the National University of Singapore (NUS) in July has caused something of a nationalistic uproar in Taiwan. But he believes it is time to venture out of his comfort zone of bread-making and school himself in finance, logistics and the management skills befitting an entrepreneur.

Mr Wu announced on the Facebook page of his shop, Wu Pao-chun Bakery, that he had accepted an offer from NUS to enrol in its Asia- Pacific Executive MBA course. For the next two years, he will attend 10 days of intensive lessons every three months. The programme is conducted in Mandarin and features field trips to countries in the region.

"I'd asked many Taiwanese friends about the programme and they told me it would give me many opportunities to learn," he said of his choice of NUS.

Mr Wu shot to fame after winning the Master Baker title in the bread category of the prestigious Louis Lesaffre Cup in France in 2010. His three-year-old shop in Kaohsiung racked up sales of more than NT$200 million (S$8.4 million) last year. His second shop, in Taipei, is due to open in August.

The high-school dropout also expressed his frustration with Taiwanese universities' graduates- only entry criteria for their EMBA programmes. Many Taiwanese, including President Ma Ying- jeou, have called for the laws to be revised. The education authorities promptly did so. The revision has been nicknamed the "Wu Pao-chun clause".

Mr Wu said yesterday that he never expected his comments to stir so much controversy. He talked enthusiastically about his upcoming stint as a lecturer at National Taiwan University, where he will teach the finer points of farming and, of course, baking. He will also attend selected business management classes at the school, on top of his studies at NUS.

Some companies would naturally love their underpaid employees.  They would bank on your guilt and sense of obligation to keep you from leaving.  Some older gen workers would rather not quit a company that has underpaid and under-appreciated them for years.  If you think or suddenly gotten up from bed and woke up realising all these years you’re not being treated right or mistreated properly, you may have to leave for better treatment or what they say commonly, "greener pasture"...... if there is such these days of poor economy led by the downfall of big economies..

Did your company pay any part of your MBA or MSc study?  If so, how long do you have to work for them without having to repay the cost of tuition? Usually you are bonded for two to three years and of course the company do not expect you to leave the company after that.  However, on the other hand, it would be unfair to let yourself be held hostage at a meager monthly sum and $100,000 less per year than another company would pay you because of a $20,000 repayment required should you decide to call it a day.  If the company did not pay  part of your tuition, then I think you don’t have to consider that in your decision calculus.   There are more reasons than salary to stay at a job.  For one, in this economy, any job is a blessing and there are people who would love to take your place.  Work-life balance is another huge one.  Sure, you can make more money somewhere else, but are they going to let you work one day a week from home?  Sometimes location really gets you–if you live in a less populated area, switching jobs can mean moving, and you don’t want to uproot everything for a strange new work place and town.

But then, you decided you want to stay.  You just want to be recognized for your skills and experience.  Let's think about what should you be thinking then :

1. What is it that you can and couldn’t do before your MBA?  Note that I said “do” not “know.”  You may know a ton more, but does that translate into things that are helping your company?  For instance, you may have studied complex international finance policies in school, but if your company deals with nothing more international than ordering Mexican food for lunch, it’s not helpful to them.
2. Why would they list a vacancy at a higher salary then you are making?  How in the heck should you know?  Well, if you think you need to know, Go ask.  Ask straight out what it is that you are not doing that they expected someone in this position to do.  Expect some sputtering.  It may well be a case of stupid policy, such as not giving an existing employee more than a 10% increase.
3. Are you prepare to make more money elsewhere? We all are sure we’re fabulous and all that, but could you really make more elsewhere?  Say you only have 2 years of technical experience plus the MBA.  The market is flooded now in the marine and offshore sector, so they may well be paying you precisely what you’re worth to them.  It’s not the job of a company to pay you what you need to live your chosen lifestyle.  It’s their job to pay you in accordance with the amount you can help the organisation or section. And remember in big organization, no one is indispensable no matter how high or senior you are in the company.
4. Do you need to asked directly for a raise? You say you got a fabulous retention bonus, EVA, extras,etc.   Your bosses may think, “Gee, weren’t we generous with that retention bonus?” and have no plans to give you a raise.  They may not know that you think you deserve one.  After all, they may feel like they’ve adequately compensated you for your increased skills.  You need to spell it out for them.
5. Do you need to show that you are more valuable. Make a list of all the functions you do, along with a description of how you do them.  If you have the chance to write a self-appraisal, now is the time to do so.  If you need to, try to make it obvious that you are underpaid.  Make it extremely obvious that you are technically experience and well informed on the technological arena.  This is not the time to be modest.  Save that for dinner with your in-laws.
6. If you need to be moving on. It’s a sad truth, but sometimes companies just won’t ever appreciate you or realise how you have contributed to the organisation until someone else wants to buy you out.  But, if you’ve talked repeatedly about your undying devotion, or how you can never leave because you live across the street, they just won’t see any reason to increase your salary.

Personally, the three letters MBA on your resume are not going to make you automatically more valuable. I have my MBA and believe that without a doubt it has helped me to grow into the position I have today. I am also very fortunate to have given another Master course to pursue after my p/t MBA and this really given me another overview of the marine technology where everyday I am still in the learning process. I would not have achieved what I have without the skills I've learned along the way. An MBA rounds out a person's skills to help bring "the big picture" into perspective. In time, the rewards will come from the value you'll bring to a team....not three letters behind your name.

P.S. Never try to go to your employer with an offer from another company. That would be your biggest mistake if you somehow foolishly err on this move. Even if some company try to buy you out, you've planted the seeds of disloyalty with your present one and you'll ruin your career in the long run or at least make a bad name in your record. Instead, try approach with why you feel you deserve more but do not try to be hardup. If they choose not to pay you what you feel you're worth, then you can actively seek other options with a clear conscious.

Having an MBA is a sign of potential, not performance, so the key question is to identify how performance has changed as a result of the MBA. One reason I find p/t MBAs - where students continue to work while doing their studies - much more successful (for both the student and the company) than f/t MBAs is that the student has many opportunities during the program to discuss their learning with their peers and bosses and put new ideas into real practical practice. They can put markers down about their improved performance as they go along. This makes it much easier to negotiate job changes and pay rises after the studies have been completed.

If "Executive" MBA programmes are no different, why more expensive than normal MBA?

If "Executive" MBA programmes are not much different from the normal MBA counterparts, why do business schools charge higher or twice the price?

Not surprisingly, there is no shortage of business-school types eager to defend the price differential. According to Jenny George, dean of Melbourne Business School in Australia, one of the key reasons is the profile of the students. Executive MBA participants tend to be ten or twenty years older than their counterparts on conventional programmes and have significantly more experience. Their expectations are correspondingly higher in everything from accommodation and catering to class size and style of teaching. Meeting those expectations costs money ! !

Indeed one of the biggest challenges facing executive-MBA providers is finding faculty that can hold the attention of such a demanding audience. Most EMBA participants have already learned the basic lessons of business and are on their chosen programme because they want better insight into the way they are operating within their present company, rather than for personal development or a career change. Such lessons are both difficult and expensive to teach.

EMBA students expect to be taught by people who not only have the theory but who also have demonstrable real-life experience. Sean Kilbride, a professor at HEC School of Management, Paris, says that this means flying in top professors from all over the world and recruiting business veterans with credibility, including former CEOs.

Some question whether it is even valid to make a direct comparison between an executive and a standard MBA. Paul Healy of the Vlerick Leuven school in Belgium points out that a full-time MBA takes students out of the workplace for at least a year with a consequent loss of salary. EMBA students, on the other hand, remain in employment and study part time. Looked at this way the difference in the cost to the student quickly shrinks—although this does little to explain why the school itself should charge more.

Nevertheless, having MBAs who remain in their jobs can produce benefit both for the students and the employer. Simon Learmount, director of the EMBA at Cambridge’s Judge school, cites examples from his own class who applied classroom lessons as soon as they returned to the office, including one who concluded a lucrative deal with a Latin American client on the back of a cultural awareness class.

Perhaps the best answer to the question about price differential lies not in the quality of teaching or faculty or even in the standard of accommodation, food and wine. Instead, the premium comes down to the doors that an EMBA opens. More honest graduates admit that the most valuable thing they got from their business school was not any classroom lesson or insight, but membership of an exclusive club. And while a full-time MBA might give you access to the junior branch an EMBA gives you a lifetime pass to the senior common room itself.

It was always thought those MBA programs were some mighty clever marketing, but not knowing about the huge disparity in tuition. The theory, apparently, is that the shorter the program, the better the education, and the higher the justifiable tuition. Why not keep shrinking the programs, hiring more expensive teachers, and raising the tuition, thereby making the quality of the education better yet? Why not keep doing so until they can offer an "ultimate MBA" (UMBA) program that requires zero classroom hours, hires the most expensive captains of industry as teachers but does not have them waste their valuable time actually teaching, charges millions of dollars for tuition, and therefore turns out superlative masters of business administration with absolutely no studying or time away from work or leisure at all?

Perhaps the other question we should be asking is "What good does any MBA program really do?" As someone who went the traditional college route, where a master's degree represents a year of coursework and a thesis, on top of a 4-year bachelor's degree, the idea of getting a "master's" degree in anything via night-school is laughable. Where is the "bachelor's in business administration" degree? The fact is that an MBA (short or long version) is much more like business school certificate than it is like a real university degree.  Nonetheless,  we should ask whether an MBA is really a good investment for the student, and whether an employee with an MBA will really do better work, on the average, for their employer than one without it. The only thing that is clear is that there's a lot of money being made by the schools selling the MBAs.

It was observed how much time and money people are spending for education these days and definitely see how much time and resources people are wasting for an education.

- People would have spent the money for investment instead of pitching money on a betting table. No education can guanrantee return of investments, there aren't precise and trustable data regarding % of return. Showing some successful and rich graduates are just like media picking out the big ones on their cover stories. It could end up an empty promise by the over promoted programs.

- Is education these days valued equally before?

- There is a joke, instead of spending all these money for a children's education, the $ should be saved, until the day that they are 20s, they would have their own cars and houses already. Why bother making a living, if it's just about making a living? And making a living seems hard these days... ...

- Our medical science does not support us to live much longer, like 150 years, why would one want to spend 30 years in a classroom?

- If it's just a club, why don't we go directly to pay for a membership fee for a banker's club/ director's club/ yacht club, etc?

- If more people are spending their time on studying, less people are actually working. Where are the actual results?

People nowadays are generally mentally more developed, but less and less actual experiences. We do not count the "actual experience" offered by a course as "actual", it is a protected environment and it is virtual and not real. In the real world, impression could be just once, there aren't any role plays. When you are in the situation, you are already given a role and you've got to play it well.

However, working for organizing and marketing MBA programs seems fun...it seems interesting to lure people keep on studying, it's like a series of top up models or top end cars that youngsters like to chase nowadays.


Recently an article in Business Times
Published August 31, 2010

SME INC
ADVANCING MANAGEMENT
Back to school for SME leaders

When the economy is down, leaders take the opportunity to upgrade themselves, report EILEEN TAY and JASLENE PANG
Tong Shuh Lan, director of business leadership of Spring Singapore, says that the recession was the impetus for many SME leaders to enrol in courses. The period of 2008-2009 saw a more than threefold increase in number of applicants and enrolment as SME leaders took the opportunity of the downturn to upgrade themselves in preparation for growth.


Gan Boon Poh, from rice and oil distributor Gan Hup Lee Pte Ltd, says: 'I joined the SMU-Spring Strategic Planning for Growth (Food Industry) 2010 with the aim to learn up-to-date business practices that will enable me to strategise and manage our business better.

'Moreover, it is always good to lead by example to go back to school.'

In Ms Tong's opinion, as more SMEs expand overseas, there is a need for them to build up their management capacity at a much faster rate to manage the increased complexity of their operations. Otherwise, their ability to enter new markets, develop new products and seize new opportunities will be hindered.

'SME leaders will need to invest in upgrading themselves as well as their management team, both current and future,' she said.
Tertiary institutions, recognising the need and want of SME leaders to upgrade themselves, have responded by coming up with a range of classes.

Glenn Sykes, associate dean of Chicago Booth, says that this year's Chicago Executive MBA programme is offering students the option to take a concentration - marketing, finance or strategy - which allows them to develop additional framework that can help enhance or complement their experiences.

Besides the wide spectrum of courses available, many leaders have also found Spring's funding of up to 70 per cent for the course fees to be 'very helpful'.

Victor Khaw, who participated in SIM Professional Development's 'The Job of the Chief Executive' programme this year, was one of those who received funding support from Spring.
Mr Khaw, general manager of fabrication and construction solutions provider Allalloy Dynaweld Pte Ltd, says: 'With our budget, we can only train a limited number of staff per given time. However, with Spring's funding, we can accelerate this process to ensure that we will have enough qualified leaders to propel our growth.'
WHILE most companies scurried around for solutions to ensure their survival during the economic tsunami two years ago, a handful of small and medium enterprise (SME) leaders decided instead to ride on the wave of opportunity to go back to school.

Reforming business schools a must ?

World’s leading business schools are changing their course syllabus and re-making their business school image ensuring they catch up with time and the reputation upheld with high rating. This year Harvard Business School (HBS) announced the appointment of a new dean, Nitin Nohria, a first-class choice. The Kellogg School at Northwestern University has also recently selected a new head, and the Judge School at the University of Cambridge, the Ross School at the University of Michigan and the Booth School at the University of Chicago are all in the process of doing the same. Our local uni business faculties (NUS,NTU,SMU) are also trying to boost up it's image and maintaining the international standard every year and they too have excel in the top lists of preferred MBA courses in many of surveys done.

Elite business schools are plagued by self-doubt and the financial crisis has dealt them a double blow. It has damaged their pristine images, because so many financial analyse and bankers are MBAs. It has also dented their market: Wall Street laid off 240,000 people in the 18 months from the middle of 2007.

The business-school boom depended largely on the idea that MBAs were entry tickets to the world’s two most lucrative professions: investment banking and consultancy. These trades not only consumed more than half the graduates of the leading schools. They also underwrote the schools’ finances: students were willing to pay US$100,000 in fees and living expenses (and forgo even more in income) because they were all but guaranteed jobs in these high-paying industries.

Criticism of MBAs extends beyond consultancies and banks. People in many industries worry that business-school professors are more concerned with pure theory than with practical management (promotion is usually earned by publishing articles in academic journals rather than by teaching, advising businesses or gaining managerial experience). The professors themselves complain that their students are spending ever more time looking for jobs and ever less time studying. These problems are already taking their toll on the two-year courses that once constituted the ideal of business education. Students are gravitating to one-year MBAs, which are offered by 70% of European business schools, and more specialised courses. Lower-ranked business schools are already finding it harder to fill their places. The elite worry that the trend will eventually catch up with them too.

Yet business schools have an important asset: they are remarkably flexible compared with the rest of academia. Even before the financial crisis they had begun to implement far-reaching changes. Both Stanford Business School and the Yale School of Management have changed their curricula radically in the past few years. Business schools are also moving to globalisation. INSEAD led the pack by opening a second campus in Singapore: all its students have a chance to study in Asia as well as Europe. Almost everybody has leapt on the bandwagon. Of course business schools must not lose sight of their primary function. We must remain faithful to academic rigour and excellent teaching. Yet at the same time we have to regain the entrepreneurial fervour of the past; the world expects more than good functional graduates. Recent times have underlined the need for managers capable of taking a fresh look at opportunities unafraid to forge new alliances and practices outside of the norm. Schools have also struggled to make their courses less theoretical. Yale has replaced conventional subject-based courses (marketing and so forth) with “integrated” courses based on “constituencies” (such as investors, customers and employees). The University of Michigan’s Ross Business School gives students a chance to work with, say, hospitals in India and energy companies in Mozambique. Most schools are trying to employ more people with practical experience.

The new generation of deans will undoubtedly preside over dramatic changes. We must play the role of an entrepreneur in its purest meaning. It is no longer enough that we concentrate on functional training. We must constantly scan for projects to which we can add value. Once found, we must take a more developmental, consulting role, helping the project’s different stakeholders—companies, public bodies, research centres and universities—to create and manage the organisation.

The MBA Oath

With my MBA degree,  I solemnly recognise my role in the Singapore society, not many years left though....

•My purpose is to lead people and manage staff and resources to create better value that no single one can create alone.

•My decisions could affect the well-being of individuals and staff inside and outside my organization, today as well as the future.

I shall, therefore, carry out my duty within my ability  :

•I will manage my organization with sincerity and honesty, and will not advance my personal interests at the expense of my organization or the public society.

•I will understand and uphold, in good spirit, the laws and contracts governing my conduct and that of my organization.

•I will refrain from corruption, unfair competition, bias judgement, partiality or business practices harmful to society.

•I will protect the staff rights and dignity of all people affected by my organization, and I will reject any discrimination and exploitation.

•I will protect the right of future generations to advance their standard of living and enjoy a healthy world.

•I will report the performance and risks of my organization accurately.

•I will invest in developing myself and others, helping the management profession continue to advance and create sustainable and inclusive prosperity.

In exercising my professional duties according to these principles, I recognise that my behaviour have to set an example of integrity, eliciting trust and esteem from those I serve or to serve. I will remain accountable to my peers and to the organization as well as society for my actions and for upholding those standards.

This oath, I make freely and upon my esteem honour and dignity.

Changing faces of MBA curricula ....

“VALUES” are all the rage at business schools nowadays. In May2010 around 300 graduating MBAs at Harvard Business School will take an oath, pledging to play a positive role in society once they graduate. At the last count, this is slightly fewer Harvard MBAs than took the oath when it was introduced last year. There are now over 3,000 signatories from more than 300 institutions.

It will be unsurprising if, this time next year, taking the oath is compulsory rather than voluntary at Harvard, given Nitin Nohria’s recent appointment as dean of its business school. Even if Mr Nohria decides not to pick a fight over the ethical pledge with the many sceptics on his faculty, he has made no secret of his support.

On the other side of the country, another dean of the Haas School of Business at Berkeley is making an audacious bid for leadership in the somewhat implausible crusade to turn business schools into moral wellsprings. The MBA students who arrive after the summer will take a course that has been thoroughly revamped, in an effort to achieve a cultural shift and will go much further than any MBA oath could achieve.

Business schools have trailed behind leading companies in managing their internal culture. These schools have long trailed behind leading companies in managing their internal culture. One camp aims to map the competitive landscape, and position their organisations at the point on the map that offers the greatest opportunity. The other camp prefers to focus inwardly on an organisation’s values and core abilities, and then to pursue success by playing to those strengths.

Haas already has a reputation for producing a different sort of MBA from other elite schools. “Business schools are known as breeding grounds for over-confidence, for hubris, for arrogance, for self-focus. But recruiters tell us that one of the defining features of our students is ‘confidence without arrogance’.” Indeed, a similar phrase, “confidence without attitude”, is now one of four core defining principles behind the redesign of the MBA course, along with “question the status quo”, “students always” and “beyond yourself” (ie, “considering the long-term impact of our actions and the facility for putting larger interests above our own”).

Yale has scrapped conventional subjects; Haas is trying to teach the old subjects in a new way

The reforms at Haas are being billed as one of the most radical shake-ups of an MBA programme since both Yale and Stanford changed theirs in 2006. But whereas Yale scrapped conventional subjects such as marketing, accounting and strategy in favour of more nebulous themes such as the customer, innovation and business and society, the Haas approach involves teaching the old subjects in a new way, by emphasising 15 specific skills, including experimentation, revenue-model innovation and risk-selection.

Only about a fifth of the curriculum will be different, but most of the changes will be at the beginning of each course, so students will feel a big change. There will be three new core courses, out of 12: problem framing, exerting influence without formal authority, and leading people. The other nine are being revamped. For instance, the focus of the statistics course will now be to get students to think about what data they would like to have to make a decision, and how they would get that data—to “turn them from consumers of data into experiment designers, producers of data.”

In marked contrast to the rumblings of discontent heard at Harvard, Haas’s changes seem to have gone down remarkably well with its faculty. When Mr Lyons put his redesign to a vote four months ago, 54 of his teaching staff approved, four abstained and no one was against. The changes have also been well-received by both alumni and incoming students, who will now be more rigorously assessed for compatibility with the culture to create. At the very least, this seems intelligent marketing for Haas in an increasingly competitive MBA marketplace. What difference it will make in practice to the quality and character of its MBA graduates, only time will tell. As with the MBA oath, talking the talk is a lot easier than walking the walk.

Elite MBA schools have recently been plagued by self-doubt and the financial crisis has dealt them with a double blow. It has damaged their reputations, because so many bankers are MBAs. It has also dented their market: Wall Street laid off 240,000 people in the 18 months from the middle of 2007.

The business-school boom depended largely on the idea that MBAs were entry tickets to the world’s two most lucrative professions: investment banking and consultancy. These trades not only consumed more than half the graduates of the leading schools. They also underwrote the schools’ finances: students were willing to pay $100,000 in fees and living expenses (and forgo even more in income) because they were all but guaranteed jobs in these high-paying industries.

But banks and consulting firms are could start to recruiting people without MBAs, particularly mathematicians and computer scientists. They are also getting keener on growing their own. Why lose a hard-working 25-year-old for a couple of years when you can train him internally and keep him at the coal face? Banks are increasingly dominated by traders who think MBAs are a waste of parchment.

Criticism of MBAs extends beyond consultancies and banks. People in many industries worry that business-school professors are more concerned with pure theory than with practical management (promotion is usually earned by publishing articles in academic journals rather than by teaching, advising businesses or gaining managerial experience). The professors themselves complain that their students are spending ever more time looking for jobs and ever less time studying.

These problems are already taking their toll on the two-year courses that once constituted the ideal of business education. Students are gravitating to one-year MBAs, which are offered by 70% of European business schools, and more specialised courses. Lower-ranked business schools are already finding it harder to fill their places. The elite worry that the trend will eventually catch up with them too.

Yet business schools have an important asset: they are remarkably flexible compared with the rest of academia. Even before the financial crisis they had begun to implement far-reaching changes. Both Stanford Business School and the Yale School of Management have changed their curricula radically in the past few years. Others will surely follow.

Business schools are facing the need to go globalisation. INSEAD led the pack by opening a second campus in Singapore: all its students have a chance to study in Asia as well as Europe. Almost everybody has leapt on the bandwagon. The Booth School has outlets in three continents. Most schools have research centres across the world.

Business schools have also struggled to make their courses less theoretical. Yale has replaced conventional subject-based courses (marketing and so forth) with “integrated” courses based on “constituencies” (such as investors, customers and employees). The University of Michigan’s Ross Business School gives students a chance to work with, say, hospitals in India and energy companies in Mozambique. Most schools are trying to employ more people with practical experience.

One problem is that these changes add to the already exorbitant costs of MBAs. Yale’s curriculum reform cost $2m-5m. Stanford’s entailed increasing the faculty by 10-15%. But in straitened times business schools will have to do more with less, drawing on professors from other faculties and on outside business people. In 2008-09 Harvard Medical School had a faculty of 10,884 to cope with an entering class of 165 students because it draws on such a wide range of talents. HBS looks unnecessarily exclusive by comparison.

The new generation of deans will undoubtedly preside over dramatic changes. But the changes already made have produced one huge benefit: a much more variegated environment. Business schools are offering a greater variety of courses taught in a greater variety of ways than ever before. Perhaps they are finally becoming as vibrant as the subject they study.

CEOs are better-off with MBA ?

Remember Jeff Skilling of Enron? He had an MBA, while Bill Gates and Steve Jobs didn't even finish college. Probably with the recent financial crisis on banks,etc, there was also side-impact on MBA programs and few of these programs have received criticism and whether the graduates know what to look out for or just follow by the book. According to critics, they are guilty of many overlooked lapses: teaching the wrong financial models, riding roughshod over risk management, sidestepping business ethics, overheating the managerial job market, hiding from the real world. As a result, so the script goes, we have a generation of business leaders tainted by greed and short-term thinking.


What impact has an MBA on a CEO's overall position in the ranking. Findings are :

While information about educational credentials wasn't in the public domain for all countries, CEOs' academic records were widely available in France, Germany, the United Kingdom, and the U.S. Fewer than one-third of the CEOs of four countries had an MBA. So let's be clear certainly we do not say it's a necessity for getting the top job. But it could still be sufficient to improve performance.

As it turns out, seems there is a definite correlation between holding an MBA and achieving high performance as a CEO over the long term. CEOs with an MBA ranked on average a full 40 places higher than those without.

Those who had become CEO before the age of 50. The effect of an MBA was even more significant for this group. The advantage went up from 40 places to 100. Time and again, the MBA advantage persisted.

The Potent MBA Ingredient

The big question is, why? The simple answer is that something in the MBA curriculum or experience helps a CEO add value, particularly if that executive has comparatively few years of business experience. But what exactly is this magic MBA ingredient? For some graduates, an MBA simply gives them better skills. It can add right-brain creativity and warmth to left-brain logic and financial acumen. Or vice versa. It can even help get the hard and soft skills working together. For others, an MBA is a badge of excellence. After all, top schools only accept a chosen few. And most top companies look among the elite for their leaders.

An MBA may also provide a network of other rising stars. This network offers business contacts, opportunities, and priceless advice. And it lasts for an entire career.

Those who choose to do an MBA, are opting to improve themselves. Their openness to ideas and willingness to learn is going to benefit them all the way to the top—and long after they arrive in the executive suite.

An MBA program, or at least a good one, gives just such a perspective, especially if it recruits a globally diverse student body. And here the speculation is backed up by research. An INSEAD colleague, Professor Will Maddux, has carried out experiments demonstrating conclusively that the simple fact of having lived abroad makes people more creative.

The most successful MBA graduates are probably those who manage to mix all of the above ingredients into a potent cocktail of excellence. Perhaps they're the ones who made it into the top 200. Today's MBA students should take note.

*Some of above quoted from Herminia Ibarra, professor of organizational behavior and the Cora Chaired Professor of Leadership and Learning at INSEAD

Top Ranking companies in US to work for ?

Top rank: 1 Apple

Rank in Computers: 1

It is a tribute to its CEO that Apple, which ten years ago seemed headed for the slag heap, is No. 1 on this list. Steve Jobs has always had a knack for weaving magic out of silicon and software. But who knew he could build a $24 billion (in sales) company on the strength of a portable jukebox and a computer with a single-digit market share?

His pitch, as he leveraged the success of the iPod, was very simple: Apple products work, and if you buy more than one, they work better. The company (if not its stock) is on a tear, but even with the economy weakening, it will be interesting to see how economically sensitive this growth engine is.

Top rank: 2 Berkshire Hathaway's

Rank in Insurance: Property and Casualty: 1

To see "admiration" in action, just look at Berkshire Hathaway's stock chart from last fall. As other financial shares were getting hammered -- some Berkshire investments among them -- investors bid up Berkshire's own stock by 27%.

Why? Wall Street believes that Berkshire and its acclaimed leader, Warren Buffett, possess a matchless ability to turn today's problems into tomorrow's profits. The key to this ability: "An absence of any regard for short-term results," says Don Graham, CEO of the Washington Post Co. (of which Berkshire owns 18%). Indeed, Berkshire has just launched a bond insurance company to compete with troubled MBIA and Ambac. It has also invested $800 million in subprime-battered Swiss Re.

Can Buffett, 77, continue making lemonade from lemons? There's no reason to think otherwise. Of greater concern: Who takes over once the legend is gone? -Jon Birger

Top rank: 3 GE

Rank in Electronics: 1

GE is no longer No. 1, but its reputation has still held up well, considering. The company gets half its profit from financial services but announced it was bailing out of subprime in July, before the worst trouble hit.

The resulting write-offs didn't dent earnings significantly. While its stock is stuck where it was six years ago, GE remains America's top shareholder-wealth creator, and it continues to deliver profit growth of 15% or more, remarkable for a $173 billion company. -Geoff Colvin

Top rank: 4 Google

Rank in Internet Services and Retailing: 2

Microsoft may be bigger, but everything in the tech world revolves around Google. Its "Do no evil" motto has become a kind of Hippocratic oath for other Silicon Valley firms, and even its fiercest critics agree that Google sees itself as the caretaker for the web. Competitors talk of meetings where Googlers, as altruistic as Santa's elves, ask, "What's good for the web?" Of course, what's good for the web has also proven to be very good for Google. -Josh Quittner

Top rank: 5 Toyota Motor

Rank in Motor Vehicles: 2

In the past 12 months Toyota has seen three top American executives defect to competitors, been humiliated in its first season of NASCAR racing, and had its reputation for impeccable quality sullied. Yet those were mere speed bumps as it cruised to second place in U.S. car and truck sales (passing Ford) and took the winner's circle in worldwide sales.

Toyota continues to add capacity, invest in hybrid technology, and roll up the healthiest profits in the industry. If 2007 was a tough year for Toyota, imagine what a good one looks like. -Alex Taylor III

Top rank: 6 Starbucks

Rank in Food Services: 2

After years of dizzying growth, there's trouble brewing at Starbucks, which dropped four places on this year's list due to weak sales, overexpansion, and intense competition. Its once-soaring stock trades for about half what it fetched a year ago, and in January chairman Howard Schultz returned as CEO. But Starbucks remains a sought-after employer, and its brand, while bruised, is still powerful. -Matthew Boyle

Top rank: 7 FedEx

Rank in Delivery and Logistics: 2

With fuel costs rising, it may be FedEx's environmental efforts that matter most these days. Aside from hybrid vehicles, which are becoming key across the industry, the company has also focused on solar energy; a new installation at its Oakland hub generated 80% of the facility's energy demand.

It's that kind of innovation, says CEO Fred Smith, that has made "FedEx" a household verb. And it shows no signs of exiting the lexicon anytime soon. The $35.2 billion company experienced its busiest day ever in December, handling 11.4 million packages. -Nadira A. Hira

Top rank: 8 Procter & Gamble

Rank in Soaps and Cosmetics: 1

As a Navy veteran, A.G. Lafley knows that turning around an aircraft carrier can't be done on a dime. Neither can turning around a mature conglomerate. That is the task Lafley assumed in 2000, after the company had suffered two profit warnings.

But like a ship, once the change in direction is made, a company can gain a certain momentum. And that has been the case with P&G, whose adjusted stock price has more than doubled on Lafley's watch. The key to P&G's success: strategic focus, innovation, and internationalization. Lafley's next challenge: to make sure he has trained his officers to take command. -Cait Murphy

Top rank: 9 Johnson & Johnson

Rank in Pharmaceuticals: 2

From the common cold to clogged arteries, J&J has the remedy. The $61 billion company recorded operating margins of almost 25% last year. More broadly, the 122-year-old health-care conglomerate is admired for its ability to be competitive in three businesses -- consumer health products, branded pharmaceuticals, and medical devices.

That's nothing to sniff at. J&J's competitors have responded to uncertainty in health-care markets by narrowing their focus. -John Simons

Top rank: 10 Goldman Sachs Group

Rank in Securities: 1

At a time when much of Wall Street is begging for capital infusions, it's not a shock that Goldman Sachs, which posted record profits in 2007, earned a spot on this list.

But it's not just about the money. Goldman's peers admire it because the profits are more than a matter of luck (though there's some of that too). Its results are a testament to its culture, an impossible-to-replicate mix of extreme aggression, deep paranoia, individual ambition, and robot-like teamwork.

Even as Goldman has morphed from a U.S. banking partnership into a global colossus, the firm's culture has kept it as nimble as a startup. And that's helped it balance its greed with a hyper-awareness of risk. Sound too simple? Just ask Goldman's rivals. -Bethany McLean

Top rank: 11 Target

Rank in General Merchandisers: 2

Consumer jitters rattled retailers' nerves in 2007, and even mighty Target -- the $60 billion purveyor of cheap chic -- was unable to escape the gloom.

But while Target's 2007 numbers were lackluster -- same-store sales, a key measure of a retailer's health, fell in December, and profits fell in the fourth quarter -- the Minneapolis discounter kept its cool. Target continued to do what it does best: churn out trendy trappings with marketing mastery.

It also gave $3 million a week back to the community, boosting its image as the good guy of discount retailing. That helps explain why it jumped two spots this year, making it the top merchandiser on the list. -Julie Schlosser

Top rank: 12 Southwest Airlines

Rank in Airlines: 1

It was officially the second-worst year in aviation history. More than a quarter of all flights in the U.S. arrived late. Planes were packed. Airports were madhouses. Passengers were irate. So the fact that any airline is considered admirable says something.

Southwest, which dropped seven spots this year, to No. 12, shows it's possible to shine even in an otherwise dire industry. Besides posting its 35th consecutive year of profitability, it was the most punctual, lost the fewest bags, and had the least complaints compared with its peers. But its stock lagged, and there's fear that its quirky culture is starting to go stale. -Barney Gimbel

Top rank: 13 American Express

Rank in Megabanks, credit card cos.: 1

American Express was one of the few Wall Street giants to escape subprime trouble, but it still got whacked by the deteriorating economy. Investors had hoped AmEx would sail through the slowdown; instead the company announced (after our Most Admired survey was complete) that profits fell last quarter. The stock dropped, but that looks like a bump in the road, as the company has been a stellar performer for the past seven years under CEO Ken Chenault. -Geoff Colvin

Top rank: 14 BMW

Rank in Motor Vehicles: 1

The German automaker has doubled the number of models, expanded its global manufacturing -- and fallen on its face with the disastrous acquisition and subsequent divestment of Britain's Rover Group. Yet even as it has transformed its operations, BMW has strengthened its image as the sporty and cool German luxury-car brand. BMW's biggest challenge: to achieve margins as fat as those of rival Daimler. That would make BMW's shareholders as happy as its drivers. -Peter Gumbel

Top rank: 14 Costco Wholesale

Rank in Specialty Retailers: 1

Costco CEO James Sinegal is a stickler for keeping prices low. The savings he wrings from suppliers are often passed on to consumers, sometimes to the chagrin of investors. But the stock is up 12% over the past year, bucking the general retail trend. With $64 billion in sales (more than Wal-Mart's Sam's Club), a 50-million-strong membership base, and loyalty among hourly employees for its generous compensation, it's no wonder Costco (tied with BMW) has joined the ranks of the Most Admired Companies. -Suzanne Kapner

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