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The language is English. The curriculum is American, as are many of the professors. The location, however, is Sasin’s Graduate Institute of Business Administration right here in Thailand. |
"To us," he explains, "our programme is not the intermediate kind of training or qualification. We regard it as a terminal professional business training."
The concept of the MBA as a terminal degree is quite widespread and it goes a long way in explaining its popularity in the business world. One or two years of intense study and you have your "meal ticket" or "license" for entry.
In recent years MBA programmes have proliferated in Thailand, particularly the international variety taught in English. Recently, the Learning Post paid a visit to two of these programmes. The first, Sasin, is one of Thailand’s oldest and best established. The second, run by the brand-new Shinawatra University, is probably Thailand’s newest and is only now preparing to recruit its first batch of students.
Sasin Graduate Institute of Business Administration
 Dr Toemsakdi Krishnamra |
Sasin was established by Chulalongkorn University in 1982, a time when Thailand was beginning to open up to the international economy in a major way. "We were for the first time having international companies coming into the country," explains Dr Toemsakdi, "and the need for qualified executives or businesspersons was growing. We also perceived that English would be necessary as a medium of international communication."
From the beginning Sasin was special. First, it has received much of its key funding from donations by Thai corporations. Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra himself has been very supportive, giving 20 million baht towards the construction of Sasin’s second building.
Secondly, rather than go it alone, Chulalongkorn University decided to look abroad for partners. The search resulted in a remarkable partnership with two of the world’s top business schools, Kellogg of Northwestern University and Wharton of the University of Pennsylvania.
"Although we are Chula," Dr Toemsakdi explains, "we get a special waiver and we have adopted the regulations of Northwestern University and the syllabus of Northwestern University. The content itself is that of Kellogg School although it’s taught by Kellogg and Wharton faculty mixed."
The relationship between Sasin and its partners is extremely close. "We have been lucky," says Dr Toemsakdi, "to have made an arrangement with Kellogg and Wharton to get their instructors to come, so, quality-wise, the standard can be fixed at a level not too dissimilar to the Kellogg and Wharton standards. The only difference is the students that we have. Most of the students here are Thai."
According to Dr Toemsakdi, the percentage of non-Thais in the student body varies from year to year, from about five percent to as high as 25 percent.
"It depends on how you count it," says Dr Toemsakdi. "By this I mean, there are regular registered students of ours who are foreigners and we have about fourteen arrangements with universities outside of Thailand for cross-registration. So if we count the exchange students in our group, it could be as high as twenty-five percent.
"Of the Thai students that we have," Dr Toemsakdi continues, "forty percent of them had their first degree outside of Thailand. So there are many Thais here who speak English better than Thai although they carry a Thai passport. So the atmosphere is somewhat quaint shall we say, neither Thai, nor English, nor American nor anywhere."
Two-year programme
 Dr Ian Fenwick |
Like many of the top business schools, Sasin does not accept students who are fresh out of university. The school requires a minimum of one-year’s work experience, but typically entrants have had two-years or more. Currently there are about 80 students enrolled in each year.
"Most of the first year," says Dr Ian Fenwick, a visiting professor in marketing from the Shulich School of Business at York University in Canada, "is nuts and bolts – the tools that you need to be able to realise where you want to go. Almost all the second year is elective courses.
"We deal with functional areas first of all: accounting, finance, economics, marketing, statistics, business law (second year), organisational behaviour and an overview of strategy. Those are the fundamentals. Basically, those are the core courses I would say in almost every MBA programme around the world.
"When we move into the second year, students can either go into those areas in more detail or they can start to go into more business-oriented courses: entrepreneurship, management of technology, leadership and business ethics, logistics and supply chain management. Most students pursue more than one area. I think the most popular are still finance and marketing," Dr Fenwick says.
What do you miss with the one-year MBA programme that is popular in some areas of the world? "Basically, I would say you miss half of it," Dr Fenwick answers. "I would only recommend a one-year MBA for someone who either has substantial business experience already or a good undergraduate business degree."
Ahead of the game
But is an MBA really worth it? What does a businessperson with an MBA have over one who does not?
That’s a good question, says Dr Toemsakdi. "To get an MBA, you’re out of work for at least two years, so if you don’t make a profit on the investment, there is no reason for spending two years and so much money in this.
"The advantage of having an MBA is that it trains you to think ahead of the game in doing business. In the MBA programme from the outset they will try to ram into your head business planning, so you can go into a project with a mission in mind."
To Dr Fenwick, the key benefit to an MBA degree is the confidence it gives to the young businessperson.
"You need to feel that you understand what’s going on, that you understand the terminology, you understand how the business is structured and you understand the sort of decisions the people above you are making," he says.
"In a way, that’s what an MBA tries to do. Hopefully, it’s not just a set of tools. It’s also a way of thinking. It’s a way of looking at problems and I think in Thailand, especially, hopefully it’s teaching people that there are no right answers. The answers are not in the back of the book. That is a mindset everywhere, but perhaps more of a mindset here than in North America."
Shinawatra University MBA programme
 Dr Cornelis Reiman |
There are obvious advantages to having a well-established, well-respected MBA programme already in place. But what if you are just starting up? Does this have any advantages of its own?
Dr Cornelis Reiman and Ms Suzanne Hosley who head the Shinawatra University MBA programme believe it does.
For one thing, Hosley says, there are no "entrenched interests" to battle.
"Universities are the least flexible organisations that I’ve ever had anything to do with," she says. "You’ve got organisational structures, faculties and politics – you’ve got so many procedures and committees that you have to go through to get anything done that change is very very slow."
 Ms Suzanne Hosley |
The founders, says Hosley, Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra and Interior Minister Purachai Piemsomboon, clearly do not want that to happen at their university. Instead, the emphasis will be on developing what is known as a "learning organisation" and producing graduates who thrive in such an environment.
On a small-scale, says Reiman, a learning organisation is like an effective sports team or military unit. "It’s members are not about to let interpersonal differences stop them, so they get to know each other well and focus entirely on the desired outcome.
"A learning organisation disseminates power and certainly has more information flow than the traditional hierarchical organisation. It is also more flexible because you can adjust as you go along, so that you’re adapting to changes in the environment," Reiman says.
Blank slate
With a mandate to "do something different" and essentially a blank slate to carry it out, Reiman and Hosley have spent a lot of time talking to leaders in the business community to find out what they want from MBA graduates.
Says Hosley, "we’ve been speaking with CEOs, Chairmen and HR vice presidents of companies in Bangkok and asking what do you want of your middle managers? What do you not get? What should we be focusing on? So the programme is based on that.
"Surprisingly, a lot of the focus is personal development. They find here that MBA graduates come out knowing what page 479 of the textbook says, but they don’t have a clue when to use it or what to do with it when faced with the real problem, so it’s not applied, it’s not practical," Hosley says.
"They’ve also found that there’s a problem with interpersonal skills, the managing of relationship and alliances and negotiations. There seems to be a consensus that there’s a lack of a ‘worldview’ among Thai managers. There’s a communication problem and a self-confidence problem and an awareness problem," she says.
The programme
"Shinawatra University is opening an innovative, practice-oriented MBA programme aimed at managers in technology-intensive firms," reads the advertisement for new faculty. "Three pillars underpin the programme: management, technology and culture."
According to Hosley, a programme of this type requires five main components. The first is personal development, basically organisational psychology, focusing on managing relations and managing self.
Second is the communications component – English language communications that is. "As the head of one company told me," Hosley relates, "‘my staff is brilliant. They sit down at the negotiation table and their English doesn’t sound good and they’re immediately treated as second-class citizens and they’re already losing’. So, a big focus is on communications."
Third, says Hosley, is management fundamentals, "the traditional core MBA subjects – economics and finance, marketing and human resources, and business strategy.
"But we’re not teaching it that way. We’re going to teach it in an integrated fashion. Rather than teaching managerial accounting or financial accounting, for example, we’ll have something called managing financial resources. We’re not trying to develop accountants. What we are trying to develop is managers who can speak to accountants and read a financial statement and know what it means and who can understand the financial implications of taking a risk," she explains.
The fourth component will consist of three seminars. "That will mean bringing in live case studies, bringing in managers to talk about their current experiences and issues and trends and going out to see where they work," Hosley says.
Finally, the fifth component will involve individual and team projects relating to what the students find most interesting and what they want to explore in more detail.
This will be a one-year intensive trimester programme for students enrolled full-time, longer for those taking it part-time. A minimum of three years work experience will be required.
According to Hosley, it will also be a small programme. "We don’t want to start big at all. In fact, we probably don’t ever want to be big, but the current projections are 20 full-time and 40 part-time. That could be ambitious because we’re an unknown quantity."
Who will benefit most from the Shinawatra programme? "I think that our course will appeal to people who feel that they can make a difference to themselves and to their careers and to their employers – and to their economy if they happen to be very entrepreneurial," says Reiman.
"The world is accelerating," he says. "It is not linear, but companies tend to proceed in a linear manner. As a consequence, you have to change how organisations work, how managers think and how companies pick up the new knowledge."
"The marketplace generally doesn’t have an abundance of people who want to be challenged significantly and we are going to challenge them in a nice positive way. If they’re prepared to learn, then we’re prepared to provide the environment for that to happen," he says.
terryfrd@ksc15.th.com |