職場進修途徑中被低估的在職MBA

Three cheers for the part-time MBA! It is not a refrain you are likely to hear every day, I have to admit. But why does the full-time MBA receive all the accolades while part-time programmes are met with a rather embarrassed silence, even though the degree received by graduates is often the same?

請給在職MBA喝彩三聲！我必須承認，這可能不是那種你每天都能聽到的話。但是，爲什麼全日制MBA能收到所有的讚譽，而在職課程卻只能面對相當尷尬的沉默，即便兩類畢業生拿到的學位通常都是一樣的？

This might seem an odd thing to write about in a magazine dedicated to the full-time degree, but I think it is worth asking the question. Why has the part-time MBA always been the Cinderella of the MBA market, and can and should that change?

在一家提倡全日制學位的雜誌上寫這件事似乎有些奇怪，但我認爲，這個問題值得討論。爲什麼在職MBA一直是MBA界的“灰姑娘”？這種狀況能改變嗎？應該改變嗎？

It strikes me there is a real case to answer here. For what everyone has learnt in the past decade is that the MBA market has to offer more flexibility to students; it has to make better use of technology; it has to be more affordable; and participants need the security of a job at the end of the process. A further point is that is that there are too few women on traditional MBA programmes, and there is evidence that part-time programmes might help redress that balance.

我突然覺得確實有必要說一下這個問題。過去10年中大家學到的經驗是，MBA市場應該給學生提供更大的彈性；應該更好地利用科技；應該更讓人們負擔得起；應該確保學員在課程結束時能獲得一份工作。此外還有一點是，傳統MBA課程的女學生太少了，有證據表明在職MBA也許有助於平衡男女比例。

But the one thing that has convinced me the part-time MBA should be revisited is a comment I heard some years ago from Kim Clark, the former dean of Harvard Business School, whose MBA is ranked number one in the world by the FT this year. He said that students do not turn down a seat at HBS to go to another business school; they do so because they have great opportunities at work.

不過，最終令我確信在職MBA應該被重新審視的一點是，多年前我聽哈佛商學院(Harvard Business School)前院長金•克拉克(Kim Clark)說過的一句評價。哈佛商學院的MBA課程在英國《金融時報》2014年的全球MBA排行榜上名列第一。克拉克說，學生拒絕進入哈佛商學院不是因爲要去其他商學院，而是因爲他們不願失去工作中的絕佳機會。

As economies recover around the world, this is clearly going to become a bigger problem, as corporations bid to retain talented staff. They may even be persuaded to sponsor part-time MBA students as part of that process.

隨着全球各地經濟復甦，企業出高價留住人才，這顯然會成爲一個更棘手的問題。他們甚至可能會爲了留住人才，爲讀在職MBA的員工提供資金支持。

Of course, this idea is not new. When the Fuqua school at Duke University in North Carolina launched its Cross-continent MBA more than a decade ago, the then dean Rex Adams described the part-time degree targeting managers in their late twenties as “hitting the sweet spot”.

當然，這種想法並不新鮮。位於北卡羅萊納州的杜克大學富卡商學院(Fuqua School of Business)在十幾年前就推出了跨洲MBA課程，時任院長雷克斯•亞當斯(Rex Adams)把針對近三十歲經理人的在職學位形容爲“切中了他們的脈搏”。

There are other very successful part-time programmes out there, often called Executive MBAs, that cater to this market. At Iese Business School, for example, the average age of participants on the Madrid EMBA is 31 — similar to those studying on a full-time MBA at Insead. And whatever business school I talk to, from France to Australia, part-time and executive MBAs are booming, while full-time degrees flounder.

爲了迎合這個市場，商學院還推出了其他一些非常成功的在職課程，它們通常被稱爲“行政工商管理碩士（EMBA)”。例如，在ESE商學院(Iese Business School)攻讀“馬德里EMBA”課程的學員的平均年齡爲31歲，與那些歐洲工商管理學院(INSEAD)全日制MBA學生的年齡差不多。而且，無論說起哪所商學院，從法國到澳大利亞，在職MBA與EMBA項目都在迅速發展，而全日制學位則陷入困境。

Of course, one of the biggest problems is that some of the most prestigious business schools — Harvard and Stanford are the most obvious examples — only teach the MBA in a two-year full-time format. But these two US schools are not the only two big brand name schools. If you go to China, the two big names are Tsinghua and Beida — or Peking University. And most of the students on the MBAs at those two universities study part-time, as is common in China.

當然，最大的問題之一是，有些最負盛名的商學院——哈佛和斯坦福最爲明顯——只開設兩年制的全日制MBA。但是，並非只有這兩家美國學校是大牌學校。如果你去中國，名聲最大的兩所學校是清華和北大，而在這兩所學校攻讀MBA的學生大多都是在職，這在中國很普遍。

So why are part-time degrees so disregarded? I think there are may be two reasons. First, part-time degrees tend to be local courses, taught in the evenings. But there is no reason at all why they cannot be taught in modules, in the same way as the top-notch EMBAs, in multiple locations. Fuqua has proven that.

那麼爲什麼在職學位如此不受重視呢？我認爲可能有兩個原因。第一，在職學位往往是本地課程，在晚上授課。但是這些課程爲什麼不能像頂尖的EMBA課程一樣，分單元、分地點開課呢？完全沒有理由。富卡商學院已經證明了這一點。

Indeed, I can envisage a couple of enterprising business schools joining up to launch dual-city or even dual-country degrees. Why not a part-time degree taught alternate weekends in Chicago and New York? Or Paris and London?

事實上，我可以想象出幾個富有進取精神的商學院聯手推出雙城、甚至跨國學位。爲什麼在職MBA不能在芝加哥和紐約輪流進行週末授課呢？或者在巴黎和倫敦開課呢？

The second thing is to do with branding. The power of the MBA is arguably because it is the best known degree brand in the world. But over the past few years, the EMBA has become a premium brand in its own right, largely due to the way it has been promoted by business schools.

第二個原因和品牌有關。MBA具有巨大的影響力，這可以說是因爲它是全世界最知名的學位品牌。但是，在過去幾年間，EMBA本身已經成爲一個溢價品牌，這主要得益於商學院推廣這一品牌的方式。

Institutions such as London Business School, IE in Spain and Kellogg, at Northwestern University in the US, are now trying to perform the same marketing trick with the Master in Management degree, or MiM. So why not the part-time MBA?

倫敦商學院(London Business School)、西班牙IE商學院、美國西北大學(Northwestern University)凱洛格管理學院(Kellogg）等機構，如今正在嘗試運用與管理碩士(MiM)相同的營銷手段。那麼在職MBA爲何不可呢？

Clearly the name is an issue — it needs a rebrand. Perhaps AMBA (alpha MBA) would work or MBA-HF (MBA for high-flyers). The potential list is endless.

顯然，名字也是個問題——在職MBA需要重新命名。AMBA（阿爾法MBA）或許可以，或者MBA-HF（精英專屬MBA）也不錯。可供選擇的名字數之不盡。

Then of course, there is one final tried and tested way of ensuring premium status and high brand recognition, a tactic that worked so well in the EMBA market: put the price up.

當然，接下來還有一個確保溢價和提高品牌認知的殺手鐗，一個在EMBA市場行之有效的高招：提高價格。