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Rankings | - "Should journalists become members..."

Della Bradshaw, The Financial Times Business Education editor.

Should journalists become members of industry organisations such as Equal? It is a very interesting question - though I think you would have to create a new category for us!

As an aside, I do know that the Financial Times is a corporate member of EMBAC, the EMBA Council.

Rankings | - "Keeping Things in Proportion"

Paul Danos, Dean Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth.

I was talking to John Fernandez who heads up the AACSB recently, and he said that he estimates that there are over 8,000 "business schools" worldwide of which perhaps about six or seven hundred are accredited by major accreditation groups.  The popular rankings concentrate on, at most, the top one  hundred schools, or less than 2% of all the schools.  It is obvious therefore that the vast majority of business school students in the world have little  comparative and independent evaluations of their schools, certainly far less than is readily available for those that are ranked.  When looked at in this perspective, the current system gives a great deal of information for a small percentage  of schools with neither accreditations nor the rankings having much to say about the vast majority of schools. 

The top business schools will continue to command attention from the press and from accreditation agencies, but the massive and growing numbers of  other schools will command attention too and their sheer numbers will make  them more and more important in the future.

Rankings | - "EQUAL's document on Rankings: Some Clarifications"

Santiago Iñiguez, Dean of Instituto de Empresa.

In a previous post I referred to the document approved by EQUAL "Rankings-Guide for the media" and given some subsequent commentaries by Della Bradshaw perhaps further clarifications are needed.

EQUAL is a consortium that comprises quality assessment and accreditation agencies in the field of management education as well as national or regional associations of universities, business schools or graduates in Business Administration. It currently has 21 members representing different continents and aims at attracting even more partners in the future. Its membership’s composition and profile goes far beyond the mere representation of business schools and so does its mission.

As Chairman of EQUAL, one of my goals is to transform the consortium into a wide and legitimate body representing the major stakeholders of management education. We are approaching, for example, students', professors' and employers' associations. The recent posts by Della Bradshaw make me think that we may have missed the opportunity of inviting another major stakeholder group: the specialised media in business education. Would their representatives be interested in becoming members of EQUAL in the future?

The aforementioned document was prepared and published six years ago and has been available since at EFMD’s website. To put things in context, it was a response to an alarming proliferation at that time of rankings that were spurious in terms of methodology, transparency, authorship and unsolicited information. As far as I know, the document was distributed in different countries through the respective members of EQUAL but, unfortunately, it seems that it did not reach many of its intended targets: bad marketing indeed by EQUAL. Well, better late than never.

Having said this, according to my interpretation, the rankings produced by the major international newspapers and magazines today –BusinessWeek, Financial Times, Forbes and The Economist- fulfil the basic requirements stated in the document. The virtue of the document is that it allows to distinguish those rankings that respect the basic principles of transparency, consistency and impartiality from those that don’t. Can the document serve as a reference for the rules to be observed in ranking activities?

Rankings | - "Comments on Prof Policano's comment"

Della Bradshaw, The Financial Times Business Education editor.

I think I have to take issue with Prof Policano's comment that there is a "trade off between making more money and reporting more accurately".

At the FT - and I'm absolutely certain this is true at other publications which rank business schools - reporting accuracy is NEVER compromised in order to make money, be that selling advertising or newspapers. Indeed, anyone can view all our rankings on ft.com completely free of charge - it is a non-subscription service.

At the FT we have spent years trying to make our rankings more stable, not less stable. We compile salary data and alumni opinion over three years, for example. And when a ranking has been running for more than three years, we introduce a three year average score, which we tell our readers is a better indicator for schools, especially ESTABLISHED schools, notably those in the US.

We also "band" schools, into four bands for our MBA rankings - equivalent to the ratings Prof Policano is looking for - and point out in the footnotes that schools are ranked in these clusters.

Because the FT is a global ranking - not a US one - we include very fast-growing schools, in both Europe and Asia. Just to give you one specific example, the FT ranks the University of Oxford's MBA at number 25 in the world. Ten years ago this programme did not exist.

Prof Policano's argument that that top 50 US schools are much the same schools, year in, year out, has some validity. But the top 50 or 100 global schools are certainly not!

Prof Policano notes that at his previous school, the MBA programme did not change much from year to year. But there are schools where the programmes do change, and the schools involved want that recorded through the rankings. A rating system may not achieve this.

For every dean that wants more stability in the rankings there is one that doesn't..... one complaint I often hear is that our three-year weighting system penalises innovative schools. This is particularly true in our executive education rankings where these shorter programmes are revamped on a near-annual basis - or even replaced completely.

On a final note, one often-voiced complaint is that rankings should be more transparent. Wouldn't a move from rankings to ratings make them less transparent?

Rankings | - "What Price Rankings?"

Andy Policano, Dean of The Paul Merage School of Business, University of California, Irvine

In my recent article “What Price Rankings?” in BizEd, I examine a number of the items that are discussed by Della Bradshaw, Howard Thomas and Santiago Iniguez.  Let me comment on just one of those points which my good friend Howard Thomas alluded to in his comments.

I am sure that Howard would agree with Della Bradshaw that the media should make money.  The disagreement comes from the trade off between making more money and reporting more accurately.  Let me provide an example. A major point of my BizEd article is that the set of the top twenty schools has not changed significantly in the last 18 years and that the numerical scores that the media compute for these schools show little statistical difference between them.  All of these programs are excellent and all provide a top notch environment.  Still, there are more complex differences across these programs than reflected in the rankings that might cause a prospective student to choose one over another.  Because there is little statistical difference in the numbers computed by the media for these schools, one of the least important determinants of that decision should be the media ranking. The same conclusion can be reached for the schools that fall in the next group of say 30 schools.  These observations suggest that a more accurate way to portray the quality of business schools is to “rate” not “rank” them.  Schools in the first tier receive an "A"; schools in the next tier a "B" and so on.  Students would then investigate the important differences between schools based on a deeper comparison of the specific attributes of the schools and their own preferences.

So, why don’t the media simply report the raw data for each school and then rate and not rank schools? The stark reality is that there would be little new in the ratings from one year to the next—thus, no news.  If the media adopted this strategy, which would avoid creating the misperception that there are sharp differences between schools with the same rating, much of the hype of the rankings would diminish and rankings issues would be less popular.

While there is nothing wrong in the concept that the media should make money, there is something wrong in the concept that the media are inventing news that really isn’t there.  For example, I began my investigation of the rankings while I was Dean at Wisconsin when in one year the US News ranking of the MBA program rose 20 places.  We had done nothing different in that year.  It was then that I discovered that the schools are so closely bunched together that a minor blip in one component of the ranking can cause major changes in the school’s relative position.  The truth was that there was no substantial change in the quality of the program. If the media had rated rather than ranked programs, a more accurate portrayal would have been relayed to the public.

In sum, the media should rate, not rank schools. In fact, Business Week does this for their 30 – 50 group and their 50+ group. They list these schools alphabetically, most likely because they find it difficult to draw distinctions between these schools.  The rest of the media should move in this direction.

Rankings | -"The Document"

Here is EQUALS´s "Rankings - Guide for the media (69 kb)" that was indirecly linked to in Santiago Iñiguez's last post and futhermore EQUAL´s "Rankings - Guide for Students and Employers (70 kb)"

The Blogmaster.

Rankings | - "Where were the requirements?"

Della Bradshaw, The Financial Times Business Education editor.

Again, I am really interested in what EFMD/Equis/Equal are doing in this area. In particular I am intrigued by Prof Iniguez's comment: "EQUAL, the think tank for EQUIS, published a document with the requirements that, according to the business education community, rankings should desirably meet".

How many newspapers did they circulate this document to? Was it sent to the Financial Times, the Economist or BusinessWeek? Did anyone from Equis/Equal/EFMD ever discuss this document over the phone or face-to-face with any journalist?

I can't help feeling, though, that business schools grouping together to decide a list of "requirements" is a bit like a bunch of journalists getting together to decide what makes a great newspaper.

As a newspaper we only survive if our readers and advertisers believe we are supplying them with the information and comment they need in the format they need it.

Is there a message here for business schools?

Rankings | - "Add Value"

Santiago Iñiguez, Dean of Instituto de Empresa.

Business schools rankings, if conducted according to the basic principles of impartiality, transparency and consistency, add real value to the market. In the past years, many new ranking schemes have entered the scene, evidence that the market demands them. Different stakeholders –prospective students, recruiters and corporate clients- see rankings as additional criteria to gather further information and make the educational offerings more easily comparable. It is thus legitimate that an initiative that provides value to the market has its returns and becomes profitable for those who undertake such effort. I have no objections here. I appreciate the positive attitude of those ranking producers who contribute to the transparency of the activity by engaging in a constructive debate with representatives of the institutions examined.

The rankings phenomenon is not unique to education. "Rankings galore" is common to many other industries. Take law firms for example (example one and example two) and consulting companies (example one and example two), or even auditors.

Certainly, rankings are here to stay and will probably proliferate in the future. Once European higher education systems in Europe adopt the same structure and cross border movement of students increases, applicants to a diverse set of disciplines will need to compare many different elements and will use rankings as an instrument to decide where to study. The recent flourish of worldwide university rankings anticipates and evidences this.

As Dean Thomas and Della Bradshaw point out, accreditation agencies such as EQUIS, AMBA and AACSB do not endorse rankings and I believe it’s not their job to make their own rankings. They can, however, contribute by providing guidelines or recommendations that make the activity more transparent and reliable. For example, EQUAL, the think tank for EQUIS, published a document with the requirements that, according to the business education community, rankings should desirably meet. An interesting exercise would be to evaluate the existing league tables according to those guidelines. How many of them actually pass the test?

Tags(clickable): mba,  mba rankings, education, business school, management education

Rankings | - "Comment on Prof Thomas's comments"

Della Bradshaw, The Financial Times Business Education editor.

I am always rather amused when business schools point an accusing finger at newspapers and complain that we are there to make money.

Is making money such a bad thing? Is that what you teach in business school?

If newspapers didn't make money through sales and advertising, how on earth could they continue to "educate, entertain and inform"?

I am also rather concerned about Prof Thomas's comments that rankings are too important to be left to the media, and should be carried out by the industry bodies, such as AACSB, AMBA, Equis and GMAC.

To begin with, I do not believe organisations which are financed by the business schools are best placed to carry out these kinds of rankings, nor that this type of assessment would carry weight with potential students and employers.

Second, I think you would have a hard time persuading 500-1,000 schools to accept a single set of criteria.

At the FT we constantly ask business schools to assess topics, such as the research publications we use to compile our rankings. It never ceases to amaze me how many professors write to me, often in quite insulting tones, to tell me the FT research list is ludicrous because it does not include the "Journal of socio-accounting political economics in the Isle of Wight", or somesuch.

I really do think organisations such as AACSB and Equis have a vital role in helping to define industry standards. That was why I think it is so important that they talk to each other. As Prof Iniguez writes, Equis is now publishing a glossary of terms for business schools to adopt. But will this be seen as an end in itself, or a starting point for working with AACSB and GMAC in the US to produce international standards?

Perhaps Prof Thomas, with experience as a dean in both Europe and the US, could act as honest broker here?

Rankings | - "Some Shortcomings"

Howard Thomas, Dean of Warwick Business School

I agree with Paul Danos that rankings are both controversial and important. Perhaps, however, they are too important to rely so much on media organisations which are there not only to ‘educate, entertain and inform’ - but also to sell newsprint and advertising space.

Many rankings contain useful information for prospective candidates but how many of these see further than the numerical list from 1 to 100? Even if they did so, there is insufficient information in most rankings for a serious candidate to make an informed choice. Given that many schools can be separated by just a few points, perhaps banding, such as that now adopted by the US National Research Council in their forthcoming assessment of Doctoral programmes would be more useful.

An honest broker would have to ask a couple of supplementary questions to the enquiry ‘Which is the best business school for me?’ Schools which specialise in developing entrepreneurs or taking many candidates from the public or not for profit sectors lose out considerably in most rankings. Additionally, most rankings are seen as business school rankings and they are not, they are attempts to rank programmes or, in the case of the MBA, parts of programmes (Full Time, Executive and Distance).

Having experience as Dean in both US and UK schools, I can testify to the fact that the differences between the management education styles in these two countries is not reflected in rankings currently, neither is the rich diversity of styles within Europe or the USA. More information in this area, evident in recent commentary by the Financial Times, would prove more useful to prospective candidates than a strict numerical rank.

There are so many rankings now that, apart from the resource needed to participate, how can perspective candidates sort the wheat from the chaff? Currently, none of these rankings are endorsed by bodies such as EFMD, AACSB, AMBA or GMAC. Perhaps by working more closely with these organisations, more credible, consistent and methodologically sound information could be produced.

Tags(clickable): mba,  Warwick, mba rankings, education, business school, management education