MBA global graduate orientation platform, Unimy, reveals data from within its MBA Cultural Fit research about the Financial Times’ top-ranking MBAs 2023.
Unimy's research into the organizational culture of business schools encompasses 86 of the 100 schools listed in the FT's rankings.
How did Unimy measure business school culture?
Unimy started researching culture at 128 top business schools in 2019. The research project, MBA Cultural Fit, has so far included in-depth survey responses from 5,100+ alumni, students, and faculty. Using expertise in organizational culture, Unimy developed six dimensions along which to index these business schools. This extensive research into culture and business education provides a way to compare schools along values that were previously impossible to measure.
Main findings:
Higher-ranked schools tend to score higher in four of the MBA Cultural Fit dimensions:
- They show 'flexible' organizational qualities (as opposed to 'structured')
- They show an 'ad-hoc' orientation (as opposed to 'long-term')
- They have a liberal style (as opposed to a classical style)
- They tend towards informal relationships (as opposed to formal relationships)
What do each of these dimensions mean?
Flexible vs Structured organization: This dimension indexes to what extent students, staff, and faculty feel it is appropriate to establish and follow rules and procedures. A structured environment emphasizes clarity, order, and rules. A flexible environment emphasizes adaptability and individual variation. For example, in a flexible organization, every professor might be free to organize the sharing of their class materials however they like.
Ad-Hoc vs Long-term orientation: This dimension indexes to what extent the business school community values long-term planning. In a long-term orientated environment, it would be normal to think that one plans ahead to succeed. In an ad-hoc orientated environment, more value is placed on quick results, quick feedback, and responding to the immediate situation. This might be reflected in the skills students are taught within the program and therefore how they go on to lead businesses in the future.
Liberal vs Classical style: Classical style environments follow role-defined etiquette, established traditions, and value sharing a common style. Liberal environments are more comfortable with a variety of conduct and behavior and tend to allow for more change.
Informal vs Formal relationships: In informal environments, students may view professors more like 'peers'. This may affect how they normally communicate with them, or how much they expect to question authority. In formal environments, there may be more distance between students and faculty; and clearer guidelines as to how they should interact with one another (for example, a system for booking an hour in order to talk to a professor).
The FT's Diversity Assessment and Group Cohesion
Another interesting insight from within the MBA Cultural Fit data is its relationship to some parts of the FT's Diversity Assessment criteria. As the percentage of international students, board, and faculty increase, collective accomplishment culture rates decrease. This finding suggests that schools must pay special attention to supporting group cohesiveness when increasing international diversity if their aim is to preserve or encourage a collective ethos.
Collective accomplishment vs Personal contribution: This dimension measures the extent to which the community is organized to promote collective interest and group identity. Some programs reward group work more so than individual performance, for example. In an organization that values collective accomplishment more highly, there might be stronger team spirit.
Supporting graphs:
Flexible organization culture predicts higher rankings
Correlation of 0.61. Significance >99.99%
FT Rankings 2023 are in parentheses next to school names
Ad-Hoc Orientation Culture predicts higher rankings
Correlation of 0.34. Significance > 99.99%
FT Rankings 2023 are in parentheses next to school names
Liberal-style Culture predicts higher rankings
Correlation of 0.30. Significance > 99.995%
FT Rankings 2023 are in parentheses next to school names
Read more about Unimy and Advent Group
For more of the data or to access the full video presentation please contact Madeleine Corcoran using the button below
