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Understanding the Financial Times Executive Education Rankings: a 360‐Degree Review

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Understanding the Financial Times Executive Education Rankings: a 360‐Degree Review Understanding the Financial Times Executive Education Rankings: A 360‐Degree Review Original Research Sponsored by September 12, 2015 Tom Cavers, James Pulcrano, Jenny Stine Preface: UNICON statement accompanying the research report Understanding the Financial Times Executive Education Rankings: A 360-Degree Review UNICON – The International University Consortium for Executive Education UNICON is a global consortium of business-school-based executive education organizations. Its primary activities include conferences, research, benchmarking, sharing of best practices, staff development, recruitment/job postings, information-sharing, and extensive networking among members, all centered on the business and practice of business-school-based executive education. The UNICON Research Committee The UNICON Research Committee advises the UNICON Board of Directors on research priorities, cultivates a network of research resources and manages the overall research pipeline and projects. The Research Committee is made up of volunteers from UNICON’s member organizations. UNICON Research Report: Understanding the Financial Times Executive Education Rankings: A 360- Degree Review The Financial Times (FT) annual rankings of non-degree Executive Education providers are the best known and most discussed in the industry. In late 2014, the UNICON Research Committee commissioned and the UNICON Board approved the UNICON research project “Understanding the Financial Times Executive Education Rankings: A 360-Degree Review” in large measure to better understand and address many recurring questions about the FT’s ranking system. UNICON is a diverse organization, with representation from over 100 schools. In addition to size and geography, schools are diversified by the expertise, reputation and strength of their faculty, the types and sizes of their customers, and increasingly the breadth and depth of their executive education portfolios. The ability to represent many perspectives in executive education is a great strength of the UNICON and a source of continued learning and vitality in the field. This diversity of views and interests also means that there is no single “UNICON perspective” on its commissioned research topics, including no single perspective on ranking systems. One motivation for commissioning this research project was the view expressed by a number of members that ranking systems can and should better reflect the diversity of executive education offerings, the distinctive strengths of schools, and the evolving nature of the marketplace. The interpretations and perspectives expressed in this report are those of the researchers - Jenny Stine, Jim Pulcrano, and Tom Cavers, professionals who are deeply familiar with the executive education field and the needs and objectives of its stakeholders. UNICON desired that the research project reflect diverse perspectives of these stakeholders, and that the findings of this report provide deeper understanding of the rankings systems and offer specific suggestions for improvements to the rankings systems to make them more valuable to the entire field, including schools, customers and clients, and expert observers. 25 August 2015 Preface In 1999, a young scholar named Linda Wedlin at Uppsala University in Sweden selected the Financial Times rankings as the topic for her dissertation research. At the time she thought that ranking business schools was something that “might be hot for a year or two.” Now, she acknowledges, “it is more important than any of us could have imagined.”1 It has been seventeen years since the FT launched its Executive Education (EE) rankings.2 Today they are robust, with over 100 schools participating globally. In fact, the FT EE rankings are the only active international rankings of executive education today.3 However, despite their prominence, many questions about them persist within the industry today. Our project began with a desire to understand more about the executive education rankings: How do they really work? What do they say about quality? Do customers of executive education use the rankings, and if so, how? How do business schools perceive the rankings, and what would they change? And what do the experts have to say? In short, if we were to do a 360-degree review of the FT Executive Education rankings, what would we learn? To better understand the FT EE rankings – and to get a 360-degree view – we sought out the key stakeholders in the realm of executive education. This included surveying and interviewing four main groups:4 1) Open enrollment participants – 713 surveyed and 5 interviewed 2) Learning & development (L&D) professionals (custom program customers) – 279 surveyed and 9 interviewed 3) Leaders of executive education at business schools – 94 surveyed and 12 interviewed 4) Experts in the field of rankings – 14 interviewed, including both current and former ranking executives as well as the FT itself We were particularly interested in how open and custom program customers use the rankings in their decision-making process. We were also interested in how business schools perceive the rankings. We were sure they would have some strong opinions, and they did not disappoint us. To round out our perspective, we wanted to learn what rankings experts – including social scientists, statisticians, 1 L. Wedlin interview, identified with permission. 2 The Financial Times is a leading business news and information organization. It is part of the Financial Times Group, which is a division of Pearson PLC. See Appendix 1: Pearson PLC and the Financial Times for additional context. 3 Early 2015, Business Week decided to drop its biannual Executive Education and EMBA rankings, see http://poetsandquantsforexecs.com/2015/03/17/bw-drops-emba-exec-ed-rankings/. 4 Institution and role of interviewees is detailed in Appendix 16: List of Interviewees by Institution and Role. 3 | Page consultants, accreditation bodies, and both current and former business school rankings professionals – had to say. Finally, we studied the published literature on business school rankings.5 As you will see, at a superficial level, we found a lot of support for executive education rankings in general and even for the FT EE rankings in particular. However, when we looked deeper, we also found some significant disconnects and challenges with the FT’s current approach to the rankings. There are concerns that the FT has not been keeping up with changes in the industry, that their rankings could be much more transparent, and that their methodology could be strengthened. Our report is organized as follows. First, we look into the FT’s rankings from a technical perspective to understand how they work. Next, we look at the perceptions and use of the rankings by key stakeholders. Third, we take a deep dive into the “disconnects and challenges” these perceptions surface. And finally, we offer two sets of recommendations, both how schools and professionals can get the most out of the current rankings as well as how the FT could address the disconnects and challenges in the longer term. In addition to the body of the report, we have compiled a collection of items in the appendices and online. We hope that readers will find them useful. A table of contents for the appendices appears on the first appendix page. Additional online materials delivered with our report include: • An infographic that explains the ranking process • 17 years of ranking data in an Excel table (overall ranks only; not by category) • 17 years of the ranking magazines / reports in PDF We realize that any research into rankings requires sailing into controversial waters. We hope that readers will accept this work as an objective look into the FT Executive Education rankings and that it will help us to understand both strengths and weaknesses. Ultimately, we hope that we can help stimulate dialogue and make these rankings as useful as possible for all parties involved. - Tom Cavers, Jim Pulcrano, and Jenny Stine July 20, 2015 5 In addition to references in the footnotes, there is a Bibliographic Essay at the end of this report that gives an overview of recent literature on the rankings. 4 | Page Report Overview This report is organized in four sections. These include: • A detailed look into the mechanics of the rankings (“How the Rankings Work”) • An exploration (“360”) of how the rankings are perceived and used by four key stakeholder groups (open enrollment customers, custom program customers, business schools, and rankings experts). This exploration is built primarily from our survey and interview data. Key insights include: o Many customers of executive education are aware of rankings, and use them, at least to some degree o Many business schools are dissatisfied with rankings. At the same time, they are frequently responsible for communicating them. o Experts stress that rankings are not quality measures and also may fail to capture innovation. • An exploration of the challenges and disconnects set up in the previous two sections. Here we go deeply into criticisms of the rankings as they relate to what we discovered in our research. • Detailed recommendations, including specific recommendations for consumers of the rankings, for business schools, and for the Financial Times. Key recommendations include: o For business schools to consider the value the rankings provide to some customers and clients, and to use the information provided in the report to participate in them more effectively; o For customers of executive education to be more
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