Kommersant (St. Petersburg), August 25, 2008

A TICKET TO CAREER, Veronica Pavlova, Anna Grabovskaya, Ilya Kurmyshev

Master of Business Administration (MBA) program has been acquiring an increasingly growing population lately. Every now and then the most diverse people say thoughtfully, "It is necessary to work for five years more and to get an MBA degree somewhere afterwards."

MBA is often perceived as a stage of education necessary for the career like availability of a higher education certificate, desirably from a decent higher educational institution. Is this so?

HISTORY OF THE MATTER

In general, availability of MBA degree implies an ability to be an efficient middle-ranking and top-ranking manager.

MBA was born in the US at the end of the 19th century. The first MBA programs appeared in Europe, Canada and Asia in the middle of the 20th century. The first MBA program for professionals without separation from work appeared in Chicago in 1940. MBA is everywhere now but there is no uniform standard of MBA qualification still. To get independent assessment of quality, MBA programs or schools pass accrediting of special agencies, for instance, American association for development of university business schools (AACSB), British MBA association (AMBA) or European quality assessment system (EQUIS).

MBA can be different: there are traditional programs with separation from work and intensive internal education for not less than a year (more often, two years); internal-correspondence or modular systems with partial separation from work; systems with remote education. There are also flexible programs that allow choosing of courses for each MBA area but such option does not enjoy big demand yet. Almost all forms of MBA programs are represented in St. Petersburg too (see the table with information about the business schools of St. Petersburg) and definitely all forms are represented in the foreign business schools available to Russian managers. However, not all programs are demanded by the market to the same degree.

There is a simple comparison: there are fans and connoisseurs among those who consume wine. For a fan it is sufficient to formulate his demand: I wish red dry wine because I have a meat dish for dinner. Real connoisseurs will name the brand, the harvest year and a few other desirable parameters. Thus, among the employers who are "connoisseurs" the most demanded is MBA from London or America, internal and until 2004. However, such candidates practically do not appear on the free labor market. Along with this, it is necessary to admit that there are not many employers in Moscow and St. Petersburg and moreover so in the regions who really need such qualification.

Remote forms of education have become very popular lately. Ideally, they should make this kind of education available to the regions. However, majority of the people who have studied in business schools admit that presence in a professional environment is the most valuable and useful thing. It is difficult to reproduce the developing environment even if all modern communications means are available. That is why separation of the process of education from a big city is hardly sensible and possible.

MOTIVATION

Anders Liljenberg, Rector of the Stockholm School of Economics in St. Petersburg, says, "Participants of our programs set the most diverse goals for themselves – from a momentum they wish to add to their career n the desirable direction to complete overturning of their lives – both options are possible. Summing up, we can say that the goal is obtaining of new skills, structuring of the already existing knowledge and communication with professionals of the business community and experienced lecturers from various countries."

LOCAL SPECIFIC

Unlike the aforementioned Stockholm School of Economics and Vlerick Leuven Gent Management School that use classic Western MBA and EMBA models in St. Petersburg, majority of players of the St. Petersburg market of business education adapt MBA format for the Russian specific this way or the other. Teaching in the Russian language is the main manifestation of the "national specific."

Speaking about advantages of the Russian MBA programs, Valentin Galenko, Pro-Rector of the SPbGUEF for additional education and director of the higher school of economics, mentions orientation of programs at Russian experience of running business, possibility of combination of work and study, as well as lower costs of education.

Tatiana Lebedeva, dean of the department of international and master programs of the international banking institute, agrees, "Orientation of education at Russian conditions is an important advantage of getting education in a strong Russian business school. Many Western theories require significant adaptation to take into account Russian realities and some of them cannot be used in Russia yet. It is also necessary to bear in mind differences in corporate culture and mentality. It is also important that there is a possibility to get education without separation from work because contemporary business often does not allow retention of high positions in a company in case of a long break for education."

MOSCOW VERSUS PETERSBURG

For businessmen of St. Petersburg opportunities in the field of business education are not confined to the offers of the local market. Besides a possibility of MBA degree obtaining abroad (it is sufficiently expensive and requires a break in work) they can get education in Moscow where majority of Russian business schools is concentrated. Along with this, according to many experts, business education in Moscow differs from business education in St. Petersburg in some aspects.

Svetlana Skripkina, marketing and advertising director of the international university, explains, "The Moscow business has passed the stage of 'wild capitalism' earlier and tries to behave in a civilized and correct manner to the maximum extent, naturally, with some exceptions. First of all, this is manifested in the style of relations with hired top managers. Payment for education of talented managers under MBA programs is one of the forms of confidence of owners in employees of a company. Taking into account this situation, there are more corporate programs in Moscow where commercial organizations pay for education of students. The St. Petersburg business takes the need for professional education of the leading specialists more timidly and loses competition to the Moscow business in its human resources potential as a result of this."

Sergei Fedorov, executive director of the open school of business, names four main peculiarities of the Moscow market. He explains, "This is existence of the obvious leader in Moscow in the form of the academy of economy that dictates the rules of the market, higher competition among business school and bigger demand for their services, as well as other criteria for choice of the programs (in St. Petersburg, unlike in Moscow, opinion of colleagues and acquaintances about the program is a determining factor)." Along with this, Anastasia Korshunova remarks that costs of MBA programs in St. Petersburg are higher than in Moscow on average, which is possibly connected exactly with undeveloped competition on the market of St. Petersburg.