This document summarizes a presentation given at the APROS Colloquium 2013 on the topic of competition in management education. It discusses the development of management education globally and in China and Taiwan specifically using a coevolutionary framework. Key points included the influence of the US model of management education, the roles of environmental factors like economic systems and institutional factors like government policies in different periods. Case studies compared the development trajectories of management education in China and Taiwan from before 1978 to 2012. The presentation concluded with implications for new business schools and directions for future research.

1. APROS Colloquium 2013
15-17 February 2013, Hitotsubashi University, Tokyo, Japan
Stream I Recovering Management Education and Development
Competition in Management Education:
A Coevolutionary Analysis
Der Chao Chen
Assistant Professor
Department of Business Administration
National Central University, Taiwan
February 15, 2013

2. Outline
• Introduction
• The Development of Management Education
• The Coevolutionary Approach
• The Case Study
• Research Results
• Discussions
• Conclusions
2

3. Introduction
• For future applicants and employers, different
business school rankings have been used as
indicators to reflect the business schools’
reputation and portfolio in the worldwide
management education market.
3

4. Introduction
• However, how about the competition among different
business schools remain a less explored inquiry.
• How can we explain the catching up from business
schools in emerging markets, especially people may
assume management practices in developed and newly
industrial countries are more advanced than those in
emerging markets?
• This study applied the ideas of coevolutionary
perspective to examine the competition in
management education using the case of development
of management education in China and Taiwan.

5. Introduction
Or just consider the following phenomenon ,
• More business schools in China listed on FT
rankings, why business schools in Taiwan
cannot compete with those in China?
• Can market size and growth potential explain
everything we observed or there are something
more?
5

6. The Development of Management Education
• It’s a young discipline with around hundred
years old, comparing with those in the fields of
natural science.
• Except the long standing debate about
management is a science or art, management
education, especially the MBA program, has
considered as a entrance ticket for being a
professional managers.

7. The Development of Management Education
• Management education become headlines in the
past decades, and the whole industry has become
dominated by U.S. business schools since 1950s.
7

8. The Development of Management Education
• Management education in US become an role
model for the development of most business
schools around the world, whether there are
university based business schools or independent
private ones.
• The influence of Americanization can be
observed on faculty recruitment and promotion,
program design and implementation in non-US
business schools.
8

9. The Development of Management Education
• When the discussions for relevance and rigorous
and the urge of redesigning management
education programs raised in most US and US-
style business schools in the middle of 2000s,
most of non-US business schools may remain
unchange.
9

10. The Development of Management Education
• Professional organizations, including academic
and accreditation ones, play proactive role to
promote the development of management
professions, and start to self-reflection about the
argument between relevance and rigorous in
management.
• However, similar self-reflection studies cannot
or hard to be found in non-English context.
10

11. The Coevolutionary Approach
• Lewin & Volberda (1999) defined the idea of
coevolution as “the joint outcome of
managerial intentionality, environment and
institutional effects ”
• This study adopted this idea to collect
longitudinal data related with those constituents
for analyzing competition of management
education in China and Taiwan, in terms of
their development trajectory, respectively.
11

12. The Coevolutionary Approach
• Environment effects , such as
Changing of market system and industry environment
Internationalization progress of higher education
institutions, etc.
• Institutional effects, such as
Regulations related with the development of
management education
Support and incentives in management education and
research from government agencies.
12

13. The Coevolutionary Approach
This work collected longitudinal data based on the
component of our definition.
• Managerial intentionality, such as establishments of
the University-based business schools or
independent and private business schools,
the time of receiving accreditations from AACSB,
EFMD, AMBA, etc.
Management related professional associations ,
organizations for case teaching/learning with the
business schools, etc.
13

14. The Case Study
• Before 1978
-China
Environment: Planned economy with the influence
of Soviet Union and state-owned enterprises (SOEs)
led economy.
Institutional: No subject called “business
administration” but mainly focus on management
science.
Managers mainly with backgrounds in science
and engineering.
14

15. The Case Study
• Before 1978
- Taiwan
Environment: Industrializing with foreign subsidiaries and SOEs plays
major roles in the domestic economy.
Institutional: Nationalist capitalism.
Managerial intentionality:
Dept. of Business Administration, National Chengchi University(NCCU),
Taipei, established in 1962 under a cooperative program with University of
Michigan in Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA, was the first Department of Business
Administration in Taiwan.
The first PhD in Business Administration established in NCCU in 1976.
Chinese Management Association was established in 1973.
15

16. The Case Study
• 1978-1980
- China
Environment: Transition toward Socialism market economy.
Institutional: Government led the establishment of management
education and training.
Managerial intentionality:
Local universities start to train young managers in economic
management at the postgraduate level.
China-Europe Management Institute (CEMI) established in Beijing in
1982.
MBA Education Center in Dalian University of Science and
Technology, a contract between Chinese government and the
Department of Commerce, USA in April 1984.
16

17. The Case Study
• 1980-1990
- China
Environment: Industrializing economy and increasing inward FDI.
Institutional: The Economic and Trade Commission of China
organized a task force was set up for building China’s MBA trial
program.
Managerial intentionality:
In 1990, The Degree Committee of State Council of China
approved nine universities/institutions become the first batch
organizations to set up MBA programs and confer the MBA degree.
17

18. The Case Study
• 1980-1990
- Taiwan
Environment: Deregulation and more open market, changing
relationship with China.
Institutional: Market capitalism, educational reforms,
Managerial intentionality:
Kung-Hwa Management Foundation was found in 1983.
The number of business schools/universities starts to
grow up, especially in the late of 1990s.

19. The Case Study
• 1990-2012
- China
Environment: The entry of WTO, more inward FDI and increasing outward FDI
Institutional: The establishment of China National MBA Education Supervisory
Committee in 1994.
Chinese GMAT examination (GRK) was used for the nation wide
MBA entrance examination since 1996.
The Government funding agency
Managerial intentionality:
The establishment of China Europe International Business School (CEIBS) in
1994.
The founding of Cheung Kung Graduate School of Business in Beijing, 2002.
The establishment of International Association for Chinese
Management Research (IACMR) in 2002.
The founding of China Management Case Sharing Center in 2007.
19

20. The Case Study
• 1990-2012
- Taiwan
Environment: Changing relationship with China, the entry of WTO, migrate value
chains of ICT products from Taiwan to China.
Institutional: The Ministry of Education (MOE) starts to sponsor the
establishment of professional business school since 2005 and encourage
English taught courses and program.
More
Managerial intentionality:
The founding of Taiwan Academy of Management in 2006 with the
support of National Science Council.
In 2006, NCCU established a project office (PERDO) that sale case
material from Harvard and Ivy and develop domestic case material
Commerce Development Research Institute was found in 2007
Some business schools start to run English taught MBA programs and
establish their own case centers. 20

21. Discussions
Figure The Number of Accredited Business Schools in China and Taiwan
Note: Accumulating the number of business schools accredited by AACSB, AMB, and
EFMD respectively in every year. 21

22. Discussions
• Until 2005, both business schools in China and Taiwan
just to institutionalize their case teaching, along with the
global expansion of PCMPCL (Program on Case Method
and Participant-Centered Learning) of Harvard Business
School.
• Before that, there is no official and continuous support
for developing case teaching material and promoting
case learning in both sides, except that individual
department, professors may focus on that.
22

23. Discussions
• In China, IACMR, initiated by leading overseas Chinese
and foreign scholars worked in US/Europe, help to
institutionalize the management research in China and
encourage the development of Chinese management
theory.
• Even they are older than IACMR and has done similar
things, professional organizations in Taiwan played
more like consulting teams rather than
academic/subject promoters and facilitators.
23

24. Discussions
• MBA programs in China mainly followed the
requirement and supervision of China National MBA
Education Supervisory Committee.
• Before the announcement of the sponsorship for
establishing professional business school from the
Ministry of Education in Taiwan in 2005, most MBA
programs in Taiwan are different than business
schools in elsewhere.
e.g. fresh undergraduate without working experience
can be granted the MBA degree
24

25. Discussions
• Institutional effects provide seed funding and
essential supports for business schools to maintain
and develop.
• Managerial intentionality, a groups of inspiring
people will to do something different, makes those
business schools different.
• In a non-English speaking context, how and to what
extent does the language of instruction matter in
management education, especially for rising the
positions in rankings/competitiveness(?), worth a
further examination.
25

26. Discussions
• When Western business schools start to self-
reflection for redesigning their program design
and raising the debate about relevance and
rigorous in research, similar introspective works
are hard to find in Chinese context.
26

27. Conclusions
1.A coevolutionary perspective provides a multi-
level lens to observe competition among
organizations.
2. Institutional effects and managerial
intentionality play key roles for business schools to
compete with their rival.

28. Conclusions
Implications for new born Business schools:
1. A well dedicated leadership and members at the
founding stage, e.g. CEIBS, etc.
2. Partners with your stakeholders as early as possible,
such as those from industries, government, local
communities, e.g. IMD, ESMT, etc.
3. Define your target markets and chose the language of
instruction appropriately.

29. Conclusions
• Implications for new business schools:
4. Except offering degree programs, initiating and
maintain core and supportive infrastructures as early
as possible, including case center, executive education
program.
5. Making sources of funding raising as diverse as
possible for maintaining the autonomy and sutaining
future growth.
6. Branding your school as early as possible
29

30. Discussions
• Research limitations
1. Phenomenon based observation can be
complement with first hand interview with
experienced faculty and staffs for the further
research.
2. Different theoretical approaches can use to
examine the competition of business schools we
discussed or in different geographic areas.
30

31. Conclusions
• Future research directions
1. In depth case studies at the school level to explore their
development trajectories and understand their competitive
behaviors toward competition in detail.
2. Will and how business schools in China or Taiwan or others
in non-Western areas follow the recent trends about redesigning
MBA programs like their counterparts in US and Europe?
3. Self-reflective works concern about management
education/research in different countries would be an
interesting research inquires and complement with
current research derived from those in Western
countries.
31

32. Thanks for Your Time and Comments
Der Chao Chen
Email: derchao.chen@gmail.com
32