HEC Paris maintained its number one position in the Financial Times’ ranking of best European business schools this year, released this week. INSEAD bumped London Business School from number two to number three, and Spain’s IESE Business School and Switzerland’s IMD came in at fourth and fifth respectively. Overall, there were no dramatic changes in the line-up of top European schools save the rapid ascent of Italy’s SDA Bocconi School of Management, which tied for seventh this year as compared to its three-year rank of 16th.
In a special report accompanying the rankings, the FT’s Della Bradshaw pointed out that European schools, which until now attracted non-European applicants with their diverse student bodies and globally focused curriculums, face several new threats that could undermine these advantages. Chief among them are the continuing euro crisis and the reluctance of European governments to award post-degree work visas to non-Europeans as well as the rapid rise of Chinese and Indian business schools.
Dipak Jain, who took the helm as dean of INSEAD this year after retiring as dean of Northwestern’ Kellogg School of Management, does not believe that European schools will feel an immediate impact from the rising number of quality Asian schools. “There is still a very large part of the Asian world that wants a western program,” he told the FT. “That is not going to go away in the next 20 years or so.”
According to Jain, the real problem European schools face is money. He points out that European schools lack the robust endowments that many U.S. business schools boast, which limits the European institutions’ ability to fund top-level research. “The question is, how do you create shock absorbers or cushions?” he told the FT. “In Europe you can’t rely on alumni giving.”
But according to Peter Tufano, who like Jain this year traded a U.S. school for a European one (Tufano left Harvard Business School to become dean of the Saïd Business School at Oxford), there is no real difference between schools on either side of the Atlantic. “I see a lot more similarities than differences,” Tufano told the FT, noting that the issues being talked about in business and in business school are the same on both sides of the pond. Views are even converging on issues like the supremacy of shareholder value, which used to divide the teaching between U.S. and European schools. “I think everyone has adopted a more nuanced view than when I did an MBA … There are times I can close my eyes and I don’t really feel I am in a different place,” Tufano said.
For the complete 2011 Financial Times’ ranking of European Business Schools, click here.
Read the full article: HEC Paris Tops Financial Times’ 2011 European Business School Rankings