By virtue of its interdisciplinary relevance and versatile applicability, the Master of Business Administration (MBA) is one of the most popular master's degrees in the world.
As MBA programmes proliferate to capture this fast expanding market, they are also being designed with different competitive features to vie for a greater market edge. Academic quality aside, institutions are competing increasingly on the front of innovation, especially in terms of meeting the market's ever changing needs.
Despite this, many employers still complain that certain important attributes are lacking in MBA graduates. Global vision and exposure is one of them, as is leadership skills. This motivated the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) to launch its OneMBA Global Executive MBA programme in 2002, in collaboration with four overseas institutions, namely the University of North Carolina (United States), RSM Erasmus University (the Netherlands), EGADE - Tecnologico de Monterrey (Mexico) and Fundacao Getulio Vargas (Brazil).
Targeted at mature professionals, OneMBA rotates its students around the campuses of the partner institutions during a 21-month schedule designed with the busy life of senior executives in mind.
Through these week-long overseas residencies and a globally oriented curriculum, the programme aims to help its students explore and maximise their leadership potential, and develop networks and experience in a variety of international settings.
Mike Hall, OneMBA's administrative director at CUHK, said the programme was unique in the region. He said it had quickly gained popularity with senior professionals and their employers who could act as corporate sponsors, showing that its global context and emphasis on leadership training struck a chord with the strategic talent need of modern businesses.
