برنامه های MBA آنلاین و خطر نوآوری مخرب Online MBA programs and the threat of disruptive innovation

1. Introduction As more and more industries face disruption from the relentless spread of digitization, an emerging threat to MBA programmes may be the move to online learning. Michael Bassis, a prominent leader in this movement, noted in 2009, “few colleges and universities will have the luxury of using a slow, evolutionary strategy that entails [putting] their courses [online] one by one” (para. 19). He continued: “There are enough for-profit and not-for profit institutions that are quickly putting the pieces together to be in a position to mass-market multiple, high-quality, low-cost degree programs that students of all types will find enormously attractive” (Bassis, 2009; para. 19). The ubiquitous nature of the Internet means that competition is not constrained by national boundaries. Should leading business schools be worried? As early as 2011, “over six million students [in higher education were] enrolled in [exclusively] online higher education classes” (Stage, 2011). Market share as a percentage of number of graduatelevel business students at for-profit institutions alone increased from 7.8% in 2000e2001 (enrollment: 254,687) to 20.6% in 2008e2009 (enrollment: 440,482) (Nelson, 2011). As recently as 2014, “[f]or profits [made] up the fastest growing segment of higher education … ” (Porter, 2014). Many leading business schools have used top-level accreditation to shield themselves from institutions with poorer reputations for effectiveness. The Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) was originally oriented towards PhD-granting, research-heavy institutions, but as Bieker (2014) explains, AACSB accreditation has become broader to focus on how well business schools are achieving their self-formulated missions. Nelson (2011) describes how AACSBaccredited institutions may view other institutions without this credential: “Many for-profit institutions are seen, rightly or not, as having less stringent requirements with regard to admissions, faculty qualifications, curricula, etc., than other (particularly AACSB-accredited) schools”. This negative outlook seemed particularly justified when online courses were “simply computer-based versions of traditional lectures and exams, [and] the quality of online learning fell far below that of face-to-face instruction” (Christensen & Eyring, 2011, p. xxiv). Furthermore, faculty who had not yet taught online courses were more skeptical about whether online courses could deliver better results (Meyer, 2010; Starr-Glass, 2011). As of this writing, AACSB has accredited 761 institutions globally, with 540 in Northern America (71%); 110 in Asia and Oceania (14.4%); and 91 in Europe (12%), including 27 in the UK (3.6%) (AACSB, 2016). Bieker (2014) notes, “Accreditation by AACSB International (AACSB) is regarded as the gold standard of achievement in business education around the world” (p. 284). Two European based accreditation bodiesdThe Association of MBAs (AMBA, based in London), and the European Quality Improvement System (The EFMD Global Network’s EQUIS, based in Brussels)dmay serve a similar purpose.