Asia & Australasia ranking

How long before an Asian school reaches the top ten?

The balance of world power is shifting. Twenty years ago few commentators took the financial muscle of China or India seriously. Try finding someone who shares that view now. These new economic superpowers are not the only countries giving Western finance ministers sleepless nights. Six of the nations that make up Goldman Sachs’s “Next 11” emerging economic powers—Bangladesh, Indonesia, Pakistan, the Philippines, South Korea and Vietnam—are in the eastern hemisphere.

The potential impact on business education is huge. The heavy flow of applicants from Asia to schools in Europe and America has already slowed as the East’s best and brightest opt to study closer to home. So is the balance of the world’s intellectual power shifting?



Regional rank Institute Country
1 Melbourne Business School - University of Melbourne Australia
2 Hong Kong, University of - Faculty of Business and Economics Hong Kong
3 Hong Kong University of Science and Technology - School of B, Hong Kong
4 Monash University Australia
5 Macquarie Graduate School of Management Australia
6 Nanyang Business School - Nanyang Technological University Singapore
7 Chinese University of Hong Kong Hong Kong
8 Curtin Graduate School of Business Australia
9 Queensland, University of - Business School Australia
10 International University of Japan - Graduate School of Inter, Japan
11 National University of Singapore - The NUS Business School Singapore
12 Indian Institute of Management - Ahmedabad India
13 China Europe International Business School (CEIBS) China
14 Asian Institute of Management Philippines

Although some Asian and Australasian schools have fallen in The Economist’s global ranking this year, having found it harder to place graduates in top jobs, in the long term their march upwards seems inexorable. Currently there are 13 schools that feature in our global top 100 (the Asian Institute of Management falls just outside); five years ago there were just nine. In ten years’ time, it may be that the University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong University of Science and China Europe International Business School (CEIBS) will be challenging the best schools in North America and Europe for a position in the top ten.

Demand is certainly on the rise. Score reports for the GMAT, the test used by business schools as part of the candidate-selection process, indicate that in the past five years the number of applicants from China, India, Hong Kong and Singapore sending their test scores to local schools has more than tripled. But to compete on the world stage they must also attract talent from farther afield. The signs are encouraging.

At CEIBS, based in Shanghai, the share of Western students in the full-time MBA programme has increased from 2% in 2005 to 22% in 2009. The National University of Singapore (NUS) has seen similar growth. Since 2006 there has been a threefold increase in the number of North American applicants for its MBA programmes and a more than fourfold increase in European applicants. Lim Yue Wen, the school’s director of graduate studies, identifies several factors driving this demand, including the burgeoning Asian economy. “We have seen more multinational corporations setting up their regional headquarters in Asia, and in the process, the need for talent has risen accordingly … Thus, it is not surprising that students will want to be in Asia, where the action is.”

India, for many years the largest exporter of students to Western business schools, is also seeing foreign applications grow, albeit more slowly. The Indian School of Business in Hyderabad reports that though international students make up only 5% of the current MBA class, international applications have almost doubled over the past two years. In a tentative global economy, the school believes, India continues to provide better opportunities for career progression. Given that it is not easy to start a career in a new country, it makes sense for Western applicants to consider studying in the region first.

If the GMAT is any indicator of student quality, these schools can also claim to attract a bright talent pool. The average score of a student at ceibs is 696 (out of 800), on a par with London Business School. Furthermore, the appeal of Asia appears to work for both sexes. Whereas Western business schools have long struggled to encourage more women into the classroom, in many MBA programmes in South-East Asia around 40% of the students are female. Hong Kong University tops the list with 48%.

As might be expected, a growing number of Western business schools are responding by setting up their own campuses in the region. Chicago and two French schools—INSEAD and ESSEC—are now well established in Singapore; Western Ontario’s Ivey school has made a second home in Hong Kong; Vlerick, a Belgian school, and hec Paris have entered the Beijing market; and Duke University in North Carolina is developing campuses in Shanghai and New Delhi. Such expansion provides these schools with direct access to Asian mba recruiters as well as offering students the opportunity to learn in Asia. It also appeals to faculty, by providing research and case-study opportunities in the world’s most dynamic regional economy.

Not there yet

But there remain areas in which the business schools of Asia and Australasia will have to improve if they are to claim a place at the top table. For one, the region still lacks a school with the brand-recognition of longer established American and European schools. Here they can draw encouragement from the experience of European business schools like Spain’s ie, little-known ten years ago, but now rising to global prominence.

Asian schools also lack powerful alumni networks, which offer the fund-raising potential and career opportunities that are the lifeblood of schools in America and Europe. This also takes time, but as more alumni filter into the boardrooms of London, New York and Shanghai, momentum will inevitably build.

Finally, there is an inability to attract the world’s leading thinkers and best teachers. To date, many Asian business schools have relied on visiting faculty to make up their numbers, but they have struggled to convert these to permanent teaching positions. As schools develop research centres and provide direct access to Asia’s banks, conglomerates and family businesses, professors will take a closer look at a permanent move east. The recent arrival of Arnoud de Meyer, director of Cambridge’s Judge school, at the Singapore Management University might be a sign of things to come.