MD/MBA Joint Degree Grows in Popularity

In May, the University of Arizona announced that it was starting a joint MD/MBA program; in June, the University of Miami did the same. Apart from their medical training, do would-be doctors also need graduate management education? The growth in the number of schools that offer the joint MD/MBA suggests that tomorrow’s physicians see a strong need to also develop advanced business skills.

In 1993, there were just six MD/MBA programs. Today, an association of directors of MD/MBA programs reports that 55 U.S. medical schools—more than 40 percent of the market—offer such programs. (Overall, however, the numbers of students in MD/MBA programs remains fairly small.)

The motivation for pursuing a joint MD/MBA varies by individual, of course. Generally, though, the growth in this credential’s popularity reflects the increasing complexity of health care overall. Physicians in private practice are running increasingly complex small businesses. Careers in medical administration require sophisticated business acumen. In addition, student demand for joint degrees comes from an interest in additional credentials that can enhance career options.

Brent Chrite, PhD, an associate dean at the University of Arizona Eller College of Management, says that in creating its program, UA took a close look at the evolution of individual medical practices as entrepreneurial businesses. UA also considered the  growing complexity and competitiveness in the medical marketplace. In light of such factors, Chrite said, UA determined that providing doctors with a grounding in business was a good idea.

Maria Chandler, MD, MBA, is faculty advisor for the MD/MBA program at the University of California-Irvine. An associate clinical professor of pediatrics at UCI, Chandler also holds an appointment in the Paul Merage School of Business. She earned her MBA after medical school, when early in her career she realized that business skills would help her be more effective in the administrative roles she was being asked to serve. Advanced education in business “helped me to be a better medical director,” she says.

Chandler says that interest in UCI’s MD/MBA program is booming. It will enroll 17 students this year—out of a total class of some 100 medical students—up from just two candidates in the program’s infancy. Dartmouth College’s MD/MBA program is seeing a similar trend. “We’ve seen applications skyrocket in the last three years,” says the program’s director, Donald P. Conway, MD, MBA.

Chandler attributes the expansion to student demand. She notes, for example, that  UCI’s medical school has attracted top candidates who are specifically interested in its MD/MBA program. Along with other administrators in medical schools, she also finds that even if medical students are not interested in a full-fledged MD/MBA programs, more of them are expressing a strong interest in seeing more business training integrated into the medical school curriculum.

MBA Grads Value Corporate Social Responsibility

A survey of graduating MBAs finds that these future business leaders rank corporate social responsibility high on their list of values and that they are willing to sacrifice a significant part of their salaries to find an employer with similar values.

As reported in July in the Stanford Knowledgebase, David Montgomery, the Sebastian S. Kresge Professor of Marketing Strategy, Emeritus, at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, and Catherine Ramus, an assistant professor at the University of California-Santa Barbara, examined the trade-offs students are willing to make when selecting a potential employer. Students surveyed said that such factors as money and location came second to their desire for jobs that provided intellectual challenges. Farther down the list of desired job attributes—but still ranking high—were such factors as the potential employer’s reputation for ethical conduct and its demonstration of caring policies toward employees.

The researchers found that students polled expected to earn an average of $103,650 a year at their first job. Nearly all (97.3 percent) said they would be willing to make a financial sacrifice to work for a company that exhibited all four characteristics of social responsibility. Remarkably, they said they would sacrifice an average of $14,902 a year, or 14.4 percent of their expected salary.

The survey polled 759 graduating MBA students at 11 prominent business schools.

Social Equality Leads to Better Math Skills for Women

Research recently published in the journal Science and led in part by Northwestern University Kellogg School of Management professor Paola Sapienza shows that girls perform as well if not better in mathematics in societies that treat gender equitably.
Sapienza and colleagues Luigi Guiso from the Instituto Universitario Europeo and Ferdinando Monte and Luigi Zingales, both at the University of Chicago, investigated the relative importance of biology and culture on the development of basic mental attributes that are valuable for math and science. Analyzing data from more than 276,000 children in 40 countries, they found that while boys tended to outperform girls in math, girls did as well or better than boys in more gender-equal societies, such as those found in Iceland, Sweden, and Norway.

“The so-called gender gap in math skills seems to be at least partially correlated to environmental factors,” Sapienza said. “The gap doesn’t exist in countries in which men and women have access to similar resources and opportunities. Our research indicates that in more gender equal societies, girls will gain an absolute advantage relative to boys.”

Math and science rates for girls in the United States were near the average of all countries studied. Girls in the United States scored almost 10 points lower than boys in mathematics.

Mr. Blair Goes to Yale

Yale University has appointed Tony Blair, former prime minister of the United Kingdom, to be the Howland Distinguished Fellow for the 2008-2009 academic year. Blair will lead a seminar on faith and globalization that will be jointly coordinated by the Yale School of Management and the Yale Divinity School.

Short Takes

The Center for Global Diversity in Management and the department of entrepreneurial management at IE Business School in Spain has accepted 22 women from Liberia, South Africa, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Mozambique, Senegal, and Rwanda into a recently launched advanced training and mentoring program for women-led businesses in Africa.

With groundbreaking for a $38 million building on July 21, the University of California-Merced moved a step closer to providing a permanent home for its Ernest and Julio Gallo School of Management.

The business college at Southern Illinois University has a new name: Formerly the College of Business and Administration, it is now the College of Business. In Australia, the University of Adelaide is combining its School of Commerce and the Adelaide Graduate School of Business into a single business school.

In Kerala, India, the Asian School of Business has announced plans to build the first LEED-certified building complex and campus in Kerala.

New Grants

Oklahoma State University has received $57.2 million from alumni Amy and Malone Mitchell III, $22 million of which will help create an entrepreneurship program within the OSU Spears School of Business. (The balance of the money will support athletics.) OSU has also received $1 million from Mike and Robbie Holder for a chair in entrepreneurship. Holder is vice president of athletic programs and intercollegiate athletics at OSU, where he earned his undergraduate degree and an MBA. Both gifts are eligible for matching funds that will increase their overall value significantly. ...
University of Pennsylvania alumnus Arthur Bilger and his wife, Dahlia, have given the Wharton School $1 million for the Wharton Interactive Media Initiative, a research program focused on interactive media, its effect on global business, and its influence on traditional media business models. ... With a $4.5 million endowment from alumnus Ed Garwood and his wife, Elsie, the Haas School of Business at the University of California-Berkeley is creating a center focused on developing new management strategies and technologies to promote innovation in American companies and help firms maintain a competitive edge in the global marketplace. In addition, the Haas School's Lester Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation recently received a $1 million donation from Williams-Sonoma chairman and CEO W. Howard Lester. ... In July, the Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Foundation announced plans to establish a center for entrepreneurship and innovation at the Olayan School of Business at the American University of Beirut. The entrepreneurship center will have an initial endowment of $18.3 million AED, or nearly US$5 million. ... Gardner-Webb University has named its school of business in honor of entrepreneur John Godbold and his wife, Linda, who provided a multimillion-dollar gift for the school. The Godbold School of Business will house the university’s Broyhill Undergraduate School of Management and Graduate School of Business.

New Programs

The Center for Executive and Professional Development in the W.P. Carey School of Business at Arizona State University has joined forces with the Salt River Project to launch a Small Business Leadership Academy, billed as the first of its kind on the West Coast. The corporate-education partnership will provide management education and other resources geared toward local small and diverse businesses. ... Beginning this fall at its Novi campus, Walsh College and Michigan State University will formally share academic offerings. Under the agreement, Walsh MBA students can enroll as guest students for three elective advertising and/or public relations courses through MSU’s lifelong learning program. ... The University of Texas at Dallas has announced new master’s programs in finance and supply chain management. ... Following the success of its EMBA program in Beijing, HEC Paris plans to offer an EMBA in Shanghai. ... The Olin Business School at Washington University in St. Louis and the Indian Institute of Management Calcutta have created a partnership to advance research, teaching and cultural understanding. ... Spearheaded by Harvard Business School, Harvard University has opened an office in Shanghai and plans to open an office in Beijing this fall. ... Building on a 15-year collaboration, HEC Paris and the Warsaw School of Economics (Szkoła Główna Handlowa SGH) are launching the HEC Executive Master in Business, with a specialization in project management, in Warsaw this November. ... Columbia Business School and London Business School are partnering with the University of Hong Kong to offer EMBA-Global Asia. The 20-month program will be taught in New York, London, Hong Kong, and Shanghai, with additional study elsewhere. Teaching will be divided equally among faculty from each of the three partner schools. Graduates will receive a joint MBA degree awarded by all three universities. ... Dublin City University Business School and the University of Georgia, Athens, have signed an agreement that will permit the exchange of postgraduate students and faculty. ... Rajiv Gandhi Indian Institute of Management, the seventh Indian Institute of Management, has opened for business in the state of Meghalaya.