Hong Kong executives spoilt for choice when it comes to MBAs

As the regional MBA market develops, executives will have to do more homework to find the schools and programmes that translate into career dividends. A decade ago they would have had few options but to board the next plane for North America or Europe, but Asian professionals are now spoilt for choice in their own backyard.

Homegrown and foreign schools - and frequently combinations of both - have flooded the regional market in recent years with diploma and Master of Business Administration (MBA) offerings.

Few of these are doing better than the executive MBA (EMBA), a variation on the traditional version specially tailored for the time-pressed white-collar worker. While there's a staggering variety on offer, most share a few general characteristics. Students tend to be in their mid thirties to early forties, so lecturers can skip the management basics. Courses focus on real-life business cases or problems rather than the finer points of economic theory.

Programmes are built to fit the demanding schedules of their student base, with evening, weekend and online classes or flexible terms ensuring learners can work towards a degree while holding down a job.

Most EMBAs are not cheap. An EMBA from the Richard Ivey School of Business in Hong Kong costs about HK$620,000, while the Manchester Business School Hong Kong EMBA costs about HK$235,000. MBAs from the Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU) or Singapore-based online graduate school U21Global are just over HK$100,000, while those like the MBA offered by Australia's Deakin University, which costs HK$160,755, edge nearer the HK$200,000 mark.

These fees continue to rise but so do the number of professionals signing on. According to Manchester Business School chief executive Nigel Banister, the institution's Hong Kong intake has quadrupled over the past three years, and U21Global dean for business management programmes Helen Lange said its student body had risen from 500 in 2005 to more than 3,000.