The Rise of HKUST’s MBA Program

— an interview with Prof. Leonard Cheng, Dean of School of Business and Management, HKUST

By CBF reporters Yu Feng and Xiao Zhou

International faculty and student resources of high quality, researches of high standard and innovative courses, and the dedication to students’ career development are the keys to the success of HKUST’s MBA program.

The MBA program of the School of Business and Management, Hong Kong University of Science & Technology (HKUST) ranks No.6 on the newest world’s MBA billboard issued by the Financial Times in January 2011, its highest ranking in history. In 2010, it ranked No. 9 globally and No. 1 in Asia.

What is behind the success of it? We interviewed Prof. Leonard Cheng, the Dean of School of Business and Management, HKUST to find the answers.

China Business Focus (CBF): MBA programs emerged from the early 1900’s in the West. Although HKUST is only 19 years old, it excels among many of those universities renowned for more than a century in the world. What are the keys to the competitiveness of the program in terms of research and teaching?

Leonard Cheng (Cheng): The achievements of the HKUST Business School and its MBA program reflect our collective efforts to pursue the goals of HKUST since it was founded. Our sound establishment and excellent team, and the timely opportunities presented to us also contributed to the success.

HKUST was established in 1991 as the first research-based university in Hong Kong, modeling after the top research universities in the world. It was a time when the United States was suffering from a mild recession, posing employment difficulties among university fresh graduates. This backdrop presented a great opportunity to the newly-born HKUST. More importantly, in terms of resources and mechanism, a number of professors with full tenure were recruited from the United States and Canada under the leadership of the Founding President of HKUST Professor Chia-Wei Woo. By doing so, the mechanism from North American universities was brought in. At the same time, the UCLA Anderson School of Management became our strategic partner, based on which the HKUST MBA program was started.

With all these, our MBA program has been growing gradually. In 2000 the program ranked No.70 when it joined in the ranking by the Financial Times for the very first time. We were already very happy; after all, we started with nothing. Hence, international faculty and student resource of high quality, researches of high standard and innovative courses, and the dedication to students’ career development are the keys to the success of HKUST’s MBA program.

CBF: The MBA program of HKUST has been doing very well in these years. How about your EMBA program?

Cheng: Our English EMBA program is a joint program with Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University. When the program was launched, it was the only intercontinental joint EMBA program in Asia. To this day, the Kellogg-HKUST EMBA program attained exceptional reputation and top ranking globally — it has been ranked No. 1 in the world three times over the past four years.

The high standing of HKUST School of Business and Management is reflected by the diversity of its professors. Many of them have overseas experience, like the founding dean Professor Chan Yuk-Shee, who was from Kellogg. HKUST is not as historically significant as other universities in Hong Kong, but its renowned professors are widely-recognized in the world — a key factor for us to become a strategic partner of Kellogg.

CBF: Have you got any joint MBA program with business schools from Mainland China, since you are frequently traveling between Hong Kong and the Mainland?

Cheng: We have no joint MBA program with any university from Mainland China yet, but we do have a lot of cooperation. Take our bilingual EMBA program for example. It aims at cultivating talents for management and administration among Chinese executives, with almost 50% of its courses taken in the Mainland. Almost 80% of the students are from the Mainland with the rest from Hong Kong and Taiwan.

We have more cooperation with business schools from Mainland China on student exchange. Besides, HKUST School of Business and Management signed a strategic partnership agreement with Tsinghua University’s School of Economics and Management on December 15^th 2010 to strengthen cooperation in the areas of post-graduate education and researches etc.

CBF: What are the admission criteria of your MBA program for recruiting students from Mainland China? Do you have any suggestions to Mainland students who are interested in studying MBA at HKUST?

Cheng: Our full-time MBA program is open for recruitment globally. An applicant should possess a bachelor’s degree, high GPA and working experience of at least three years (in reality, four to five years in average for admitted students) as well as a recommendation letter and good GMAT grade for reference. Last but not least is the result of the interview which examines the overall qualities of the candidate, from professional knowledge and experience to strong communication skills, teamwork and ambitions. It is also HKUST’s wish that its alumni can give back to society.

HKUST pays high attention to the diversity and internationalization of its student composition. No dominant culture exists in the MBA program at HKUST as students and professors come from different countries and areas of different cultural backgrounds, creating an international and multi-cultural atmosphere.

HKUST also offers a part-time MBA program, mainly for Hong Kong students who are available to take the courses at weekends or in the evening. Either the full-time or the part-time program contains two classes with around 60 students for each class. We also have a part-time MBA program in Shenzhen taught in English at weekends, with each class enrolling around 60 students.

CBF: Besides high quality researches and courses, your MBA program’s dedication to the innovative services to students’ career development is highly related to its success too. Would you like to share more details about it?

Cheng: Surely this is important. Since our MBA program was started in 1991, we have been training students for career skills and we have our own team of career services staff for the students. We have been doing quite well on this, which is also one of the contributing factors to our high ranking.

HKUST has made a sizeable investment in assisting students in their career development. We have a 6-people professional team providing career services for the 120 full-time MBA students. We also have a number of part-time consultants who are closely connected to the business sector, providing a useful business network and resources.

Furthermore, we provide training to students to develop their skills in job interviews, résumé writing and communications. We have established good relationships with enterprises, which offer on-campus recruitment or receive recommendations from us on graduates suitable for their job openings. Students can also choose to work as consultants for enterprises so that enterprises would have a better understanding about our students. In addition, students are provided with summer internship or part-time employment opportunities in various enterprises.