MBA courses: A tailor-made career path?

Nic Paton takes a closer look at the pros and cons of opting for a specialist MBA

Technology consultant Vikram Das is clear about what he wants his MBA to do. "I see myself accelerating my career path but not changing track. Having an MBA on my CV is not going to get me a job alone," he explains.

It is this thinking that prompted Das, 34, to choose to do a specialist MBA for engineering business managers run by Manchester Business School Worldwide (the distance learning arm of Manchester Business School), a part-time course he is due to complete this December.

"Employers realise an MBA will give you a theoretical framework but, at the end of the day, it is the experience I already have that will get me the job," Das says.

While evidently right for him, Das's decision to choose an MBA focused on one particular industry highlights an increasingly anguished split within the MBA/business school community.

The past few years has seen an explosion in the number of business schools offering specialist MBAs in areas as diverse as tourism and hospitality, sports management, film, law, the public sector and health. Yet the MBA once used to be almost solely a general management qualification. So, is this drift towards specialisation simply a natural evolution or evidence of the dilution of what is still widely considered to be the gold standard of business qualifications?

Sean Rickard, senior lecturer in business economics at Cranfield School of Management and never one knowingly to duck controversy, is in no doubt it is the latter. "In general the move towards specialist MBAs has come from the second tier schools. It's a way of attracting people without having to take on the first tier schools," he says.

"If someone wants to become a specialist they should do an MSc in that subject. An MBA is just not like that, it is much broader. I think what is happening is that far too many universities are trying to get in on the MBA market and the danger is that they are devaluing it," he says.

"If you are going to focus on a particular sector or function you are going to lose something else, it inevitably means dropping some content," says Simon Stockley, MBA programme director at Imperial College's Tanaka Business School.

"With a specialist MBA you risk becoming stuck in the middle; it is neither one thing nor another and that is ultimately a recipe for mediocrity."

Others caution about the possible impact a specialist MBA can have on your future career choices.

"It is very risky to close off your options. In my experience, students may come in with a clear objective of what they want to do with their MBA, but then in the first two to three months they are exposed to so many new ideas and concepts, they change their minds," says Gioia Pescetto, associate dean of Durham Business School.

Yet advocates of the specialist MBA argue die-hard generalists need to come down from their ivory towers. The specialist MBA is a credible qualification that simply reflects the changing realities of the business world, they suggest.

"A specialist MBA helps students develop in their specialist area and become better managers. It may have a bias but it will also contain the classic elements of an MBA, otherwise it can't be called an MBA," points out Alistair Benson, academic director at MBS Worldwide.

The whole point of accredited, specialist MBAs is that they remain at heart a general management degree, says Jeanette Purcell, chief executive of the Association of MBAs.

"The specialist MBAs we have accredited have demonstrated to us that they are fundamentally generalist and cover all aspects of business, but then offer opportunities to specialise beyond the core," she says.

Many industries, such as construction and the police, are becoming much more specialised. So, to get on you need that specialist knowledge, says Michael Hougham, tutor on the project management MBA at Henley Management College.

"A specialist MBA enables students to receive a tailored qualification that will be of maximum practical use to them in the workplace, while simultaneously giving them a broad functional and strategic perspective on general management," he says.

He concedes that you may have to accept a narrower range of electives and there may be some restrictions on modes of study.

In the US some schools have taken things ever further. Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth, for instance, combines an MBA with stand-alone degrees in areas such as law, medicine, public health and engineering.

The reason this works, argues Sally Jaeger, assistant dean and director, is that the programme is three years long, therefore giving students enough time to do both. "You get absolutely the same skill-set. In fact I'd say you get greater depth than on a typical MBA because you have that opportunity to do another area. It is not taking away from the MBA because you are adding to the programme," she says.

Many schools, recognising the demand for generalist and specialist programmes, now attempt to straddle both fences.

Newcastle Business School at Northumbria University, for instance, offers a generalist MBA but also allows students to follow specialist pathways in subjects such real estate management, e-Business, public sector management and tourism management

Around a third of students take this latter option, which accounts for half their credits, says Tony Purdie, director of international MBA programmes.

But even he admits this option is now under review and students should think long and hard before going down the specialist route.

"An MBA in, say, marketing may seem even better than an MBA but there may be questions in the minds of some employers whether such an MBA is devalued," he cautions.

'One of the biggest values is in keeping your options open'

Former doctor and radiologist Syed Jafri, 37, graduated with a generalist MBA from Tanaka.

"There are some people who know exactly what they want to do and just want to tick the boxes. But if you wind up not being in, say, health administration then you will be on a sticky wicket.

One of its biggest values is in keeping your options open. You are in this hothouse of different option and abilities. Before I started, I assumed I might go into the pharmaceutical industry or something like that. But now I am thinking much more widely.

"It is not just about broadening my skills but broadening my vision. There is also a very eclectic bunch of students here. Someone who's done an MBA should come out of it a different person, not a slightly better versed clone of what they were before they went in."