Online MBA Forum

I saw a very interesting MBA advertised this week - one in Sports and Recreation management. I was interested to see what subjects this MBA program offered, and to see how it would differ from a run of the mill MBA.

In fact there was very little difference in the base subjects - which I suppose I could have expected. However much of the practical work was around the industry that it was designed for, and there was real emphasis on the marketing aspects of sports and recreation. There was also consideration of subjects such as sponsorship which must figure largely in this industry.

For people who are dedicated to this industry it must be a real advantage to be able to study in the industry itself. I've no doubt that the contacts you make on a program such as this are invaluable too.

Did you know that gaining your MBA will put you in the higher salary ranges?

In fact degrees of any kind will give you higher salaries, and the higher the degree, the better the average salary that you can expect to earn. But your MBA degree will give you the most likelihood of a high salary, according to the Bureau of Labor.

In fact gaining your MBA is a really good investment for both monetary and social gain. Other benefits include the likelihood of your children doing better in their education, and of you living in better housing.

Altogether, an MBA will really improve your life. Take a look at the degrees offered by business schools, and you can start to think about making your life better.

America is the home of the MBA degree, and the most prestigious business schools are almost all situated in the US. There are some good business schools in Europe - for instance Insead and the London Business school, but these are relatively few.

However, no matter how good the reputation of the business school you attend, it is necessary for you to work hard at maximizing the value you get from your MBA degree. You need to not only study to gain the knowledge you need for your career, you also need to constantly work at applying this knowledge to your own situation and your own talents.

Because the MBA is essentially an applied degree, you can only get the best out of it by working at this application. Knowledge has little value in a vacuum, it is how you use that knowledge that is important.

I did an entry the other day about the kinds of sports preferred by MBA students, and a comment was added pointing out that not being a part of a team maybe counted against the framework of an MBA.

I have spent some spare time pondering this since I made the entry, and trying to work out what I think - although I'm also going to see if I can look further at the research to see if it throws any more light on the subject. I have to say that most people I know who have an MBA seem to be the squash and tennis types rather than football of any description.

Maybe this is more about leadership than teamwork. Or it could simply be that being a team player all day means that relaxation comes in different shapes.

I was talking to a researcher in a university in New Zealand who is doing a research project in the sports and recreation area. He has spent some time looking at the sports that are preferred by university undergraduates and graduates, so I asked him what he had found out about the sports that were played by MBA students.

Interestingly most of them seem to be individual rather than team sports. He did not let me have access to all the statistical data, but he said that the most popular sport played by MBA students at his university was squash, quite closely followed by tennis.

Of course this is New Zealand, and the national sport is Rugby football. He said that there were MBA students who played Rugby, but these were less than 10% of MBA male students, whereas the number overall was about 35% male students.

Thr recruitment season is in full swing, and if you are studying an MBA you may find yourself approached by corporate recruiters. This can be really beneficial as most of the good jobs are never advertised, so recruitment agencies can bring jobs to your attention that you would never normally become aware of.

This is a headhunting situation, and to some extent you are likely to have more control over a situation of this kind that most others. You will find that the kinds of salaries you are offered are reasonably good - they are trying to pursuade you to go and work - and you can negotiate.

However it's really worth doing your homework on the companies that are interested in you. It's as important that you can work for these companies as it is that they want you to work for them. So make sure you do thorough research and prepare yourself to ask serious questions as well as to answer them. Then consider carefully - this is the biggest single opportunity of your career.

We talk a great deal about the practicality of the MBA as a qualification. However there are some new ideas that are being put in to practice in the MBA world that are really practice based. One I came across recently is that of the innovation MBA.

This is aimed at small businesses that are accommodated as a part of a business incubation establishment. Many people starting business need some training in a host of business skills such as marketing, information systemsm, finance (sounds familiar?). The innovation MBA uses this training as the basis for papers for an MBA.

The practical part of the MBA is then the real live situation that the fledgeling entreneur is building. Instead of case studies and simulations, they play for real, and gain credits for the progress they make in their companies. This means that they are really playing for high stakes. But on the other hand, if they are going to do this anyway, they may as well gain academic credits as well as the rewards of business success.