An Islamic MBA

FT.COM mentioned, almost a year ago, the possibility of the creation of an Islamic MBA. I am not sure it ever happened, I am not sure it will ever happen, but I am sure there is a lot to be said about it. MBA education in particular is highly mainstream, with in almost all MBAs around the world a huge common part (that goes far beyond the fundamentals).  There are some options in MBAs, there are some specialised MBAs, but they all perfectly fit the Anglo Saxon mainstream managerial thinking.

Years ago, we tried to do different while creating the Euro-Arab Management School in Granada, Spain.  A project of the Arab League, the European Union and the Spanish Government.  It proved extremely difficult to create an MBA that would at the same time address a large community (hence being mainly virtual) and being culturally relevant for Europe and the Arab world. The school was mentioned in the Barcelona declaration as an example of Euro-Arab cooperation.  In the meantime, it was closed last year. Not since there would not be any interest, but most probably since we are not yet able to define an MBA that is culturally relevant for non mainstream thinkers.

Maybe we should not have an Islamic MBA, a Hindu MBA, etc, but we certainly would need MBA programs that make sense for non Anglo Saxon countries and cultures. And by preference, that do not exclusively address the "happy few". 

Comments

[Emmanuelle M.]

Let's imagine recruitment methods can change, and let's imagine schools can make their own financing proposals to students not belonging to the "happy few" for them to access such studies, can we therefore imagine that the group of selected students would model their own MBA as per their own values, ideas, desires and dreams ? Just as the synergy in the group of international lecturers of the international seminars Euromed Marseille is organizing twice a year DOES create an energy that students can feel and benefit from, maybe we can imagine a group of students that would help a school change its way of teaching and design the whole structure of a whole MBA. An "evolving" MBA that would get its definitive title at the end of the academic year. The real challenge would be to recruit them. And be able to learn from them.

[Walter Baets]

I can only agree with your proposal and personnally I would be interested to try it out.

[Emmanuelle M.]

The riskiest thing about this dream-like suggestion is that you first have to find the companies able and willing to finance, and that at one point they might ask you to come back to more realistic already-made-somewhere-else pedagogical approach. And one more difficult thing would be to have the full long-term support of the School implementing it. But I guess you have come to the same conclusions as me and already found clever solutions.
My next question then is: When ??