Driving Towards a Disruption?

By: Willy Shih and Matthew Noble

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Synopsis: As Clayton Christensen drove to the studio to deliver an online executive education class, he pondered the future of management education. How big a threat did online degree programs, corporate universities, and other innovations in the delivery of management training represent to the MBA program of the Harvard Business School or other residential programs? Certainly new innovations in the industry promised to deliver management education to a much broader audience at a far lower cost. Christensen had noted that many companies were less and less present in MBA recruiting, and he believed that companies' ability to train employees within the context of their jobs was quelling their desire for MBAs with less company-specific general management training. He wondered if the changes afoot represented a threat or an opportunity for the HBS MBA program. The case presents data on the HBS MBA program, including career and professional development statistics so that students are able to assess the cost of receiving an HBS MBA, and they are able to compare that cost to an online MBA program.