In China, Executives Flock Back to School

南懷瑾在2005年與Peter Senge 對話錄《南懷瑾與彼得‧聖吉: 關於禪、生命與認知的對話》(台北:老古。上海:人民出版社) 中說中國根本沒有企業家， 參考該書第三章(64頁起)。

問題: 企業家教得來嗎?

教育

中國企業高管忙回商學院「充電」

KIT GILLET 報道 2013年03月28日

Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business

長江商學院的院長項兵正在授課。

北京——在中國新一代的中年管理者中，正有越來越多的人正回歸校園，山東黃金集團董事長王建華只是其中之一。他每個月都要乘坐四小時的火車從山東到北京上一次EMBA的課。
“文化大革命之後，很多人都覺得需要彌補浪費掉的時光，所以我們非常刻苦，”56歲的王建華說。他在中歐國際工商學院（China Europe International Business School，下文簡稱中歐）就讀。

文化大革命時期，王建華被送到了一個貧窮的山區。當時，人們對高等教育持懷疑態度，而那些被視作特權階級的人則被“下放”，與農民一起勞作。王建華後來成了一家化學公司的總經理，然後又在其他一些領域積累了大量財富。
“我一直非常成功，”他說，“然而我曾經認為，因為我成功，所以我肯定是正確的，但是我現在明白了，過去的成功做法也許會成為我未來的負擔。”
與西方管理者不同，中國管理者返回校園的一部分原因是他們中有很多人在人生的早期階段都沒有機會好好學習。
“我們EMBA課程學員的平均年齡是41或42歲，大家幾乎都擁有20年的工作經驗——他們比歐美EMBA學員要年長得多，”清華大學經濟管理學院院長錢穎一說。他們“只是在20多歲的時候沒機會學習經營”。
有些人甚至沒有念完高中。他們成長於文化大革命的混亂之中，20世紀八、九十年代，又在國有企業的體制內打造了自己的職業生涯。
數家商學院院長說，中國管理者希望得到的通常不只是另一張文憑，或者實用的管理建議。
“過去20年間，中國經濟的確在高速發展，”中歐的副教務長陳傑平說，“為了進步，他們現在迫切想要總結過去的經驗。弄清楚怎麼辦以及為什麼。”
清華大學的錢穎一說，“中國管理者有很好的直覺和經驗，但是缺乏更廣闊的視野。”
“致富光榮”這句名言通常被認為出自前中國領導人鄧小平之口，對中國企業家來說，也耳熟能詳，他們中的一些如今開始質疑自己的成功究竟有什麼更重大的意義。
“中國的商學院在解決國內社會問題方面負有一定的責任，”長江商學院(Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business)的創辦院長項兵說。該學院由香港商業巨頭李嘉誠2002年在北京成立，是中國內地的第一所私立商學院。
項兵說，“我們要考察財富的完整概念——你為何從商、如何從商，以及怎樣處置你的財富。”
長江商學院的EMBA課程包括哲學、東西方宗教、世界歷史和文學等課程。
“我們希望這些從事管理工作的學生能爭取更有意義的生活——也許這無法實現，但是應該盡量爭取，”項兵說。
為了參加這種非全日制的、兩到三年的課程，中國管理者中的佼佼者或他們的公司需要支付60多萬元人民幣。很多人每個月都要飛越大半個中國來參加為期四天的課程。
在中歐北京校園一間寬敞明亮的休息室里，國美電器高級副總裁魏秋立解釋了為何有如此多像她這樣的中國企業家正在學習這些課程。
46歲的魏秋立說，“這裡的環境帶來一種寧靜感，讓我們能夠系統化地思考自己在工作中的經歷。”
在旁邊，數十位中國高層商業領袖（這些都是她的同學）正在他們的iPhone上寫短訊，並為他們的破壞式營銷(Disruptive Marketing)課程做準備。
中歐在北京和上海都有校園，加上在深圳規模較小的授課場所，共有約770名EMBA學生。
在30年的高速經濟增長中，中國的商業領袖們沒有太多的時間思考，如今他們紛紛開始通過EMBA課程來更好地認識全球商業界，如何成為更優秀的企業領導者，此外還越來越多地關注他們在成功之後該做些什麼。
20年前，中國幾乎沒有什麼管理方面的教育。1908年，哈佛大學(Harvard University)提供了世界上第一個MBA課程；而中國到1991年才在少數學校引入了自己的MBA課程，又過了幾年才開辦了第一個EMBA課程。

今天，中國有62家商學院每年為超過八千名學生提供EMBA課程。

上海復旦大學管理學院院長陸雄文說，“由於中國的快速經濟增長，如今的EMBA教育幾乎不能滿足高層管理人才的龐大需求。”

在2012年《金融時報》(Financial Times)全球MBA課程排行榜中，排名前10的課程中有四個在大中華地區授課，不過其中大多都是與西方機構合辦。排在第一位的是伊利諾伊州西北大學凱 洛格商學院(Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University)與香港科技大學(Hong Kong University of Science and Technology)合辦的課程。與歐盟委員會(European Commission)的協議下建立的中歐也在前10名之列。另外的兩個是法國歐洲工商管理學院(Insead)和清華大學合辦的課程，以及聖路易斯華盛 頓大學(Washington University in St. Louis)奧林商學院(Olin Business School)和復旦大學合辦的課程。

中歐的陳傑平說，“去年，我們68%的EMBA學生都來自企業高層，包括總裁、總經理和董事長。”他補充說，其中將近半數來自中國私營公司，剩下的則來自國有企業和合資企業。
各學校預測，MBA課程的增長在近期還不會放慢。“中國大陸的經濟很有可能在10年內趕上美國，”復旦大學的陸雄文說。“中國每年有5萬名MBA和EMBA畢業生，這遠不能滿足中國的經濟增長，以及各公司為在全球競爭中存活的需求。”

“在現在的中國，商業教育的需求是如此巨大，”長江商學院的項兵說，“如果我們需要的話，我們將最終把我們的高管課程向更多副總裁、部門負責人和較低層管理者開放。”

翻譯：林蒙克、陳柳

Special Report: Education

In China, Executives Flock Back to School for Unfinished Business

By KIT GILLET March 28, 2013

Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business

Xiang Bing, the dean at the Cheung  Kong Graduate  School of Business,  giving a class.

BEIJING — Wang Jianhua, the president of Shandong Gold Mining, is part of a new generation of middle-age Chinese executives going back to school. Once a month, he travels four hours by train from Shandong Province to Beijing to attend executive M.B.A. classes.
“After the Cultural Revolution, a lot of people felt the need to make up for lost time, so we worked extremely hard,” said Mr. Wang, 56, who studies at the China Europe International Business School, or Ceibs.

Mr. Wang was sent to a poor mountainous region during the Cultural Revolution, at a time when higher education was viewed with suspicion and those who were considered privileged were “sent down” to work with peasants. He ended up as the general manager of a chemical company, before making his fortune in a series of other ventures.
“I’ve been very successful,” he said. “However, I used to believe that because I was successful I must be right, but I’ve learned that what is successful in the past might be a burden for me in the future.”
Chinese executives are going back to school partly because, unlike their Western counterparts, many did not have the chance to study properly earlier in life.
“The average age of our executive M.B.A. student is 41 or 42, with almost 20 years of work experience — they are much older than their counterparts in Europe or the U.S.,” said Qian Yingyi, the dean of the School of Economics and Management at Tsinghua University in Beijing. They “simply didn’t have a chance to study business in their 20s.”
Some never finished high school. They grew up during the chaos of the Cultural Revolution and then built their careers through the state-owned enterprise system in the 1980s and ’90s.
Deans of business schools say that Chinese executives are often looking for more than just another qualification or practical managerial advice.
“China’s economy has really been booming in the last 20 years,” said Charles Chen, the associate dean at Ceibs. “There is now a tremendous need to summarize past experiences in order to move forward. To understand how, as well as why.”
“Chinese executives are great with intuition and experience, but what is missing is broader perspectives,” said Mr. Qian of Tsinghua University.
Long told that “to get rich is glorious” — a quote often attributed to the former Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping — some entrepreneurs are questioning the greater meaning of their success.
“Business schools in China are having some responsibility toward solving social problems in country,” said Xiang Bing, the founding dean at the Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business, which the Hong Kong tycoon Li Ka-shing established in Beijing in 2002 as the first private business school in mainland China.
“We have to look at the whole equation of wealth — why you do business, how you do business, and what to do with the money you have,” Mr. Xiang said.
The executive M.B.A. curriculum at Cheung Kong includes classes on philosophy, Eastern and Western religion, global history and literature.
“We hope our executive students can strive for enlightened lives — it may not be attainable, but it should be strived for,” Mr. Xiang said.
Leading Chinese executives or their companies pay upwards of 600,000 renminbi, or about $96,000, for a part-time, two- to three-year course. Many fly across the country to attend four-day blocks of classes once a month.
In a light, spacious lounge at the Ceibs campus in Beijing, Wei Qiuli, a senior vice president at Gome Electrical Appliances, explained why so many Chinese entrepreneurs like her were enrolling in these programs.
“The environment here instills a sense of calm so we can systematically think about what we’ve been going through in our jobs,” Ms. Wei, 46, said.
Nearby, dozens of high-level Chinese business leaders — her fellow students — were tapping out messages on their iPhones and preparing for their class on Disruptive Marketing.
Ceibs, which has campuses in Beijing and Shanghai, plus a smaller presence in Shenzhen, has about 770 executive M.B.A. students.
After three decades of the kind of rapid economic growth that does not allow much time for contemplation, business leaders in China are turning to executive M.B.A.’s for a greater understanding of the global business world, how to be better corporate leaders and, increasingly, what to do after they have succeeded.
Twenty years ago, management education in China barely existed. While the first M.B.A. in the world was offered by Harvard University in 1908, it was not until 1991 that China introduced its own M.B.A. programs at a handful of schools. It took several more years for the first executive M.B.A. programs to open.
Today, China has 62 business schools offering executive M.B.A.’s to more than 8,000 students a year.
“At present, China’s executive M.B.A. education can hardly meet the huge demands of senior management talents due to China’s fast economic growth,” said Lu Xiongwen, the dean of the School of Management at Fudan University in Shanghai.
Four of the top 10 executive M.B.A. programs listed in the 2012 Financial Times ranking are taught in greater China, though most of them are partnerships with Western institutions. In first place is a collaboration between the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University in Illinois and the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. Ceibs, established under an agreement with the European Commission, is in the top 10. There is also a linkup between Insead in France and Tsinghua, and another between the Olin Business School at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, and Fudan.
“Last year, 68 percent of our executive M.B.A. students were from the top levels of corporations — president, general managers, chairman of the boards,” said Mr. Chen of Ceibs, adding that almost half came from private Chinese companies, with the rest divided between state-owned enterprises and joint ventures.
Schools are not predicting a slowdown in the growth of M.B.A. programs in the near future. “The economy of mainland China is very likely to catch up with that of the U.S. in 10 years,” Mr. Lu of Fudan University said. “China has 50,000 M.B.A. and executive M.B.A. graduates each year, which is far from enough to support China’s economic growth and companies’ demands in order to survive against global competition.”
“The demand for business education is so huge in China right now,” said Mr. Xiang of Cheung Kong. “And if we need, we can eventually just start opening up our executive programs to more vice presidents, division heads and less senior management.”