MBA graduates can demand higher salaries as the need for competent managers grows

Although the Master of Business Administration degree has been around since the late 19th century, it was only in the early 1990s that this prestigious certification arrived in Poland.

"With a communist economy there is no need for anything like that. Only when the economy started [transforming] into a market economy did the need appear," said Witold Orlowski, director of the WUTBusinessSchool at the Warsaw University of Technology, one of the first to appear on the Polish market.

The first years were hard, according to Orlowski. "[At first, the courses] were done with a lot of foreign input, with both foreign professors and a foreign program design," he said.

Other experts in the field agree that the development of Poland's MBA industry has been an uphill battle. It has not been easy to break through some social barriers and teach the business community that managerial techniques can in fact be learned.

But hard work has met with success. Once a rarity, an MBA has become a well-recognized and respected element of a manager's CV. Polish MBA programs, in turn, have earned an international reputation and are now attracting foreign students to Poland. Polish companies have even begun to pay for their managerial staff to attend these courses in order to profit from their newly-gained knowledge.

Of little value?

Yet even today, despite its international stature, there is no guarantee that an MBA degree will impress Polish managers. Jérôme Lafuite, managing director at recruitment firm Michael Page International, said, "Employers [in Poland] are generally more interested in a professional track record and real-life experience. A year of study or work abroad can be of higher value than an MBA diploma." He added that an MBA was an asset in Poland, but not a necessity.

"In the 'employee-driven' market of Poland, an MBA is not very high on the list of demands of the employer," he said.

That point of view was echoed by Lukasz Radzikowski of recruitment firm Reed, who admitted that there could be better options for people in non-managerial positions, such as specialized courses or doctorates in their area of interest.

"MBA courses are very theoretical and contain little practical knowledge. People working in sectors such as insurance or banking might be better off doing one of these other courses since it would be more relevant to their area of work," he said, but added that for top managers, MBAs can extend knowledge.

Marek Gruszczynski, director of the Canadian MBA program - a joint venture by the University of Quebec at Montreal and the Warsaw School of Economics - struck a positive note. He said that those who were already employed and decided to take up the challenge of an MBA program were likely to benefit.

"After completing an MBA program, [employees] get promoted," he said.

Foreign partners, local talent

Most MBA schools in Poland work in conjunction with foreign business schools and universities. The Warsaw School of Economics, for example, works with the University of Minnesota, while the Warsaw University of Technology collaborates with the LondonBusinessSchool, the HECParisGraduateBusinessSchool and the NorwegianSchool of Economics and Business Administration.

Because of this international cooperation there is, in theory, little difference between an MBA certificate obtained in Poland or abroad. "There are very good MBAs conducted in Poland," Reed's Radzikowski said. However, he recommended pursuing an MBA at a well-ranked institution.

"From the thousands of institutions offering MBA programs around the world, there are about a hundred recognized MBA programs," he said.

Both Gruszczynski and Orlowski noted, however, that there was little regulation of the MBA industry by the Polish Ministry of Science and Higher Education. "The Polish MBA does not have any trademark, there is no government regulation. Anyone can create a program and call it an MBA,"  Orlowski said.

MBA envy

Perhaps even more alarming, there seem to be situations in which an MBA can prove something of a liability. Poland's socialist past bred a managerial class that was unused to intra-company competition and even today senior management can prove overtly hostile to young, ambitious managers.

Reed's Radzikowski spoke of a situation he knew of in which a senior manager had been jealous of subordinates who possessed an MBA, and caused problems for them.

"It also happens that people with MBAs might not get a job," he said, adding that this kind of discrimination was less common nowadays, but not unheard of. Radzikowski emphasized, however, that managers sometimes bristled at the thought of their subordinates having higher qualifications, and that such attitudes were not restricted to situations involving MBA-degree holders. He added that a number of companies also paid for their employees' MBAs.

Magdalena Nastalska, a PR specialist from employment site Pracuj.pl, said that companies might also be afraid of employing MBA graduates.

"[Companies] think that they are not in a position to give such people jobs where they might test their knowledge," she told Gazeta Prawna.

Growing need

That may explain why the number of people looking to obtain an MBA in Poland is still small.

In the US, around 10,000 students obtain an MBA degree each year. In Germany that number stands at 6,000 annually, while only around 1,000 students obtain MBAs in Poland, according to Gazeta Prawna.

The Canadian MBA's Gruszczynski explained that the relative lack of MBA graduates in Poland, compared with the US or Britain, meant fewer MBA graduates were on the payrolls of Polish companies.

"It is still easy to see that the typical company in Poland employs fewer MBA graduates than its counterparts in the West," Gruszczynski said.

But although MBAs remain somewhat exotic in Poland, the need for them is increasing alongside the economy's growth, which is expected to reach 5.5 percent this year despite the global slowdown.

The robust economy is luring more foreign companies to Poland and foreign management - long accustomed to having employees with managerial certifications - is willing to pay for MBA educations. Some businesses offer to pay for up to 75 percent of an employee's tuition.

A good deal

Moreover, prices for Executive MBA programs in Poland are extremely competitive compared with those in the West. The cost of the Executive MBA program offered by the Warsaw School of Economics runs around zl.30,000.

At the same time, the University of Chicago's Graduate School of Business estimates the cost of its 21-month Executive MBA program at £63,000 (zl.262,600) at its European campus or $127,000 (zl.286,700) in the US. And the 16-month TRIUM Global Executive MBA program - which was founded by NYU Stern, the London School of Economics and the HEC School of Management - costs $122,750 (zl.276,970).

The lower costs aren't only attracting Polish students. The WUTBusinessSchool's Orlowski said that half of the students attending his institution's MBA course this year came from abroad, mainly from Western Europe. He said that few came for an Executive MBA, however.

"An Executive MBA means you are travelling every weekend, so it is not surprising that people want to do this degree close to their place of work," he said. Orlowski also explained that, in addition to the low price of study, students were drawn to Poland by its competitive market.

Future trends

One type of program which could increase the popularity of MBAs in Poland - especially among young, environmentally conscious up-and-coming businesspeople - is the so-called "green MBA," which is garnering attention in the West. A green MBA covers contemporary managerial issues and emphasizes a triple bottom line - profit, people and planet. In other words, students learn how to conduct business while at the same time keeping in mind scarce global resources.

Unfortunately, in Poland these kinds of courses are not yet on offer. The WUTBusinessSchool's Orlowski explained that it would be a few more years before Polish students were able to pursue such MBAs.

"We are improving on the current MBA market, which is already delivering a good quality product, but it is still not as sophisticated in giving the whole menu of choices," he said.