The Wall Street Journal: By Leaders, For Leaders
The Wall Street Journal's Executive MBA ranking system may be the rookie of the pack, at just two years old, but the newspaper itself has been around since 1889. It started as a basement operation that delivered afternoon news to Wall Street investors, but by 1896, founders Dow Jones & Company had launched the Dow Jones Industrial Average, a measurement of the U.S. economy influential enough now to dictate our national mood.
The Journal is arguably the most widely read business news source in the world. The paper is published in nearly every language that comes into contact with international business, and has the largest circulation of any newspaper in the United States, at just over 2 million. Subscribers tend to be affluent businesspeople, with an average household income of $280,690, according to The Journal's most recent subscriber study.
This statistic might explain why it doesn't seem to have any trouble selling advertising. It also charges for full viewing of the online content, a business strategy that may have helped protect it from the profit losses sustained by other media publications recently. Whatever the reason, the 0.5 percent gains in The Journal's circulation from October 2009 to March 2010 are in stark contrast to circulation numbers in the rest of the crumbling newspaper industry, which averaged an 8.75-percent drop in the same period.
Whether comparing The Journal to other newspapers, other business publications, or other businesses, it is a leader, and so are its readers. So instead of ranking regular MBA programs, The Journal chose to rank only Executive and Accelerated MBA programs. I'll be focusing on the EMBA rankings. EMBAs are for working professionals with substantial experience. These rankings are global, factoring in the opinions of international companies and including programs outside of the U.S.
Ranking Executive MBA Programs
The Journal runs the EMBA ranking methodology like a democracy--by listening to people. Student and alumni opinions make up 40 percent of the score, while the views of corporate human resources and executive development professionals receive another 40 percent. The remaining 20 percent is based upon a hybrid score from these two groups--managers define which skills are the most important, and students rate their schools in these areas.
After all the responses are collected from the three surveys, Management Research Group, a statistical and data analysis consultant based in Portland, Maine, analyzes the data for validity.
The student surveys, sent out to 4,060 students and alumni--62 percent of whom respond--cover the quality of instruction and how well the institution enhances skills in key areas, from the art of consensus development to an understanding of finance. Survey respondents are required to have ten years of business work experience and three years of management experience. While student scores are vulnerable to bias as a general rule, it is likely that such biases affect all schools equally, and thus do not have a large impact on the order of the rankings.
Corporate opinions are the determining factor in how well schools fare, said Emily J. Edmonds, Senior Manager of Corporate Communications for Dow Jones & Company. For this reason, The Journal uses a meticulous process to select corporate respondents who will be representative, unbiased, and reliable.
Carrying Out the Plan
The Journal's interest in all sectors of business is evidenced by the topics listed on its front page: World, U.S., New York, Business, Markets, Technology, Personal Finance, Life & Style, Real Estate, and Small Business. In order to get a sample of corporate professionals who understand business's many areas, 1,200 companies were chosen to complete surveys this year, based upon recommendations from students and schools. The Journal then eliminated the companies with fewer than 75 employees, those where an EMBA student was a top-level employee, and those with no qualified respondent available.
Finally, surveys were sent out to 456 professionals, 42 percent of whom responded. The results were clear. Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management and University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School received the highest marks by far, landing them squarely in the top one and two slots, respectively.
Conclusion
The Journal's methodology doesn't take any statistical analysis or number crunching to understand. It relies on opinions, not hard facts. But whether or not you feel comfortable with a lack of transparent data, it never hurts to know what a 121-year-old reigning power in international business has to say. The Journal's rankings are available here.
Newspaper photo courtesy of Gothamite New York.