Mind the Gender Gap: MBA Parity at Royal Holloway, University of London

The Pareto Effect, the ratio of 80 to 20 has an unusual prevalence in describing customers and revenue share, and often this numerical rule of thumb becomes etched firmly in the minds of many Business School graduates.  However, in the world of gender breakdowns for MBAs the special number appears to be 70:30.   In 2011/12 the AMBA (one of the leading MBA accrediting bodies) statistics for UK MBA programmes suggested a 70% male, 30% female gender breakdown. 

The Economist Which MBA ? survey for 2011/12 full time programmes showed that the majority of leading UK Univeristies had female MBA gender per centage balances in the twenties.  Just three had around a third women and just one with 45%.  AACSB (another global accreditation body for Universities with a strong US base) data shows that overall masters programmes have an even spilt of the sexes, thus pointing at the MBA as being perculiarly more popular with men globally.

Thirty percent seems to be a magic number - with this FT.com blog entry flagging that a number of world leading MBA institutions targeting this level, and suggesting that exceeding this level was problematic.

Perhaps because Royal Holloway has a human scale campus or because of its proud Victorian heritage as the UK's second Higher Education institution for women, whatever the reason for a second year running equality very much rules on The Royal Holloway MBA, with both a growth in total numbers and also an increase in the female gender share, with now a small majority (54%) of the MBA class of 2012/13. 

When interviewing prospective MBA candidates the question of gender and nationality split is often raised.  According to Justin O'Brien, MBA Director at Royal Holloway "From my interaction with applicants it seems females, in particular, are perhaps keen not to be be signing up for a year long experience to find themselves in a tiny minority and are often pleasantly surprised to learn of the close to parity gender split on The Royal Holloway MBA." 

Once again the RHUL MBA demonstrates its truly international credentials with a highly diverse cohort of over 35 candidates hailing from 21 different countries.  One of the attractions of this MBA programme is the opportunity to study for the MBA in a truly multi-cultural context, with extensive opportunities to learn about a wide range of global cultures. 

Responsible Marketing: Distance learning Egham Plenary 2012 Business Consultancy Week

For a third consecutive time in as many years the Miller Brands, the UK operating arm of brewing giant SAB Miller offered a real business question for a management consultancy assessment designed for student groups from Royal Holloway to address.

Thirty six students drawn from all over the world worked in six groups during an intense week to make recommendations to Jonathan Bennett, Head of Corporate Affairs, Miller Brands UK, on the challenging question he posed on responsible marketing.  

Students, who worked together in virtual teams for four weeks ahead of coming together in the newly extended School of Management building in Egham, found the question stimulating and challenging.

 Dr Sigrun Wagner, who lead the student interaction, highlighted the high standard of work achieved by the multi-cultural groups, who had to work intensively from Monday to Friday to produce a coherent recommendation in the form of a 14 minute presentation.

"Students are at the end of a particularly demanding journey when they take on the capstone business consultancy project." stated Justin O'Brien, MBA Director, "combining family life with work is often challenging enough, but I take my hat off to these guys, who over a period of two to five years have devoted significant time to research, write course work and sit exams.  The consultancy and dissertation are the final steps on this journey and this years cohort did extremely well, delivering highly polished pitches, worthy of a masters degree."

Students are studying for either an MBA or MSc in International Management at Royal Holloway, University of London.

Possible dissertation shell document framework

What I have often found helpful is to take all the different advice (& paying particular attention to formal guidance given in the dissertation handbook) to create a shell document.  This lays out what each of the sections should be and a short form of text (often put into italics & small) and left until the final edit - to ensure each of the elements has been fully covered, and nothing overlooked.  The below is merely offered as guidance and should not be used blindly. 

Remember the format should be typed.  One side of the page. Double-spaced. A4 paper. Left margin >4 cm, right 2 cm to allow for binding.  All pages are to be numbered. Font size 12.  RHUL allows some flexibility in the report structure, according to subject matter and approach to the topic.

TITLE PAGE: This must follow the standard layout. Candidate's full name, title of the dissertation, a statement that the dissertation is submitted as part of the requirement for the award of the Master’s degree (MA/MSc/MBA), month and year of submission, name of the supervisor. (see example in dissertation handbook appendix) 

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: Included at the front. Cover main points and conclusions in not more than 200 words.   

CONTENTS PAGE: Give page numbers for headings and sub-headings.  Consider TOC (table of contents) function in Word to create this, if headings and sub-heading  style formatting is used consistently.  Remember to update the page numbers before final print.  Useful navigation aid for reader.

INTRODUCTION or The Problem/Opportunity to Be Addressed: What is the problem or opportunity that has been investigated ?  Why was it chosen ? Why is it important ? What were the terms of reference (project scope) you set for yourself ? Effective introductions often use engaging hooks (including quotations) to introduce the paper, using a more functional navigation of how the dissertation is laid out. May also include discussion of the papers originality and any gap in the literature.  

LITERATURE REVIEW or The Theoretical Framework: Present an original narrative of relevant academic theory.  Using frequent (every new idea) Harvard in text referencing you will show deep and wide reading, reflecting a variety of (differing) opinions.  An objective and critical tone will consider and weigh different arguments.  The use of a 'cone' structure that sees perhaps up to six different areas (sub-headings), starting at a high level and becoming more specific towards the end/point of the cone.  All material used during the analysis section should be introduced here. 

RESEARCH METHOD or methodology:  Requires two key elements: justification of the approach taken and detailed explanation on how it was undertaken. 

Justification of research approach, use research methods texts in the library to justify why the approach chosen was the optimal, consider strengths and weaknesses of different approaches.  Use research methods references to justify (using expert opinion) your rationale. 
Sampling, use appropriate terminology to describe the approach you have used (note snowballing is one).  No research approach is perfect, highlight any mitigation (ways to over come short comings) that you have put in place. 
Think of science experiments or cooking recipes, you should detail how the research was undertaken with sufficient detail so that another researcher could take your notes and exactly duplicate your approach.

RESULTS: Quantitative approaches often use graphical approaches to present findings (consistent colouring, take care to label each chart/diagram clearly and effectively) often supported with a very short description in text, highlighting key data facts.

ANALYSIS and interpretation: Knits together findings from primary and secondary research.  Does the primary research strongly or weakly support the literature ?  Where was there agreement ?  Where were there big differences ? Small differences ? Key themes may be used to present the data (rather than following the follow of a questionnaire).  Possible explanations for differences (timescales, sample, method) may be put forward, using the conditional tense (e.g. might be, could indicate, may suggest...)  Combines referenced ideas from the literature review with primary results findings.  Crucial here to demonstrate both analysis and the ability to be critical (academically).  

CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS: The majority of the word count in this section should concentrate on summarising the key findings.  Care should be taken not to over generalise (making conclusions that go beyond what has been proven or the scope of the research question).  No new material or ideas should be presented here.  In shorter sections the following should also be covered:
Practical and Managerial implications; how managers (which ones ?) might be able to use the research findings.
Limitations - take care to present modest primary research "reasonable time and financial resource use in the scope of a masters degree dissertation" but identify learning (what could be done differently next time) for improvements.  Recommendations for further research might highlight other topics/questions that follow on researchers might usefully consider to undertake.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: alphabetical list of sources used.  Ensure Harvard referencing is fully complied with, do not use first names and take care with full stops and commas.  Four pages or more.  Show extensive use of academic journals and relevant text books.  Limit use of web sources. 

APPENDICES: questionnaires, write ups of focus groups and in-depth interviews or detailed statistics, should also be placed at the end.
 

Remember:  RHUL academics will be marking your work.
Each section/chapter should start with a new page (insert page break).