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. 

MBA Graduation 2012

Tina Maratilova and Justin O'Brien, RHUL MBA graduation 2012

As you will have noticed, I am not a keen self-publicist & do not often choose to put up photos of yours truly up on this blog.  However, thanks kindly to shared photos from Tina Maratilova (pictured to my left), who graduated at this summers Royal Holloway MBA ceremony on campus, I have a couple of photos to share that give a little sense of the pride graduates have during these festivities.  

I always enjoy seeing the happy, smiling faces of former students who are often celebrating their success with close family members.  It is also great to hear how everyone is getting on, about their new jobs and promotions.


Royal Holloway Distance Learning MBA/MSc students are given the choice of  graduating either at one of the two central London University of London ceremonies or joining with other School of Management post graduates in the stunning Founders building.  I still get tingly feelings down my back as part of the academic parade, we lead students through the amazing picture gallery and into the stunning golden chapel, where the graduates are formally presented with their awards.

Royal Holloway chapel

This year as part of a team working with Dr Romano Dyerson and Chris Howorth, we were awarded a prestigious team teaching prize for the innovative business engagement consultancy we undertook with the campus MBA students and Thorpe Park. 

The photo on the left shows the College Principal, Professor Paul Layzell presenting the award, which now hangs proudly on my office wall.

Plenary 1 - Royal Holloway, University of London

Student reactions after the Royal Holloway, University of London MBA and MSc International Management plenary week 1 (residential summer school) held in June 2011 at the Egham campus.

2011 MBA and MSc International Management Distance Learning cohort

In what was very much a team effort, staff at the School of Management pitched in to ensure that a record number 113 delegates at this year's Egham plenary had a highly engaging and rewarding experience. These two-week plenary sessions allow students on the distance learning MBA/MSc International Management course to meet face-to-face with academic staff and other students in an intensive programme of master classes, group projects and social events.
The ever popular Thames boat trip was reinstated, plus the formal dinner in Founder's Picture Gallery saw arts marketing specialist Dr Derrick Chong share some historical insights into its £30 million Victorian art collection. Following participant feedback, more emphasis this year was put on engaging with industry speakers. Oral feedback suggested that 2011 was a significant improvement on the 2009 and 2010 sessions.

"Plenary 2011 - for me the second truly amazing time in Egham! It was a week filled with interesting research, hard work and great presentations. But maybe the best part was connecting with interesting people from all parts of the world in an ambience of great academic heritage and beautiful nature. Comparing week one in 2010 to week two in 2011 one could feel that the organisers are pushing hard to make this experience even better."
L. Schaper, Germany

How to find a good/great/amazing dissertation title ?

How to find a good/great/amazing dissertation title ?

My name is Justin O'Brien  and I thought it might be a worthwhile experience to create a series of blog posts to support the project supervision work I undertake as part of my academic role at Royal Holloway, University of London. 

First up is the requirement to identify a good subject.  Standard advice here suggests you select something that you are interested in, or perhaps passionate about.  This might not be that obvious, particularly at the end of a challenging academic programme.  The dissertation road can be long and hard, having some deeper level of motivation is important.

Other more pragmatic approaches might include starting by working backwards from your career aspriation or perhaps where you have access (through family, friend or work connections) to a company or industry.

There is an opportunity on your CV/resume to include the title of your dissertation (particularly if you got a strong mark) and this can be picked up as a discussion point at interveiw as one of the easy 'warm up' questions.  This may be one of the helpful points of differentiation that makes your application stand out from the crowd. 

Clearly your topic must fit within the scope of your degree, but aside from this constraint, pretty much anything goes.    Thus there are no right or wrong topics, what is crucial is that you are interested in the subject, that there is accessible written material at least in the academic literature and ideally from wider industry too and you can link the conceptual ideas to an appropriate primary research method.

Justin O'Brien

Take a look at past dissertation titles, I have been lucky enough to supervise a very wide range of projects that include topics such as gender differences in UK and Korean computer gaming, ambush marketing at major sports events, differences between UK/Finnish males attitudes towards grooming products, even sex tourism on a Greek island !

Once you have identified an interesting topic you need to find a link between academic theory and the kind of research you will be undertaking.  It makes no sense to link marketing strategy theory to human resources staff retention in a small organisation.  Equally asking 100 undergraduates using a qualitative questionnaire about their experience of being a middle or senior manager shows a clear mis-match in expertise. 

Emotionally the topic selection appears monumental, I have seen many students in very agitated states as they go through this early stage.   Ideas change quickly, as many as 10 different topics can be considered in a few days.  Try not to exhaust your supervisors good will at this stage, use their time when you have settled on a subject area.  Talking to friends and family is helpful, even if it just about articulating your own ideas our loud.  Some people rather panic at this stage.  It is a very large part of your final grade, so perhaps not surprising.    Perhaps rather than over focusing in the early stages on the precise formulation of the title, more focus should be put on undertaking research.  Here I do not mean spending a couple of hours on Google search.

A crucial tip is to spend time using the academic journals accessed via search engines such as EBSCO, Science Direct and Emerald.  Here you will see PhD level and above papers and begin to assimilate useful vocabulary ideas for the title, start to uncover relevant models and theory and also get an understanding of the expected 'academic writing tone' (formal (not slang/spoken English), third person ('the researcher' not I), past tense, evidenced based (using in text references), objective (use shades of grey not black and white, moderated adjectives). 

Be disciplined from the start.  Try to write up paraphrased notes in your own words (note: careful referencing will save panics later) and why not start adding useful papers to your bibliography - I always suggest the creation of a shell document.  Whilst you undertake your research you may feel like you have worked really hard, but have generated absolutely zero words too show for it all !  At least creating a bibliography will give you some measure of progress.  I would expect a good dissertation to have four or more pages of references (double line spaced) that have mostly academic journals, a wide range of texts and some industry sources that may be internet based. 

NEXT TIME: TIPS ON HOW TO WRITE AN EFFECTIVE TITLE