Planning a new international Master's programme by using qualitative matrices

Alexandra Ohls, Svenska Handelshögskolan

At HANKEN - Swedish School of Economics and Business Administration, the benchmarking project was performed by the subject Management and Organization, which is the largest subject at the Department of Management and Organization. The department reacted positively to my invitation to take part in a benchmarking exercise with a foreign university. The project group, which consisted of faculty members as well as some students, chose to perform a benchmarking exercise with a foreign institution with the aim of accessing ideas and best practices for developing a future Master's programme, in addition to the comparative evaluation that the project would result in. The subject Management and Organization is one of Hanken's officially designated areas of strength, and the Ministry of Education has granted it the national "Centre of Excellence in Education" quality award for its pedagogical quality and innovations for the period of 2004-2006. The department also has strong ties with the corporate sector. The department therefore believed that a benchmarking project would be of benefit for the benchmarking partner as well as for Hanken.

Benchmarking partner

The department suggested that Copenhagen Business School (CBS) would be an attractive benchmarking partner. There are many reasons for this choice. CBS is a reputable business school, and is EQUIS-accredited, which means that the quality of their activities has been approved by efmd, the European Foundation for Management Development. Hanken is also an EQUIS-accredited business school. The fact that CBS is a Nordic business school also influenced our choice, as the educational systems in the Nordic countries bear many resemblances, even though there can also be some substantial differences. CBS is also one of Hanken's international partner universities, which means that there is a tradition of cooperation between the two business schools. Yet another reason for choosing CBS is the fact that the department at Hanken already had quite close contacts with CBS, mainly personal contacts among the professors at the department. The Department of International Economics and Management at CBS offers an English-language two-year Master of Science in International Business programme (IBS) that the department at Hanken found to be of particular interest. On a practical level, one can add that the fact that CBS has an extensive and detailed website with easily accessible information about the different academic programmes also facilitated the choice of benchmarking partner. We considered it important to be able to find as much information as possible even before contacting the potential benchmarking partner.

Benchmarking framework

The benchmarking project group at Hanken, which I coordinated, consisted of seven faculty members and four students representing the subject Management and Organization. Some of the faculty members were not part of the whole process but were involved in some parts of the process. Among the students, there was one who had recently graduated from the department and one who had first come to Hanken as an exchange student and who had later returned for Master's studies at the Department of Management and Organization.

During the first meeting, the project group set down the main aim of the benchmarking exercise, which was to access ideas and best practices for a future Master's programme. The focus of the benchmarking would be the structure and the background of the Master's programme at CBS. One of the reasons behind this choice is the coming university degree reform in Finland , in line with the so-called Bologna process in Europe . As a result of the reform, the degree system in Finland will be based on two main cycles: a three-year Bachelor's degree and a two-year Master's degree. The Department of Management and Organization at Hanken is considering developing a Master's programme, taught in English, and this benchmarking exercise was seen as an opportunity to take the first steps in this direction.

During two meetings and through some e-mail discussions, the project group at Hanken formulated questions for the benchmarking matrix, which was to be the tool for the systematic comparison of the Master-level education offered at the two institutions. Having formulated the questions, the faculty members and the students got together separately to answer the questions in the matrix. Answering the questions was quite time-consuming, but already the discussions among the faculty members turned out to be fruitful in that so many aspects of the department's activities were thoroughly discussed.

Contacting the partner

The initial contact with CBS was taken by one of the professors of the department, who contacted the head of the Department of International Economics and Management at CBS by e-mail. The response was quite enthusiastic and we were given the names of the people in charge of the IBS programme, whom we also contacted by e-mail. When the first contact had been made and the representatives of the IBS programme had indicated an interest in the project, an official letter of invitation, including a description of the programme and the benchmarking matrix, was sent to them.

The initial goal of the project group was to organise a benchmarking workshop with representatives of both institutions. Because of the time limitation, we quickly realised that a meeting with some members of staff from the IBS programme would be more realistic than a longer workshop. In mid-December some of the faculty members were to participate in an international conference held at and organised by CBS and we decided that this would be an excellent opportunity to set up a meeting with representatives of the IBS programme. As a result, a 1,5 hour meeting was scheduled to take place during the conference. In order to get as much as possible out of the meeting, we asked for some written material concerning the programme structure and the curriculum. CBS sent us some very useful information, based on which we tried to fill out the matrix on their behalf.

Benchmarking meeting

The programme coordinator as well as the administrative director of the IBSprogramme met with four members of the project group at Hanken in Copenhagen . In order to take advantage of the fact that we could discuss things in detail, we distributed a copy of the pre-filled matrix to all participants of the meeting and decided to concentrate on questions that we had not been able to find an answer to in the written material or that we found to be of special interest. We also asked the IBS representatives to verify if we had interpreted the information correctly. The discussion was very fruitful and the IBS representatives were very open and willing to give us the information we asked for. I found that we got very honest answers and that both problems and success stories were raised. Many of the problems that were raised were problems of an administrative nature, for example the lack of influence on the admissions process at CBS and also some limitations caused by the university legislation in Denmark. As a result of this, the student body is quite heterogeneous with regards to both academic background and level of English proficiency. Our hosts did consider this to be an advantage up to a point, but also found that it makes it very difficult to organise the first year courses in particular in an efficient way. Some students do also drop out of the programme, for various reasons such as language difficulties, but also because they want to change field of study. At Hanken, this problem does not seem to be quite as manifest, largely because of the fact that Hanken is a small university, which allows the different departments to have more influence on matters such as admissions.

The meeting was mostly structured in such a way that we asked the IBS representatives to elaborate on some issues and during the discussion, we often had a chance to explain how the same thing is dealt with at Hanken. Concerning the background and the structure of the IBS programme, many interesting points were raised that will be of use when going ahead with planning new Master's programmes at Hanken.

Results of the benchmarking exercise

I believe that both parties got some useful ideas from the benchmarking meeting and the fact that much of the discussion has been summarised in the benchmarking matrix will hopefully result in some fruitful discussions at both institutions. The benchmarking matrix will most certainly be a valuable reference point in the future development of new two-year Master's programmes at Hanken.