What is it about?
MBA programs traditionally played a major role in developing functional knowledge and expertise in promising managers, alongside their ability to achieve personal and organizational goals. Here, the results of this study suggest that MBA education can also play an important role in helping students develop and enhance specific psychological attributes.
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Why is it important?
The findings show that psychological competencies in emotional intelligence, self-efficacy and locus of control can be developed, and MBA programs should focus not only on the development of knowledge, skills and abilities. Our research identified that activities, such as self-reflection on interpersonal competencies, which cultivate emotional and social competencies. It is also very rewarding to improve MBA students’ self-efficacy through verbal persuasion that strengthens beliefs that one can succeed. One of the most interesting results was that locus of control-internality (LoC-I) significantly increased while locus of control-powerful others (LoC-P) generally increased. It is plausible that the MBA program is the causative factor in the psychological changes, given that the same was not observed in our control groups. The result has two implications: (1) MBA candidates believe that they can play their own required role to achieve their desired goals, 2) but still accept that there are more powerful others around them.
Perspectives
Our research suggests that MBA education can play an important role in helping students develop and enhance specific psychological attributes. People with these attributes have a higher ability to identify important social cues in their environment, which in turn helps them be more adaptive in the workplace. To achieve organisational goals with other people, domains such as self-efficacy and emotional intelligence must be considered as important parameters along with functional expertise. Professor Adrian Kuah has taught at Manchester Business School, Bradford University School of Management and James Cook University over the last 20 years. He was named by the UK Financial Times as Professor of the Week and has published more than 60 papers, with his work appearing in prestigious outlets such as the Journal of Cleaner Productions, European Journal of Marketing and R&D Management. He read his PhD from Manchester, ITP from Bocconi, and MBA from Strathclyde.
Adrian T. H. Kuah
James Cook University
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: The development of emotional intelligence, self‐efficacy, and locus of control in Master of Business Administration students, Human Resource Development Quarterly, September 2019, Wiley,
DOI: 10.1002/hrdq.21375.
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