Business Graduate Market Value

Introduction

From the end of World War II (1945), the fall of the Berlin Wall (1989) and the collapse of the Soviet Union (1990), the world has been undergoing dramatic social, political and economic changes that are forever shaping the landscape of the world we live in and transforming it into a global marketplace, always integrating additional countries to its market-oriented business practices in various degrees of integration (the only exception may be North Korea, a country hermetically isolated in the world). The opening up of the Chinese and Indian economies in the mid-80s, as well as of other emerging markets (Mexico and Brazil in Latin America; Indonesia in Asia; Turkey in Asia Minor; Nigeria in Africa, just to name a few of the most important world players) have allowed for close to three billion new potential consumers to the world economy (CIA Factbook, 2014). In tandem with these developments, the physical landscape of the world has also undergone profound changes. Urbanization has accelerated and continues unabated, while, in parallel or because of it, economic growth is shifting South and East, and it is expected to reach over seven percent, double the growth rate expected by the global economy as a whole by 2025 (Dobbs et al., 2012).

These new consumers from emerging markets will be demanding goods and services, which will only be provided by those businesses who understand their motivations, their needs, their decision-making processes (both conscious and unconscious), as well as the power of habits among consumers (Duhigg, 2012). The main aim will be to position their business portfolios in these new markets for maximum success and profitability. The goods demanded will be the usual: technology and durable goods, but also services, such as medical (as populations age throughout the developed world), banking (services in Islamic finance will continue to grow), travel (as globalization continues unabated), insurance (as ageing populations live longer) and education (as the middle classes of the largest emerging economies continue to grow), among other. In matters of tertiary education, these consumers will look for value in order to find good paying employment in their emerging countries, where talented individuals will be highly sought out, or in developed economies, which continue to be attractive places to live and to work.

Hence, this chapter focuses on the added value of a higher education, in particular that of graduate business education, on the lives of the young people from emerging economies, primarily, as these will be the ones who will see the most changes and for whom opportunities of growth and development will overshadow those of developed economies. In order to understand where this value may be coming from and where it may go, it is important to understand, first, the past, present and future social trends shaping the world, and second, the economic tendencies, which will be affecting and guiding this new generation of consumers of higher education. Finally, this chapter concentrates on the motivations for pursuing business education as potential workers weight the actual value of this education as future workers of world economies.