With or Without You: Career Capital Development as Experienced by MBA Alumni

In this article, co-authors Elizabeth Houldsworth, Andrea Tresidder, and Tatiana Rowson answer a few questions regarding the inspiration of their recent article, “With or without you: Career Capital Development as Experienced by MBA Alumni,” found in Management Learning.

Were there any specific external events-political, social, or economic-that influenced your decision to pursue this research?

Following over a decade of political and economic turmoil in the UK, the idea of ‘futureproofing’ one’s own career is likely to attract more and more students into post-experience management programs, of which the MBA is typically seen as the most prestigious. As management educators, the three of us share an interest in understanding the learning and development experience of mid-career managers and how this impacts their life and careers.

In common with other business schools, Henley has a large and engaged alumni group. Conducting interviews with a sample of these individuals provided a way to capture how learners describe their experience of the MBA and their subsequent career trajectories.

In what ways is your research innovative, and how do you think it will impact the field?

The research was designed to explore the experience of learning on the MBA and our 29 interviews provided a rich source of data to understand the impact of the course. During the analysis, it became apparent that some recurrent themes, such as increased self-belief, developing practical business knowledge, and developing a network, could be understood using the literature on career capital. However, the pre-existing literature around career capital does not capture the whole story. It was not a surprise that we found a particularly strong theme around the MBA as a means to develop increased confidence and self-efficacy. We also found a separate theme around personal transformation, confirming the claims found in the marketing literature for many MBAs – that these programs really can ‘change your life’!

The ‘With or Without You’ title of the paper reflects our findings around the career capital area of ‘knowing-whom’ – or social capital – as a differentiating factor. The majority of our respondents report career capital development in ways that involved others, with a smaller number experiencing this alone. Importantly personal transformation was only reported by those who described the experience not as a solitary process, but as involving others. This has implications for all those involved in program design, delivery and support (particularly career support) as well as those contemplating an MBA or already enrolled as students.

If business schools are going to foster conditions where transformation can occur, they not only need to provide high-quality and relevant content but must also recognize the role of social interaction within the learning process and ensure their offering includes group-working, facilitated networking as well as opportunities for peer or alumni mentoring.

What advice would you give to new scholars and incoming researchers in this particular field of study?

This research, particularly the analysis and interpretation of the data has evolved over time. There have been several earlier iterations and ways of framing the findings. Our advice would be to keep looking for patterns in the data and allow the picture to emerge. Had there been more space in the paper we would have liked to say more about levels of learning and the fact that women seemed more likely to experience a transformative experience. Both of these are areas for further work in relation to post-experience programs in business and management.