Abstract:

A widespread connection between education and research at universities is usually built as follows: academic staff at a university conducts research and then implements the obtained results into the educational process. It can be effective for bachelor and master programs but requires rethinking the educational programs for the executive MBA level due to several factors.

Firstly, management (as a professional area) is situational because the variety of models and tools, as well as the VUCA environment, do not always unambiguously pose a problem.

Secondly, top management training is focused on mastering the newest practices, innovative approaches, and methods, which, due to their novelty, are often still at the stage of development and implementation in the most leading organizations. It leads to the need to synchronize the actual development of a new management approach, practice, or method and its assimilation (i.e. learning). Moreover, top managers themselves in the retraining process increasingly act as generators of new ideas, which should be actively promoted by the new educational environment (the role of the teacher is also changing from a “translator” of new knowledge to the moderator of brainstorming sessions).

Thus, the high level of both personal and professional maturity of students of such programs moves us from the model of education as the dissemination of new knowledge (when teachers share the results of the already conducted research and help students to aсquire knowledge, skills, and abilities) to the new knowledge generation in management (when students create new ideas, knowledge, and projects in the learning process and solve problems that don't yet have a solution.

This article will analyze the experience of using this model in the executive MBA program "Long-term economic leadership: institutional and personal effectiveness" of the Faculty of Economics, Lomonosov Moscow State University. This program, developed for the finalists of the competition "Leaders of Russia," is held to find the most promising and talented managers from business government organizations.

One of the elements of the program is a cross-cutting research project with certain goals and objectives, provided by specific business companies or government agencies. Thus, the project is aimed at solving real management problems faced by the heads of Russian companies or regions.

The article analyzes both the advantages and the problems generated by the implementation of such research elements in the Executive MBA programs from 2018 until 2021.

Keywords:

Continuing professional development (CPD), project-based learning, eMBA, management education, education and research.