Masters in management: alliances’ additional qualifications

The elite Cems alliance programme offers an additional competitive qualification to the masters in management diploma to 1,300 students globally each year, at 33 member schools.

Alumni of Cems — the Global Alliance in Management Education — on average outperformed those across all business schools taking part in the FT 2024 Masters in Management ranking and those who studied for a rival supplementary qualification, Qtem.

Cems graduates had significantly higher earnings and greater salary progression, but a smaller share of female and international students in their cohorts, compared with the average across all schools.

The Cems schools are linked by a quality assurance system. Students meet requirements including a second language, take a common set of courses and study at two member institutions. Students also work on a consultancy project and complete an internship at one of 73 corporate partners. Half are recruited by these organisations after finishing.

In addition, Cems schools have a higher proportion of faculty with doctorates than the average among all ranked institutions, but a marginally lower percentage of female students and faculty, and a significantly lower share of international students and faculty.

A very different partnership between schools to offer an additional specialist qualification is the more technical Quantitative Techniques for Economics and Management (Qtem) alliance. Its alumni earned less than the overall average for FT ranked schools or those in the Cems programme.

Qtem was created in 2012 and includes 23 business schools and more than a dozen corporate partners. It offers about 200 students a year training in at least two locations, with a focus on developing analytical and quantitative techniques, and includes practical experience.

The programme is mainly in Europe, but has partners in China, Japan, Canada and Australia, and ambitions to expand in North and South America. It includes a compulsory global business analytics challenge with online courses and international group work.

The FT does not include averaged outcomes from the two alliances’ specialist qualifications within its overall MiM ranking. Instead, the data is shown here separately, based on answers provided by a sample of alumni from the two programmes across participating schools who answered our questionnaire.