INSTITUTIONAL STRATEGY
qualification that certifies content consumption and one that certifies capability. In this sense, the MBA embodies the shift described in this article and has direct implications for how business schools design and position their programmes. Moreover, the most defensible MBA is one that makes its assessment model transparent – in other words, a programme where learning outcomes are specific, assessment tasks are demonstrably non-delegable and evidence of graduate capability is legible to employers. That is not a retreat from ambition, it is the clearest possible statement of what a business school education is for. From pressures to projects In the long run, higher education will not compete on who digitalises fastest or who launches more programmes. It will compete on credibility in forming capable graduates and generating public value. In a world where information becomes cheaper, prestige will rest on institutions’ ability to educate individuals with judgement, integrity and effective competencies. It will also depend on their capacity to produce reliable, relevant knowledge and sustain a university community capable of transforming life trajectories. For business schools and universities, the strategic challenge is to translate global pressures into institutional projects that are innovative, coherent, interdisciplinary, internationally connected and linked to the world of work. However, such projects must also remain anchored in the idea that a university is not reducible to market logic. By following this path, higher education’s future is likely to be defined by a demanding, yet achievable, combination of excellence, experience and purpose.
Embodying the shift: MBA competencies
As the most established model of postgraduate management education, the MBA makes for a useful reference point here. Already designed around the logic of verifiable judgement, it is a qualification that was never primarily about transmitting knowledge. Instead, it was about developing the capacity to apply learning in real organisational contexts. Employers do not pay a premium for MBA graduates because of what they know. They pay because of what they can do with what they know, from working across disciplines and leading diverse teams to diagnosing complex problems and making defensible decisions under uncertainty. That is verifiable judgement and it is precisely what AI cannot replicate. What AI changes, then, is not the MBA’s purpose but the pressure to demonstrate it. When AI can produce a competent case analysis in minutes, the MBA programme that assesses only the output has a problem. The programme that assesses the reasoning process, encompassing the defence of assumptions, evaluation of alternatives and calibration of evidence has an advantage. The distinction is between a
Mauricio Villena is dean and full professor of economics and public policy at the Faculty of Administration and Economics, Diego Portales University (UDP), Chile. Villena has also served as chief economist (2010–2013) and deputy director (2018–2020) of the Budget Office at Chile’s Ministry of Finance. He holds a PhD and an MPhil from the University of Cambridge
Business Impact • ISSUE 4 • 2026
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