中國首位MBA畢業生

Historians date the beginning of China’s modern economy from 1978, two years after the death of Mao Zedong and the end of the disastrous cultural revolution. But many modern institutions, notably in business education, are even younger. Wang Chunqi earned the first MBA degree granted by a mainland Chinese university in 1993, when China was on the cusp of its period of supercharged growth.

歷史學家認爲中國現代經濟開端於1978年，即毛澤東逝世以及災難性的文化大革命結束兩年以後。但中國的許多現代機構，特別是商學教育機構，起步的時間要更晚。1993年，王淳奇拿到了中國大陸大學授予的第一個MBA學位，當時的中國即將進入高速增長期。

Ironically, Wang himself did not seek out the opportunity but — in an echo of the planned economy from which China was emerging — had it thrust upon him. After finishing his first degree in engineering in 1977, he was sent to work at Yizheng Chemical Fibre, building automated production lines. By 1991, the company was the world’s fourth-largest producer of polyester yarn.

諷刺的是，王淳奇本人並沒有去尋找讀MBA的機會，而是這個機會硬找上了他，這反映出計劃經濟的特點，而當時的中國正在逐漸擺脫這種經濟模式。1977年，王淳奇拿到了他的第一個學位（工科學位），而後被分配到儀徵化纖(Yizheng Chemical)工作，負責建設自動化生產線。到1991年時，儀徵化纖已成爲全球第四大滌綸紗生產商。

“I had no [management] experience, but at that time getting into university had nothing to do with your background,” Wang says, speaking in the lobby of his office tower in Shanghai’s Pudong district. The area was still mostly farmland when he began his MBA but is now a dense cluster of skyscrapers.

“我沒有（管理）經驗，但那個時候進大學讀書與你的背景毫無關係。”王淳奇在其位於上海浦東新區的寫字樓的大廳裏說道。他開始讀MBA的時候，浦東基本上還是農田，而今已經高樓林立。

“The company leader recommended me. I had a certain status there,” Wang says. “There were a few of us who were recommended to take the test, but I was the only one who passed. Actually, I really didn’t understand what this discipline was all about.”

王淳奇說：“公司領導推薦的我。我在那兒有一定地位。我們有好幾個人被推薦參加考試，只有我考上了。其實，我當時並不明白這門學科是怎麼一回事。”

The Chinese government selected nine universities to pioneer domestic MBA education. The inaugural year was 1991 and the group included Beijing’s three top universities — Peking, Renmin and Tsinghua.

中國政府選擇了9所大學率先開展國內MBA教育。1991年是中國國內MBA教育的元年，這9所大學中有3所是位於北京的一流高校，它們分別是北京大學(Peking University)、中國人民大學(Renmin University)以及清華大學(Tsinghua University)。

Tsinghua, which is known as China’s answer to Massachusetts Institute of Technology, was famous for its engineering department. Future central bank governor and premier Zhu Rongji, an architect of China’s economic reform during the early 2000s under President Jiang Zemin, was appointed as founding dean of the new School of Economics and Management.

清華大學被稱爲中國的麻省理工學院(MIT)，當時以工科著稱。中國後來的央行行長和國務院總理朱鎔基當時被任命爲新成立的清華大學經濟管理學院(School of Economics and Management)的首任院長。2000年代早期，在時任國家主席的江澤民的領導下，朱鎔基成爲了中國經濟改革的設計師。

For Wang, business school meant leaving his wife in Nanjing to live in a dorm room with two classmates in Beijing. But the schools had been instructed from on high to launch MBAs and were not fully prepared. With no standardised course materials, professors often taught from handwritten notes. A distinct business curriculum had not yet been established, so Wang took classes with masters students in engineering for the programme’s first year.

對王淳奇來說，讀商學院意味着要離開南京的妻子、去北京跟兩位同學住在一間宿舍裏。相關的大學雖然受高層指示啓動了MBA項目，但當時卻沒做好充分的準備。由於沒有規範的教材，教授們經常用手寫的筆記教學。因爲專門的商學課程尚未設置好，所以王淳奇在頭一個學年是與工科碩士研究生一起上課。

In the second year, 15 of 70 masters students were chosen to proceed to the formal MBA programme. Much like the so-called “third generation” of Chinese political leaders centred around Jiang, Zhu and former premier Li Peng, who all trained as engineers, the selection process for MBA students placed a premium on engineering skills.

第二年，70名碩士研究生中有15人被選中進入正式的MBA項目。這一選拔過程將學生的工科技能作爲重要考慮因素之一，這一特點很像以江澤民、朱鎔基及前總理李鵬爲主要人物的中國“第三代”政治領導集體，他們全都是學工科出身的。

“They didn’t want teachers; they wanted people with experience managing factories — people with experience in industrial science,” Wang says. “If you studied the humanities, foreign languages or something like that, they didn’t want you.”

王淳奇說：“他們不要教師，他們要的是有管理工廠經驗的人——有工業科技經驗的人。如果你以前學的是人文、外語之類的專業，他們不要你的。”

For an engineering student, topics such as marketing strategy, joint venture management and western accounting were unfamiliar. The course required three years of full-time study and Wang recalls working into the night by torchlight after the dormitory shut off the electricity at 10 o’clock.

對一名工科學生而言，像營銷策略、合資企業管理和西方會計學這樣的科目是很陌生的。全部課程需要全日制學習3年。王淳奇回憶起，在宿舍晚上10點停電後，他會打着手電筒學到深夜。

“Compared with engineering, it wasn’t really difficult, but it required a new way of thinking. Sometimes I didn’t understand what I was reading,” he says.

王淳奇說：“與工程學相比，MBA並不是很難，但它要求你具備一種新的思維方式。有時候我搞不懂自己到底在學什麼。”

Wang earned the distinction of becoming China’s first MBA because he asked for permission to graduate several months early. “When I graduated, they hadn’t even figured out what the diploma should look like. They just gave me an engineering diploma,” he says. “Later I swapped it for the real thing.”

王淳奇之所以獲得“中國MBA第一人”這一殊榮，是因爲他當時請求校方允許他提前幾個月畢業。他說：“我畢業的時候，他們連文憑的式樣都沒設計好。他們只好授予我一份工科文憑。後來我才把這份文憑換成了MBA文憑。”

Yizheng Chemical was preparing to be one of the first mainland companies to complete an initial public offering in Hong Kong. For his MBA thesis, Wang researched issues surrounding Yizheng Chemical’s listing and was given special permission to return to the company to participate in the road show.

儀徵化纖當時正準備成爲第一家在香港完成首次公開發行(IPO)的大陸公司。爲了完成MBA論文，王淳奇研究了儀徵化纖上市相關問題，他還獲得特批迴到公司參加上市路演。

Though not of his own choosing, the experience fundamentally changed the course of Wang’s career. Shortly after the IPO, he left Yizheng Chemical to join First Eastern Investment, a Hong Kong-based private equity firm.

雖然不是自己的選擇，但這段經歷從根本上改變了王淳奇職業生涯的軌跡。儀徵化纖上市後不久，他就離開了這家公司，加入了位於香港的私人股本公司第一東方投資(First Eastern Investment)。

Wang’s career shift neatly tracks the changes in China’s economy. Yizheng Chemical thrived in the 1990s and early 2000s, when the country grew rapidly by mastering existing technology from rich countries and taking advantage of cheap labour costs to seize market share.

王淳奇職業生涯的軌跡緊隨中國經濟的變化而變。儀徵化纖在1990年代和2000年代初蓬勃發展。當時，中國通過掌握富裕國家現有技術和利用勞動力成本低的優勢搶佔市場份額，實現了快速增長。

Now high-pollution, low-margin industries such as chemical fibre are giving way to higher-value-added industries, including financial services. Yizheng Chemical, which today is owned by state oil refiner Sinopec, is struggling to survive in an industry beset by overcapacity, and its shares are in danger of being delisted.

而現在，像化纖這樣高污染、低利潤率的產業正讓位給高附加值產業，其中包括金融服務業。儀徵化纖——現爲國有煉油企業中石化(Sinopec)所有——正在一個爲產能過剩所累的行業裏掙扎求生，其股票有被摘牌的危險。

Yet Wang maintains a traditional view of what makes an effective business leader. “You need to understand technology and industrial science,” he says. “A lot of investment bankers who do IPOs come at it from the perspective of the humanities and make all kinds of promises to investors. That won’t fly.”

儘管如此，對於高效的企業領袖應具備何種素質，王淳奇仍持傳統觀點。他說：“你需要了解技術以及工業科技。很多從事IPO的投資銀行家都從人文角度着手，向投資者許下各種承諾。這是行不通的。”

MBA places and senior faculty in short supply

MBA名額和資深教師供不應求

It may be barely 20 years since China produced its first MBA student, but these days some 30,000 managers graduate with an MBA each year from 236 Chinese business schools, writes Della Bradshaw.

中國培養出自己的第一個MBA學生才過了20年，如今全國已有236所商學院，每年的MBA畢業生差不多有3萬人。

That is huge growth by international standards — China now has nearly three times as many MBA schools as the UK — but given the size of China’s management cadre, the numbers are tiny.

以國際標準來衡量，這一增長是巨大的，中國現在的MBA學校數量是英國的將近3倍。但相對中國管理幹部的規模而言，其MBA數量又是非常小的。

One reason for this is the lack of qualified instructors, says Zhou Lin, dean of Antai College at Shanghai Jiao Tong University. “Thirty thousand seems to be a small number, but if you look at the supply side, in China there are not enough quality programmes. The bottom schools are really struggling.”

造成此現象的原因之一是缺乏合格的教師。上海交通大學(Shanghai Jiao Tong University)安泰經濟與管理學院(Antai College)院長周林說：“3萬似乎是個小數目，但如果你看下供應面，中國沒有足夠多的高質量項目。底層學校真的很艱難。”

One reason is that it is difficult to hire faculty, says Lu Xiongwen, dean of management at Fudan University in Shanghai. “It is not difficult to hire junior scholars but it is to get senior scholars.”

上海復旦大學(Fudan University)管理學院院長陸雄文說，原因之一是很難聘請到教師。“資歷淺的學者不難招到，難的是招到資深學者。”

Even at Tsinghua University in Beijing, one of the world’s most prestigious universities, the management school has been able to fill only nine of its 30 chaired professorships.

即使是北京的清華大學——全球最負盛名的大學之一——其經濟管理學院的30個教授席位也只能招到9人。

A second reason for the relatively slow progress is the quota system. The government tells each university how many students it can enrol and the university allocates places to each department. Even if there is huge demand for an MBA, the designated number cannot be exceeded.

中國MBA教育發展相對緩慢的第二個原因是配額制。政府會告訴每所大學能招多少學生，學校再將名額分配給各系。即使MBA面臨需求的巨大，招生人數也不能超出指定的數量。

Prof Lu believes the system should change: “[The number of] MBAs should be determined in the market.”

陸雄文教授認爲這一制度應該改變：“MBA（的數量）應由市場決定。”

Another significant difference between MBA study in China and that in the US or Europe is that the majority of students in China study part time.

中國與歐美的MBA教育還存在一個顯著不同：中國的大多數MBA學生都是邊工作邊學習的。

At Tsinghua University School of Economics and Management just 98 of the 437 students who enrolled on the MBA programme this academic year are studying full time. At Antai, 80 of the 550 MBA students study full-time, says Prof Zhou. “When MBA students have decided they want to study full time, they will go abroad.”

清華大學經濟管理學院的MBA項目本學年招生437人，其中只有98人是全日制學生。據周林教授介紹，安泰經濟與管理學院的550名MBA學生裏有80人爲全日制學生。“MBA學生要是決定了想讀全日制項目，他們會出國去讀。”