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I wonder whether this is actually limited to academia. When I was at business school it was mentioned that US firms are more likely to have special managers (MB

I wonder whether this is actually limited to academia. When I was at business school it was mentioned that US firms are more likely to have special managers (MBAs) whereas somewhere like Europe tended to promote technical staff like engineers. Someone out there must know whether this is generally true.

ghaff 4y ago
Not really. A lot of MBAs go into things like management consulting, finance, certain types of marketing roles, but even things like product management/program management. I'm not sure it's really that common to hop straight from an MBA to a management role (unless it's a case of someone already in management or being groomed for management who goes back to school to get a degree). It's also the case that, at the better business schools, most of the students have at least some experience in any case. What is true is that generally speaking (though not in all cases) once someone goes into management--and certainly executive management--they tend to not go back into individual contributor roles although it does happen. And, in general, MBA degrees are probably more common in the US than in Europe.