Some business schools represent time-honed traditions and ingratiate their cohorts into classical ways of presenting and communicating – which can be a real advantage in many business sectors.
If your ideal business school in Europe cultivates the values of tradition, classical conduct, and manners, take a look at our top ten classical schools for 2023:
| School | Cultural score: Classical style |
| University of St Gallen | 38.61% |
| Glasgow: Adam Smith Business School | 35.73% |
| Durham University Business School | 35.47% |
| Maastricht School of Management | 34.73% |
| University of Edinburgh Business School | 33.9% |
| Vlerick Business School | 33.7% |
| IESE Business School | 33.56% |
| University of Geneva: Geneva School of Economics and Management | 33.39% |
| University of Essex: Essex Business School | 33.14% |
| Vienna University of Economics and Business: WU Executive Academy | 32.88% |
How did we measure schools by classical style?
Unimy started researching culture at 130 top business schools in 2019. The research project, MBA Cultural Fit, has so far included in-depth survey responses from 4,850+ alumni, students, and faculty. Using expertise in organizational culture, Unimy developed six dimensions along which to measure culture within these business schools. This extensive research into culture and business education provides a way to compare schools along values that were previously impossible to measure. The extent to which schools adopt a classical style is just one part of one of the dimensions this research considers. Its counterpart, schools which adopt the most liberal style, is available here. The results for other dimensions and other regions will be released later in 2023.
Why measure culture?
Although prospective business school candidates use leading rankings to guide their choice of business school, these rankings do not provide the whole picture as to whether a candidate will get what they want out of their time in a school’s community. Unimy wanted to develop a more candidate-centric approach that enables candidates to find their best business school fit. In recent years, rankings themselves have proven to have their own biases and limitations. Measuring culture offers a new approach: an objective way to understand what is distinct about the community of each business school and how people there like to teach, learn, communicate, and organize their time. Going beyond rankings helps foster a better cultural fit between candidate and school, leading to improved student experience and better results for everyone.
