DIFFERENTIATION STRATEGIES FOR BUSINESS SCHOOLS IN EMERGING MARKETS: THE CASE OF ROMANIA

Business schools operate nowadays in a competitive and tumultuous market, driven by several forces: non-traditional competition, the emergence of corporate universities, increasing students' expectations, the continuous rise of distance learning programs, and rising program costs. Today, the business schools market in Romania sees a variety of institutions offering different types of business training, as it is perceived to be open and training providers still comfortably assume a constant demand for their products. Our paper aims at addressing the issue of postgraduate business education in emerging countries, with a focus on the Romanian market, through an investigation and critical evaluation of market differentiation strategies employed so far by programs offered by business schools in Romania, accompanied by an analysis of these programs' prospects in the years to come, under the pressure of a more competitive business environment and in the wider context of trends in business schools around the world.