"We have got to be professional to face up to our well-trained international rivals if our company wants to enter the world market arena, instead of depending on the old experiences of the company," said Li Ning, an ex-gymnast and also an EMBA graduate of Guanghua School of management, Peking University.

Li launched a company in his own name in 1990 after he retired from the sports world. The business took five years to become the leading brand in China's sports gear industry. By the end of 2006, the firm's market value hit HK$11.6 billion on the Hong Kong stock exchange. However, a believer in the motto 'nothing is impossible', Li Ning said, "The company leader first has to be a learner." Li and the Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business co-developed a mini EMBA class inside the company for training its management staff.

"Now I have a clear picture in my mind of in what direction my company should move forward and how to achieve success," said Chen, who has gained the EMBA degree.

EMBA class in China

"China's EMBA program cannot copy America, where the EMBA education system is much like that of the MBA," said Professor Liao Li, Director of the EMBA Program of School of Economics and Management, Tsinghua University.

The EMBA, first created for the Business School of Chicago University in 1943, officially came to China in 2002. Thirty higher education institutions are permitted to run EMBA programs, 10 years later than the arrival in China of MBA's in 1991.

China's EMBA program did not start from scratch but borrowed elements of the original and applied them to China. "We had no clues as how to do it at the very beginning so most of the time we had to imitate and learn," said Di Ruipeng, Assistant Director of EMBA Program of Tsinghua University's School of Economics and Management. "From planning to operating of the EMBA project, we'd been following the most advanced international EMBA education modes all the time."

According to Di, the teaching staff of the EMBA project of Tsinghua University are quite international. "The backbone of the management team has a foreign education background. We are running the EMBA education program the way a company is run, in line with international standards," he said.

The first class in Tsinghua EMBA is "Techmark Simulation", popular among international business schools. Di Ruipeng is one of the pioneers who introduced it to China.

"Techmark is like a game, a mini business case, in which all the major links of business management are presented. Students that participate in it get an all-round self check-up through each link, meanwhile getting a quick understanding of the framework of EMBA education," he said.

One of the teachers of the Techmark lesson, Professor Robert Ng, said he believes most Chinese EMBA students understand the market but need the course to help them develop a systematic way of thinking about business.

"These entrepreneur students may realize the problems within the fields of marketing, finance or scientific research in their companies, but they don't know how to solve them in a systematic way," he said. "They are familiar with the local market, but may not know a lot about the international market. They need to learn to how to create an overall plan, which integrates all considerations. Like in Techmark, in a real business case, in which time, resources, and information are limited, a company has to make the best decision in the shortest time.

Di added, "Of course, if we could not tailor it to the local situation in China after it is borrowed from foreign experiences, EMBA education would definitely be out of step with the real business situation in China."