INCAE
Encyclopedia
INCAE Business School is a business school located in Latin America. It has 2 locations, the Francisco de Sola campus
in Nicaragua
and the Walter Kissling Gam campus
in Costa Rica
. The school is highly reputed in Latina America and internationally.
The response they received was extremely positive, and Francisco de Sola, a respected Salvadoran business leader, took the leadership role in consolidating support for the project. On December 13, 1963, a provisional Administrative Committee was appointed to head the project that only a year later would be known as the INCAE Project. Francisco de Sola was named Chairman of the Administrative Committee, a position he would hold for the next twenty years. In a speech in 1963, Francisco de Sola identified five issues for the future of the region:
The First program and the birth of INCAE Business School
INCAE’s first academic program was the Advanced Management Program, PAG for its name in Spanish. Between the 1st of July and the 7th of August, 1964, forty-five executives from every country in the region gathered in Antigua, Guatemala, each paying U$1,000 for the program. The first PAG was taught by HBS professors, who were assisted by young Central American professionals. In subsequent years, seventeen young professionals would later attend Harvard University’s International Teacher Program (ITP). Some of them would later go on to complete doctoral programs at HBS, and return to become part of INCAE’s faculty. Wanting to have a first-hand experience of the case method applied at HBS, several members of the Administrative Committee attended the first PAG. To best incorporate the case method, HBS professors immersed themselves in the context of Central America and wrote cases that were relevant and updated for the problems the executives faced. In the closing event of the first PAG, a decision was made to found INCAE; to build a campus in a place to be determined later; and to start a full-time MBA program, the first of its kind in Latin America. In that meeting a Regional Directors Council was elected, replacing the provisional Administrative Committee, and in 1969, INCAE’s first MBA was inaugurated.
Two campuses
Nicaragua was chosen as the country to house INCAE’s campus, and on June 20, 1969 INCAE’s first campus was inaugurated in Montefresco, Nicaragua. The seventy hectares site was purchased with funds raised through donations from the private sector and the different governments of Central America. This was the result of a campaign headed by INCAE’s National Committee in Nicaragua. Montefresco was chosen from the other options in Nicaragua because of its beautiful scenery and relatively cool climate. It was also relatively close to Managua, the capital of Nicaragua. The campus infrastructure was built with a loan provided by the Central American Bank for Economic Integration (BCIE) with USAID funding. INCAE’s first fifteen MBA classes graduated in Nicaragua.
In 1983, INCAE decided to move its MBA Program. The second campus opened in what used to be the Alajuela Racquet Club in La Garita de Alajuela, approximately 35 km west of San Jose, the capital of Costa Rica. The decision to move the MBA Program had been difficult, but the conditions in Nicaragua in the 80’s became complex, particularly due to the rationing of goods and inflation. The situation made participants from other countries hesitant to apply; the decision to move was inevitable.
Before settling in Costa Rica, other sites in Panama, Guatemala and Honduras were evaluated. Costa Rica was chosen because of its history of stable governments and the infrastructure that had already been built for the club. In 1983, the 16th graduating class, after completing its first year in Nicaragua, finished its second year in the Costa Rican campus at Alajuela. After 1983, the Montefresco campus housed seminars and the Functional Administration Program, PAF for its name in Spanish. In 1996, INCAE reopened the full-time MBA program in the Montefresco campus, and in 2000 the Montefresco campus was designated to house the Executive MBA program.
INCAE requires its faculty members to have direct contact with the business sector to ensure that the material they present in the classroom is up to date and relevant. This direct contact occurs through consulting work for firms. Professors are also encouraged to conduct research and publish their findings in peer reviewed journals.
INCAE’s faculty is extremely demanding with its students. This is part of INCAE’s culture, and it is best described by an anecdote from Harry Strachan, INCAE’s third rector. He was given the task to teach a new course on managing financial institution. All the cases he wanted to use for the course were in English. The fifteen cases, each with roughly twenty-five pages of text and fifteen pages of exhibits, had to be translated into Spanish. The task overwhelmed the translation department. Students would receive the cases hot off the printing press late in the afternoon. This inconvenience meant that students had only a few hours to prepare for class. Many of the cases had translation errors, particularly in the specialized finance terms of the case. A few sessions into the course, the class convinced one of its top students to ask Prof. Strachan to reduce the number of cases they had to read. The student argued that it was not fair that they had to deal with so much difficulty. Harry Strachan’s response to his plea was the following:
(Southern Association of Colleges and Schools) in the United States to grant master's degrees. It is also accredited by EQUIS
(European Quality Improvement System) and by AACSB (Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business.
INCAE is one of only 13 business schools in Latin America which have been accredited by AACSB. In 1994, it was the first business school to be accredited by SACS outside North America.
INCAE is affiliated to business school associations such as: AACSB International (Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business), NASPAA (National Association of Schools of Public Affairs and Administration), and BALAS (The Business Association of Latin American Studies). Additionally, it is a member of CLADEAthe Latin American Business School Council.
In the 2010 QS Global 200 Business Schools Report
the school was placed 5th in South America.
INCAE was also ranked #10 among international business schools by The Wall Street Journal in 2005. The Financial times ranked INCAE among the top 100 MBA programs in 2004 and 2006 and among the top 50 executive education programs in the world in 2009. In 2008, INCAE was selected by Eduniversal as one of the three most influential Business Schools in Latin America. Eduniversal classified INCAE as a "Universal Business School with major international influence" and graded it with 5 palms (the maximum score).
The second type of agreement provides discounts, for the MBA program, to accepted applicants who earned their undergraduate degrees from the following schools:
Campus
A campus is traditionally the land on which a college or university and related institutional buildings are situated. Usually a campus includes libraries, lecture halls, residence halls and park-like settings...
in Nicaragua
Nicaragua
Nicaragua is the largest country in the Central American American isthmus, bordered by Honduras to the north and Costa Rica to the south. The country is situated between 11 and 14 degrees north of the Equator in the Northern Hemisphere, which places it entirely within the tropics. The Pacific Ocean...
and the Walter Kissling Gam campus
Campus
A campus is traditionally the land on which a college or university and related institutional buildings are situated. Usually a campus includes libraries, lecture halls, residence halls and park-like settings...
in Costa Rica
Costa Rica
Costa Rica , officially the Republic of Costa Rica is a multilingual, multiethnic and multicultural country in Central America, bordered by Nicaragua to the north, Panama to the southeast, the Pacific Ocean to the west and the Caribbean Sea to the east....
. The school is highly reputed in Latina America and internationally.
INCAE Business School
INCAE Business School was founded in 1964 by the Central American private sector, Harvard Business School, and USAID. The Francisco de Sola campus in Managua, Nicaragua was the first campus to be established (1964). A second campus, the Walter Kissling Gam campus was established in 1984 in Alajuela, Costa Rica. INCAE offers a two year MBA in Costa Rica and a fifteen month (intensive) MBA in Nicaragua. Other programs include the Executive MBA and seminars.History
On March 23, 1963, in the midst of an integration effort by the nations of Central America, United States President John F. Kennedy visited Costa Rica and met with the presidents of Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica. In the meeting, the presidents requested President Kennedy’s assistance in establishing a business administration program that would produce the future managers that would lead the business sector in the development of the region. On April 10, President Kennedy wrote to George P. Baker, Dean of the Harvard Business School, thanking the school for taking interest in the initiative. Dean Baker sent three professors, George Cabot Lodge, Henry Arthur and Thomas Raymond, to gauge the level of support from the business community and society at large in each of the Central American countries for a project that would help develop and improve the managerial skills of business leaders.The response they received was extremely positive, and Francisco de Sola, a respected Salvadoran business leader, took the leadership role in consolidating support for the project. On December 13, 1963, a provisional Administrative Committee was appointed to head the project that only a year later would be known as the INCAE Project. Francisco de Sola was named Chairman of the Administrative Committee, a position he would hold for the next twenty years. In a speech in 1963, Francisco de Sola identified five issues for the future of the region:
"There are five urgent issues that if not addressed, will be critical by the 21st century: education in a world anxious for progress; food for people in a hungry world; conservation of the environment in an era that threatens to damage our ecology; the demographics of a growing and poverty stricken human race; and peace, without which all of our efforts would be in vain." (Francisco de Sola)
The First program and the birth of INCAE Business School
INCAE’s first academic program was the Advanced Management Program, PAG for its name in Spanish. Between the 1st of July and the 7th of August, 1964, forty-five executives from every country in the region gathered in Antigua, Guatemala, each paying U$1,000 for the program. The first PAG was taught by HBS professors, who were assisted by young Central American professionals. In subsequent years, seventeen young professionals would later attend Harvard University’s International Teacher Program (ITP). Some of them would later go on to complete doctoral programs at HBS, and return to become part of INCAE’s faculty. Wanting to have a first-hand experience of the case method applied at HBS, several members of the Administrative Committee attended the first PAG. To best incorporate the case method, HBS professors immersed themselves in the context of Central America and wrote cases that were relevant and updated for the problems the executives faced. In the closing event of the first PAG, a decision was made to found INCAE; to build a campus in a place to be determined later; and to start a full-time MBA program, the first of its kind in Latin America. In that meeting a Regional Directors Council was elected, replacing the provisional Administrative Committee, and in 1969, INCAE’s first MBA was inaugurated.
Two campuses
Nicaragua was chosen as the country to house INCAE’s campus, and on June 20, 1969 INCAE’s first campus was inaugurated in Montefresco, Nicaragua. The seventy hectares site was purchased with funds raised through donations from the private sector and the different governments of Central America. This was the result of a campaign headed by INCAE’s National Committee in Nicaragua. Montefresco was chosen from the other options in Nicaragua because of its beautiful scenery and relatively cool climate. It was also relatively close to Managua, the capital of Nicaragua. The campus infrastructure was built with a loan provided by the Central American Bank for Economic Integration (BCIE) with USAID funding. INCAE’s first fifteen MBA classes graduated in Nicaragua.
In 1983, INCAE decided to move its MBA Program. The second campus opened in what used to be the Alajuela Racquet Club in La Garita de Alajuela, approximately 35 km west of San Jose, the capital of Costa Rica. The decision to move the MBA Program had been difficult, but the conditions in Nicaragua in the 80’s became complex, particularly due to the rationing of goods and inflation. The situation made participants from other countries hesitant to apply; the decision to move was inevitable.
Before settling in Costa Rica, other sites in Panama, Guatemala and Honduras were evaluated. Costa Rica was chosen because of its history of stable governments and the infrastructure that had already been built for the club. In 1983, the 16th graduating class, after completing its first year in Nicaragua, finished its second year in the Costa Rican campus at Alajuela. After 1983, the Montefresco campus housed seminars and the Functional Administration Program, PAF for its name in Spanish. In 1996, INCAE reopened the full-time MBA program in the Montefresco campus, and in 2000 the Montefresco campus was designated to house the Executive MBA program.
Faculty
INCAE has over forty faculty members, who teach in the MBA Program and the executive education programs. 92% of the faculty holds doctorate degrees from Harvard, University of Pennsylvania, MIT, Purdue and other renowned business universities. INCAE's student-to-faculty ratio is 6 to 1.INCAE requires its faculty members to have direct contact with the business sector to ensure that the material they present in the classroom is up to date and relevant. This direct contact occurs through consulting work for firms. Professors are also encouraged to conduct research and publish their findings in peer reviewed journals.
INCAE’s faculty is extremely demanding with its students. This is part of INCAE’s culture, and it is best described by an anecdote from Harry Strachan, INCAE’s third rector. He was given the task to teach a new course on managing financial institution. All the cases he wanted to use for the course were in English. The fifteen cases, each with roughly twenty-five pages of text and fifteen pages of exhibits, had to be translated into Spanish. The task overwhelmed the translation department. Students would receive the cases hot off the printing press late in the afternoon. This inconvenience meant that students had only a few hours to prepare for class. Many of the cases had translation errors, particularly in the specialized finance terms of the case. A few sessions into the course, the class convinced one of its top students to ask Prof. Strachan to reduce the number of cases they had to read. The student argued that it was not fair that they had to deal with so much difficulty. Harry Strachan’s response to his plea was the following:
"You are right, it is not fair! It is not fair to ask all of you to perform a more arduous task than business students in the United States. It is not fair that you did not have access to the universities that they attended. And it will be even less fair when you go to interviews where you will be discriminated against because of your poor English and background. But the only way that Central America will succeed in overcoming the advantage that more developed nations have, will be by INCAE demanding more from you, not less! You have to work more, not less! Analyze more, not less! Invest more time! INCAE is not here to make things more just. We are here to help you overcome the injustices that demand more effort, ability, and better work habits from you, which you currently consider impossible. Let’s get back to the case!" (Strachan 14-15).
Accreditations and associations
INCAE is accredited by SACSSACS
SACS may refer to:* St Andrew's Cathedral School, an Anglican school in Sydney, Australia* The South African College Schools, a school in Cape Town, South Africa...
(Southern Association of Colleges and Schools) in the United States to grant master's degrees. It is also accredited by EQUIS
Equis
Equis may refer to:*European Quality Improvement System an international system of assessment and accreditation of higher education institutions in management and business administration run by the European Foundation for Management Development....
(European Quality Improvement System) and by AACSB (Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business.
INCAE is one of only 13 business schools in Latin America which have been accredited by AACSB. In 1994, it was the first business school to be accredited by SACS outside North America.
INCAE is affiliated to business school associations such as: AACSB International (Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business), NASPAA (National Association of Schools of Public Affairs and Administration), and BALAS (The Business Association of Latin American Studies). Additionally, it is a member of CLADEAthe Latin American Business School Council.
Recognition
According to the ranking published by the Chilean business magazine AméricaEconomía, INCAE ranked as the number one (1) business school in Latin America from the years 2003 to 2006 and number two for the years 2007 and 2008. In 2009, INCAE ranked as the best school in Latin America. Since the beginning of the decade, INCAE has been the only business school to be consistently ranked #1 or #2 in the magazine’s evaluation of Latin American business schools. According to these ranking's breakdown, INCAE's high ranking is due to the quality of its faculty, the quality and quantity of the research produced, and the positive feedback given by its graduates. These alumni, or INCAISTAS as they are commonly called, are recruited for the best jobs in the region through INCAE’s Career Services Office.In the 2010 QS Global 200 Business Schools Report
QS Global 200 Business Schools Report
The QS Global 200 Business Schools Report identifies the most popular business schools in each region of the world. It aims to serve employers seeking MBAs at a regional level. It originated in the early 1990s under the partnership Quacquarelli Symonds. The TopMBA Career Guide was made in 1990, and...
the school was placed 5th in South America.
INCAE was also ranked #10 among international business schools by The Wall Street Journal in 2005. The Financial times ranked INCAE among the top 100 MBA programs in 2004 and 2006 and among the top 50 executive education programs in the world in 2009. In 2008, INCAE was selected by Eduniversal as one of the three most influential Business Schools in Latin America. Eduniversal classified INCAE as a "Universal Business School with major international influence" and graded it with 5 palms (the maximum score).
Honorary Doctorates
Throughout its history, INCAE has conferred honorary doctorates to individuals who have positively impacted society. Among the most distinguished are:- (1977) George F.F. Lombard, Associate Dean Harvard Business School
- (1984) Luis Alberto Monge, President of Costa Rica, 1982–1986
- (1987) Marc Lindenberg, Rector of INCAE, 1982–1987
- (1988) Oscar Arias, President of Costa Rica, 1986–1990, 2006–2010
- (1991) Hernando de Soto, Peruvian economist and ideologist
- (1991) Pablo Antonio Cuadra, Nicaraguan poet and ideologist
- (1993) Stephan Schmidheiny, Swiss businessman
- (1994) George Cabot Lodge, Emeritus professor of Harvard Business School and key person for the establishment of INCAE
- (1996) Michael Porter, Prominent Academic and professor of Harvard Business School
- (1997) Violeta Barrios de Chamorro, first woman president of Nicaragua 1990-1997
- (1999) Walter Kissling Gam, Costa Rican businessman
- (2005) Alberto Motta Cardoze, Panamanian businessman and philanthropist
- (2005) F. Alfredo Pellas Ch., Nicaraguan businessman
Agreements
INCAE has agreements with many Latin American and U.S. Universities. The school has two basic types of agreements. First, INCAE has exchange and/or dual degree programs with the following universities:- Bordeaux Business School
- Case Western Reserve
- College of William and Mary
- Duke University - Fuqua
- Emory University - Goizueta
- Erasmus University - Rotterdam School of Management
- ESADE, Barcelona
- ESC Toulouse
- European Business School, Oestrich-Winkel
- Florida International University
- HHL - Leipzig
- Instituto de Empresa - Madrid
- LKAEM - Poland
- National Chengchi University
- New York University - Stern
- NUCB - Nagoya
- Pepperdine University - Graziado
- Rice University - Jones
- Thunderbird School of Global Management
- University of Michigan - Ross
- University of Minnesota - CSOM
- University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill – Kenan Flagler
- University of Southern California - Marshall
- University of St. Thomas - Opus
- University of Texas at Austin - McCombs
- University of Wisconsin
- USBE - Sweden
- Vanderbilt University - Owen
- WHU - Koblenz
- ZLC - Zaragoza
The second type of agreement provides discounts, for the MBA program, to accepted applicants who earned their undergraduate degrees from the following schools:
- Universidad Argentina de la Empresa, UADE - Argentina
- Universidad Privada Bolivariana, UPB - Bolivia
- Universidad de Talca - Chile
- Universidad del Pacífico - Chile
- Universidad Externado de Colombia - Colombia
- Universidad Autónoma de Bucaramanga - Colombia
- Universidad de Costa Rica - Costa Rica
- Instituto Tecnológico de Costa Rica - Costa Rica
- EARTH - Costa Rica
- ULACIT - Costa Rica
- Universidad San Francisco de Quito - Ecuador
- ESPOL - Ecuador
- Universidad Católica de Guayaquil - Ecuador
- Universidad Espíritu Santo - Ecuador
- Universidad Tecnológica - El Salvador
- Escuela Superior de Economía y Negocios ESEN - El Salvador
- Universidad Don Bosco - El Salvador
- Universidad Rafael Landívar - Guatemala
- Universidad Francisco Marroquín - Guatemala
- Universidad de San Pedro Sula - Honduras
- Escuela Agrícola Panamericana Zamorano - Honduras
- Universidad de las Américas Puebla UDLAP - Mexico
- Ave María College of the Americas - Nicaragua
- Universidad Americana UAM - Nicaragua
- Universidad Latina de Panama - Panama
- Universidad Católica “Nuestra Señora de la Asuncion” - Paraguay
- Universidad Nacional - Paraguay
- Universidad del Pacífico - Peru
- Universidad de Puerto Rico - Puerto Rico
- Universidad del Este - Puerto Rico
- Universidad Metropolitana - Puerto Rico
- Universidad Turabo - Puerto Rico
- Instituto Tecnológico de Santo Domingo - Dominican Republic
- University of West Indies - Trinidad y Tobago
- Universidad Católica de Uruguay - Uruguay
- Universidad Andrés Bello – Venezuela