A portfolio model for performance assessment: the Financial Times MBA ranking

The ranking of MBA programmes by newspapers and magazines is common and usually controversial. This paper discusses the use of the most popular method of making these rankings via a multicriteria model which uses the weighted sum of a number of performance measures to give an overall score on which selection or ranking may be based. The weights are a quantitative model of the preferences of those making the evaluation. Many methods are available to obtain weights from preference statements so that for any set of preferences a number of different weight sets can be found depending on the method used. Cognitive limits lead to inconsistency in preference judgements so that weights may be subject both to uncertainty and to bias. It is proposed that choosing weights to minimize discrimination between alternatives (not weights) guards against unjustified discrimination between alternatives. Applying the method to data collected by the Financial Times shows the effect of varying the level of discrimination between weights and also the effect of using a reduced data set made necessary by the partial publication of information.