The 1995 Ramon Magsaysay Award for International Understanding

The Asian Institute of Management is honored to be the Ramon Magsaysay awardee for international understanding. This award is meaningful because we have gone beyond those early days when we were identified as the “Harvard Business School of Asia,” since we were established with the assistance of the Harvard Business School. This label was a flattering comparison, but hardly original and defensible, not at all innovative.

The Asian Institute of Management was started by elite schools, Ateneo and La Salle, and by elite business families such as the Ayalas and the Lopezes. We were a simple conduit of Western management principles to Asian managers. We delivered these principles well to our Master’s in Business Management (MBM) students, many of whom have come into their own as chief executive officers. Nonetheless, AIM had to innovate, to be more than just an elite institution for elite Asians.

Early on, we determined that business could not survive without the concurrent development of the countryside. Profitable business could not ignore social upliftment for Asia’s disadvantaged people. It was in this context that in the seventies we pioneered our first RDMP, or Rural Development Management Program. In the RDMP, we performed action research and wrote case studies about how we could improve the lot for our poor, ignored rural areas. This has since evolved into our Center for Development Management, or CDM, which comprises a one-year master’s program for development management, as well as short courses and forums that specifically address developing country needs. We invited participation from government and NGOs, as well as funding agencies such as the Asian Development Bank, Konrad Adenauer Stiftung, the Ford Foundation, and others, into our action research. Ramon Magsaysay would have been proud of AIM: it is now a win-win, collaborative merger of the elite schools and businesses, funding agencies, government, and NGOs, working together toward the total development of Asia.

On a parallel track, we have continued to perform case research on Asian managerial and for-profit enterprise practices. We have translated all of these efforts into our redesigned two-year MBM, one-year Master’s in Management (MM), and short-term Executive Education (EE) programs.

Together our development and enterprise programs have generated over twenty-three thousand alumni in the last twenty-seven years. We are proud to say that our alumni are in policy-making and decision-making positions, trying to make life a little easier and more uplifting for the next generations of Asians.

We, the faculty and staff, would not have achieved so much were it not for the support of all AIM governors, trustees, social investors, and alumni. Because of them, AIM is a dynamic learning institution responding to the changing trends in the region.

We share with all of you this honor. You are part of our success. With deep gratitude for your contributions, we will take up the challenge to prove ourselves worthy of this distinction. We will not rest on our laurels. May the Ramon Magsaysay Award inspire us to higher and higher achievements.