Is WOU's CEMBA recognised overseas or not?

Is Wawasan Open University's Commonwealth Executive Master of Business Administration (CEMBA) recognised overseas or not?

The above question is very misleading. Allow me to clear this up.

1. An MBA is not a professional degree. It is an academic degree.

So, there is no such issue as whether Singapore, Australia, US or whatever countries will recognise it or not. It is because an MBA is not a professional degree. There are no professional bodies like a professional accounting body or a professional engineering body to validate certain degrees from certain universities from certain countries.

In fact, even ACCA allows everyone to study ACCA regardless of you having a degree or not. If you have a degree and upon inspection of the syllabus of your degree, then you might be given exemptions by ACCA.

2. MBA is usually taken by those wishing to advance their career in the corporate sector.

No matter where you work, no employers will outright reject you just because your MBA is from WOU. WOU is an accredited university in Malaysia, so why would anyone wants to reject WOU?

As long as you don't BUY your degrees from some Internet sites representing some non-existing universities, your degree is accepted whether it is from WOU, USM, UM, UKM, UPM, Limkokwing, Multimedia, Uniten, etc.

But of course, some employers may prefer to hire candidates who graduated from a certain top ranking university but this is a totally different issue. This is just their recruitment criteria. This is not a recognition issue, definitely.

3. There are also people who studied MBA as a stepping stone to pursue their PhD provided the MBA has a research project component.

This is my personal opinion. I have friends who have studied coursework Masters (even from overseas universities) that do not contain any research project components. If they wish to continue their studies to a doctoral level, then I believe they would face problem in conducting a doctoral research.

If that's the case, the university may require these students/candidates to do a MPhil (Master of Philosophy) or an Honours degree programme as a prerequisite to their PhD research. Then, they would have to spend probably a year or two years before they can begin their PhD research.

Again, this does not mean that a university does not recognise your Master. You are still allowed to continue your studies provided you complete their prerequisite course first. To be safe, study for one which contain a research project component

4. In my opinion, an MBA with a research component is much better compared to an MBA without a research component. WOU's MBA has a research project component.

In my opinion, the WOU's MBA should be good because there is a research component in the syllabus which requires you to do a research project using either a quantitative method or a qualitative method. This would prepare you well for a more thorough and comprehensive doctoral research.