Editorial: business education in profound disruption Mark Scott Rosenbaum Graham School of Management, Saint Xavier University, Chicago, Illinois, USA Rebekah Russell-Bennett School of Advertising, Marketing and Public Relations, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia, and Germ an Contreras-Ramírez Department of Business Administration, Universidad Externado de Colombia, Gran Granada, Colombia Abstract Purpose – This editorial aims to discuss 11 trends that are driving changes in business education, especially for Master of Business Administration (MBA) curriculum programming. Design/methodology/approach – The editorial provides introspection, personal reflections and conceptualization using current literature. Findings – The authors discuss 11 drivers that are influencing graduate business education. These drivers include the demographic cliff, the K-shaped recovery, MBA degrees losing their allure, emergence of two pricing structures, the rise of online universities, certificates and micro- credentials, the massive open online course (MOOC) MBA programs, MOOCs and certification, Grow with Google, Outsourcing MBA instruction and business education relevancy. Research limitations/implications – Traditional university and college graduate business education providers must realize that the educational industry is experiencing a revolutionary disruption and that many universities will fail to meet learners’ expectations for relevant skills and organizational demands for employees who have specific skills for employability. Practical implications – Learners will no longer rely on traditional four-year universities to obtain business skills. Originality/value – This work synthesizes a disparate set of drivers that are affecting all graduate business educational providers. Keywords Professional services, Higher education, Technology and service Paper type Viewpoint Introduction The coronavirus pandemic has changed education forever. As academicians and practitioners involved in services, readers of Journal of Services Marketing can attest to the profound impact of the pandemic on service industries such as retailing, hospitality (including food and beverage), tourism and education. Turning attention to higher educational services in particular, most academicians were given the mandate to shift instruction from delivery in a physical classroom to an online format in a handful of days. Rather than engage in slow-paced and protracted incremental change, which tends to characterize higher education, both academic instructors and administrators were forced to engage in revolutionary change to overcome the challenges posed by the global pandemic. Yet harbingers of change in higher education were present before the onslaught of the pandemic. Therefore, the present COVID- 19 crisis is serving to foster radical changes in higher educational services, but the aftermath of the pandemic on higher education is far from clear. In this editorial, we discuss 11 changes that are currently altering graduate business education. An in-depth analysis of changes in Master of Business Administration (MBA) programming is worthy from both scholarly and practical perspectives. Many universities have traditionally relied on graduate business degrees and executive business education programming to increase their revenues (Moules, 2018). Consequently, any disruptions in a university’s MBA programming and enrollment will have a ripple effect not only on the School (or College) of Business but also on the entire university system. We speculate that the continued rise in competitors for the graduate business education dollar will create tensions for higher educational and business school administrators as they grapple with the demands of managing their institutions for both research and vocational (e.g. employment) purposes. To date, many business school administrators and faculty, especially those at AACSB-accredited institutions, have tended to view their competitive advantage in delivering business education as their offering curriculum that is research- informed, theoretically driven and based on empirical evidence. Yet, new educational providers are diluting this formidable competitive advantage by focusing their curriculum on providing learners with practical skills that are linked to The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at: https://www.emerald.com/insight/0887-6045.htm Journal of Services Marketing 35/5 (2021) 553–558 © Emerald Publishing Limited [ISSN 0887-6045] [DOI 10.1108/JSM-08-2021-528] Received 11 May 2021 Revised 12 May 2021 Accepted 12 May 2021 553