Asian B-schools not doing well on the rankings

While going through one of the threads on a B-school forum I came across this question, why don't Asian B-schools do well in B-School rankings?

I can only guess that the following could be some of the reasons:

Most of the rankings come out in American and European publications. These publications have a target reader group concentrated in Europe and America so there surveys mostly deal with those schools which they feel their readers are primarily interested in. Although IMO, they could be missing out a larger audience. To run these surveys they need resources and most of the publications don’t want to invest so much. It’s about ROI, I think!

Also, some of the Asian B-schools haven't participated in the rankings as they don't think that sufficient number of their prospective applicants access that information. One can also extrapolate the reasons given above, to the B-schools.

B-school phenomenon originated in America and then spread over to Europe and then Asia. The pros of the ranking game are the old warhorses of the arena. They know what the rankings want and some of them could have been used as benchmarks while the rankings where being designed, so in that sense it could be skewed. E.g. B-schools in US were not traditionally International in nature (some confirmation in one of the HBS cases taught to the class'07).I wonder how many points are given to the international focus in these rankings. I am sure Asian schools also have a long way to go in terms of taking their brand outside their immediate geographies but some of the European schools would like more points for their international reach. After all very few Fortune 500 businesses are limited to one country, in fact I can't recall 1 right now.

Also, I guess B-schools like ISB are too new to have enough alumni and research work etc. which could propel them into the rankings. But they would get there and so would the IIMs, NUS, and NTU etc. You can already see some of these in few of the rankings amongst the top 100 B-schools but they are destined for better ranks in the future. It would take a lot of work on their part though!

Bottom line, look at the rankings but then look beyond them. Think about what you want to do and which B-schools are going to help you get there. I would advise candidates not to limit their search to any one geography. That would include only some of the vendors who can service the business education and career needs. One should spread the due diligence efforts to B-schools all over the world and take the first steps towards going global.