GF Vol 05 Issue 03

INSIDE THIS ISSUE

Jain visionINSEAD’s new Dean looks at the future

Open windowRussia’s top school goes international

House doctorEPAS takes on doctoral programmes

Tipping pointHow business schools need to change

Into AfricaBusiness education can fuel growth

Think youngManaging after the Arab Spring

www.efmd.org Volume 05 | Issue 03 2011

Change and the future:Business education 2025

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Global Focus

Volume 05 | Issue 03 2011

Thomas Sattelberger outlines the changing priorities and strategies that will dominate business education in 2025

“EMLYON Business School is world renowned for its devotion to lifelong learning for entrepreneurship and international management. Founded on teaching innovation and its advanced approach to management education, our mission statement ‘Educating Entrepreneurs for the World’ is at the heart of our MSc in Management Programme.

Today’s business environment requires employees that are fully versant to manage global challenges. Our programmes demand students who are capable of acquiring the knowledge and skills to operate effectively in the corporate world. Our graduates and employers alike know that EMLYON is one of the best business schools to prepare them for a demanding career.

EMLYON has long used the GMAT exam to select the right candidates for our programmes. Not everyone is up to the rigorous standards our business school demands. The GMAT helps EMLYON predict academic performance and assess the skills students need to succeed in both the classroom and professional life. At EMLYON we expect the best, and the GMAT exam helps deliver just that.”

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To learn more about the GMAT exam and the products and services it makes possible, visit gmac.com/efmd

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1EFMD Global Focus | Volume 05 | Issue 03 2011


In focus

Welcome to the autumn edition of Global Focus.

Many of the articles in this issue debate the future of business schools, particularly in the areas of diversity, internationalisation and sustainability.

Thomas Sattelberger, Vice-President of EFMD, kicks off these issues in an article based on his presentation to this year’s Annual Conference in Brussels. In it he looks at how the world, and the world of management education, is likely to appear in 2025.

Many of the elements he identifies are shared by Dipak Jain and Valery Katkalo, who are interviewed respectively on page 16 and page 20.

Professor Jain is one of the emerging band of “serial deans” who spend their academic lifetimes heading two or even three of the world’s leading business schools while Professor Katkalo has been dean of the St Petersburg University Graduate School of Management and its predecessor since 1997.

Another of the business school world’s most eminent deans, Arnoud De Meyer, President of Singapore Management University, former director of Cambridge University’s Judge Business School in Britain and founding Dean of INSEAD's Asia Campus in Singapore, also contributes his ideas (Page 28).

His key message is that business schools need to become “Schools for Business”.

“This,” he writes, “is a paradigm shift for the world’s business schools, a tipping point that can become a quantum leap if scholars and researchers are brave enough to break out of their comfort zones, combine their arsenal of expertise and confidently propose analysis, insights and solutions on a smorgasbord of issues that confront organisations across multiple disciplines.”

In other articles, Martin Lockett and Matthew Gitsham (page 48) argue that business schools must embed “sustainability” in how they themselves work rather than just research and teach it. This is an idea picked up, in a rather different form, by Hennie Oliver and Johan Burger (page 32) in an article that shows how business schools can be agents for sustainable business, economic and societal development in Africa.

Their article focuses on sub-Saharan Africa but looking at the other end of the continent Sherif Kamel, in an intriguing piece, looks at the challenges and opportunities for management education in the Middle East and North Africa after the 10-month turmoil of the “Arab Spring”.

Finally, and perhaps on a lighter note, Mark Thomas and Matt Symonds debate whether social media really have a role in promoting business schools in “Will social networking kill the radio star this time?” on page 36.

2 www.efmd.org/globalfocus

Global Focus The EFMD Business Magazine

Executive Editor Matthew Wood [email protected]

Advisory Board Eric Cornuel Jim Herbolich Howard Thomas

Consultant Editor George Bickerstaffe [email protected]

Contributing Editors Edwin Andrews, C B Bhattacharya, Johan Burger, Peggy Cunningham, Kevin Dalton, Arnoud De Meyer, Marcin Geryk, Matthew Gitsham, Ulrich Hommel, Sherif Kamel, Daniel Korschun, Martin Lockett, David McKie, Hennie Oliver, Thomas Sattelberger, Sankar Sen, Matt Symonds, Mark Thomas

Design & Art Direction Jebens Design www.jebensdesign.co.uk

Photographs & Illustrations ©Jebens Design Ltd / EFMD unless otherwise stated

Editorial & Advertising Matthew Wood [email protected] Telephone: +32 2 629 0810

EFMD aisblRue Gachard 88 – Box 3 1050 Brussels, Belgium

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Contents

1 In focus

4 Talking ShopCEIBS-EFMD China conference Sustainable degrees and websites? EFMD tweets Five new EPAS schools

8 2011 EFMD Excellence In Practice Award Winners

10 Business education 2025: what’s in storeThomas Sattelberger outlines the changes that he believes will dominate business education in 2025

16 ‘Whatever we are doing, do it better’That, in short, is the message to INSEAD from its new dean, Dipak Jain. Interview by George Bickerstaffe

20 Window on the worldSt Petersburg University Graduate School of Management is one of Russia’s most internationalised and open business schools. Dean Valery Katkalo discussed the school’s philosophy and progress with George Bickerstaffe

24 Extended coverage: Accrediting the education of business scholarsUlrich Hommel describes the challenges involved in extending the coverage of EPAS to doctoral programmes

28 Does the DNA of business schools need to change?Arnoud De Meyer suggests a new approach to meet new challenges

32 Into AfricaHennie Oliver and Johan Burger argue that business schools can be agents for sustainable business, economic and societal development in Africa

36 Will social networking kill the radio star this time?Mark Thomas and Matt Symonds debate whether social media really have a role in promoting business schools

3EFMD Global Focus | Volume 05 | Issue 03 2011Contents

Mark Thomas and Matt Symonds debate whether social media really have a role in promoting business schools page 36

EPAS

24

48

32

40 Values-led management education: the next stepPeggy Cunningham shares a new model of business education that could address many of the current problems the business world is facing

44 The next challenge for corporate responsibilityIf companies are to benefit from their corporate responsibility initiatives they must actively involve their stakeholders, notably their employees, say C B Bhattacharya, Sankar Sen and Daniel Korschun

48 Business schools fit for tomorrowMartin Lockett and Matthew Gitsham contend that business schools cannot just research and teach ‘sustainability’. They must also embed it in how they themselves work

52 Does the corporate world need doctorates?It does. Because all large corporations have issues that need rigorous research says David McKie

56 Managing after the Arab SpringSherif Kamel looks at the challenges and opportunities in the MENA region and argues that investing in human capital is fundamental to socioeconomic development and growth

60 Are universities socially responsible?Yes they are says Marcin Geryk, who outlines his research into how and why they act as socially responsible neighbours

64 Developing tomorrow’s leadersOrganisations are desperate for effective managerial leaders. But, asks Kevin Dalton, are leadership and management development professionals going the right way to provide them?

68 The age of real-world relevanceIndustry wants are individuals who hit the ground running. That is why, according to Edwin Andrews, organisations are turning to educational institutions that can provide project management talent


News and events in brief from the business world

Talking shop

CEIBS-EFMD China conference

EFMD and CEIBS are joining forces to bring together experts from the corporate, political and academic arena to Brussels to discuss competition and cooperation between Europe and China. This international conference will first focus on the political framework of China's role in the world and its relationship with Europe. Chinese as well as European companies need to understand this political framework and be able to work with it if they wish to be successful in international markets.

The second conference day will have experts on more specific issues, including mergers and acquisitions, corporate social responsibility, cross-cultural management as well as what role business schools can play to support China's growth and development. A strong corporate input with a series of Chinese and European company case studies will bring to life the real issues organisations are faced with. This will allow representatives of the academic world to reflect on how students can be prepared to support organisations in the future.

Join John Quelch, Dean of CEIBS, CEIBS board members and organisations such as Betafence, Friends of Europe, HEC Paris, Huawei Technologies, InterChina Investment Consulting, Vlerick Leuven Gent Management School and SDA Bocconi in this reflection on important challenges for corporations both in Europe and China. This conference is kindly hosted by ICHEC Brussels Management School.

To find out more and register visit: www.efmd.org/china

Register now for the 2012 International Deans Programme (IDP) The International Deans Programme (IDP), co-organised with ABS (Association of Business Schools), enables a group of up to 20 international deans (recently appointed directors/deans of the whole business school) to gain an international overview of strategy, marketing, benchmarking, and the challenges and opportunities facing management education and particularly the role of a dean.

The programme consists of three compulsory modules and in 2012 will visit leading business schools in:

March 2012, Paris, FranceJune 2012, Montreal, CanadaSeptember 2012, Oslo, Norway

Now in its fifth year the IDP programme has helped over 70 Deans from 20 countries get a fast-track view of the issues they face.

“The programme gave me unique access and understanding about the operations and individual characters of top schools in the world in a very short space of time. IDP also gave an understanding of what other international deans were thinking about and a network of friendly deans as well as EFMD and ABS colleagues to talk to when I need some help,” says Professor Baback Yazdani, Dean, Nottingham Business School.

More information is available from Virginie Heredia Rosa: [email protected]

EFMD launch a new website and is now TweetingThe EFMD website www.efmd.org has been redesigned and updated with the addition of a new blog feature to help capture EFMD news but also news from across the international community. Please check out the new site and send in posts for the blog on events, call for papers and awards and if you are using Twitter you can now follow EFMD:

@EFMDnews

5EFMD Global Focus | Volume 05 | Issue 03 2011Talking shop

The IDP programme gave me unique access and understanding about the operations and individual characters of top schools in the world in a very short space of timeProfessor Baback Yazdani, Dean, Nottingham Business School on the International Deans Programme

80%Currently although more than 80% of students say they use their preferred social network on a daily basis few are using it directly in connection with their studies

Sustainable degrees? Sustainable websites?More than 60% of students do not look for information on sustainability when choosing their business degree yet 64% of MBAs think that it is important or very important that there is a focus on sustainability in their degree. The contradictory findings are featured in the latest Business of Branding report produced by CarringtonCrisp and backed by EFMD.

Covering 8011 responses and 125 nationalities, the new report focuses on careers, cost, brand, alumni and sustainability at business schools.

Career is a dominant theme. Before studying, students want to know about potential outcomes; while they are studying there is a growing demand for placements; and after study alumni want on-going support with career development.

Schools that get careers right tend to have stronger brand perceptions and stronger brands in turn provide an opportunity to charge higher fees.

When assessing costs and value for money, prospective students are looking at more than just fees. Cost of living is a growing factor and exchange rates can produce some substantial variations when making international comparisons. However, more often than not value for money is assessed on the likelihood of achieving a desired career outcome as on pure financial metrics.

In a second report, GenerationWeb, it is clear that making the decision where to study is dominated by the business school website and, increasingly, social media is playing a part. However, although more than 80% of students say they use their preferred social network on a daily basis few are using it directly in connection with their studies. Social media is having a bigger impact with prospective students who are using the networks to get an authentic view from current students and alumni of their preferred course and institution.

The web is often initially a visual experience although it needs to be backed up with strong copy. Too many business school websites have gone down the route of simply showing pictures of smiling students.

Photography could be switched from one site to another with no discernible difference, reducing distinctiveness. Also key to a successful site is strong navigation, speed of the site and effectiveness of site search. A slow site will have a greater impact on perceptions than almost anything else on a website.

A summary of both studies can be downloaded from the EFMD website: www.efmd.org


News and events in brief from the business world

Talking shop

EFMD to host public-sector symposiumFor the first time, EFMD will hold a symposium to focus on ways to handle the many dilemmas public-sector managers and leaders face. The PS Symposium will provide a setting conducive to personal participation, commitment and reflection and is aimed at

1) Those who have HR-oriented functions in public sector organisations or public services

2) All managers and leaders in public organisations who carry the burden of having to do more with less – and more quickly too

Generally, the PS Symposium is intended for the curious and the thoughtful who seek a haven for fruitful and constructive debate, questions and ideas in a network of diversity.

Day 1 offers the opportunity to analyse the issues of your concern through several phases of investigation. With other participants, you will seek a deeper understanding. The quest is for more clarity on conditions and dilemmas in the public sector.

Day 2 builds on the basis of results from Day 1 and aims for in-depth scrutiny of the issues.

Throughout the symposium, experienced facilitators will be at hand to offer support and inspiration. We do not promise to solve the challenges you are faced with. But we do promise you will have a fine opportunity to gain new knowledge, insight, inspiration and perspective.

Public Sector Symposium HOSTED

EFMD, BrusselsDATES

29 + 30 November

For further details visit: www.efmd.org/events

Joint EFMD-EURAM Programme on Developing Research Managers: Creating Research Leadership in Europe

EFMD and EURAM will for the third time co-operate on their programme, Developing Research Managers: Creating Research Leadership in Europe.

It is important for business schools to contribute to the creation of knowledge. However, each institution is faced with challenges to develop an appropriate research strategy and to implement that strategy. In order to strengthen their members’ capability to develop high-quality research, EFMD and EURAM have joined efforts to offer this professional development programme.

The programme aims to prepare individuals in European business and management schools to step into significant research management roles through exposure to a wide range of strategic and operational concerns. Particular emphasis will be placed on preparing individuals for the role of Research Director and in building a community of research leaders in European business and management schools.

The programme consists of three compulsory modules all held at the EFMD premises in Brussels:

20-21 October 201115-16 December 20118-9 February 2012 + 10 February 2012 (Alumni Day)

For more information, please contact either:Luisa Jaffé, Administrative Coordinator, EURAM: [email protected] or Robin Hartley Manager, Network Services, EFMD: [email protected]

7EFMD Global Focus | Volume 05 | Issue 03 2011Talking shop

The EPAS Accreditation Board has recently awarded the EPAS quality label to the following programmes:

EMBA Programme Lorange Institute of Business, Switzerland

Master of Economics Peking University, HSBC Business School, China

Master Grande Ecole Ecole de Management de Normandie, France

Master in Strategic Entrepreneurship Jönköping International Business School, Sweden

BA (Hons) Business Studies Suite University of Portsmouth Business School, UK

“EPAS is based on the same principles as EQUIS. We recognise programmes for successful internationalisation and are most demanding with our standards in the areas of academic rigour, corporate relevance and quality assurance. We want to attract the premium segment of international academic management programmes worldwide,” said Prof Eric Cornuel, Director General and CEO of EFMD.

“The growing demand for EPAS accreditation clearly reflects the widespread need of business schools to assess the academic rigour and the professional effectiveness of their programmes, often newly designed for Bologna fitness, while simultaneously receiving public recognition for successful internationalisation,” said Prof Ulrich Hommel, Associate Director of Quality Services at EFMD.

EPAS was developed by EFMD in response to the many requests of its members to offer programme-level accreditations. The feedback from the market has been very positive, which is clearly reflected by the EPAS numbers after only five years of regular operation.

Currently there are 61 accredited programmes from 47 institutions in 21 countries and, considering all EPAS accredited and EPAS eligible programmes, the market coverage for EPAS currently extends to 89 programmes from 66 institutions based in 29 countries covering all five continents.

A quarter of the total are (E)MBAs, 32% masters, 27% bachelors, 4% doctoral programmes and 12% are non-Bologna country-specific programmes.

The EPAS process considers a wide range of programme aspects including:

– The market positioning of the programme nationally and internationally

– The strategic position of the programme within its institution

– The design process including assessment of stakeholder requirements – particularly students and employers

– The programme objectives and intended learning outcomes

– The curriculum content and delivery system

– The extent to which the programme has an international focus and a balance between academic and managerial dimensions

– The depth and rigour of the assessment processes (relative to the degree level of the programme)

– The quality of the student body and of the programme’s graduates

– The institution’s resources allocated to support the programme

– The appropriateness of the faculty that deliver the programme

– The quality of the alumni and their career progression

For more information on EPAS visit: www.efmd.org/epas

EFMD awards new EPAS accreditations


Webinars

All the winning partnerships will be presented by webinars in November and December. Participation is free but registration is required. Details on how to take partin the webinars can be online via:

www.efmd.org/eip

Winners of the EFMD Excellence in Practice Awards 2011EFMD is pleased to announce the winners of the EFMD Excellence in Practice Awards 2011.The winning cases will be featured extensively across the EFMD network and have their case-studies published in a special supplement of Global Focus and by Emerald Group Publishing in Strategic Decision.

To learn more about the award or read the winning entires visit: www.efmd.org/eip

CATEGORY:

Organisational Development

WINNER RBS Leadership Development Programme

RBS (The Royal Bank of Scotland Group) / The Wharton School (University of Pennsylvania) / INSEAD

By Peter McGrath RBSEric Weiner Wharton Executive EducationMark Roberts INSEAD Executive Education

HIGHLY COMMENDED Partnership in Design, Development & Delivery of the Impact Program

Deutsche Lufthansa / Coaching Ourselves International / Lancaster University Management School / McGill University

CATEGORY:

Executive Development

WINNER Innovation through Partnership: Creating a Global Leadership Program at Microsoft, Benefitting Leaders, the Business and Society

Microsoft / Emerging World (formerly Adopt a Business)

By Shannon Banks MicrosoftMatthew Farmer Emerging World formerly Adopt a Business

HIGHLY COMMENDED Thomson Reuters Global Executive Program

Thomson Reuters / Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth / IE Business School

How to thrive when the economy crashes around you

Towergate Insurance / Ashridge Business School


CATEGORY:

Talent Development

Philips Octagon – A Partnership for Leadership Excellence and Innovation

Royal Philips Electronics / Center for Creative Leadership / The Wharton School (University of Pennsylvania)

By Padmaja Korde Royal Philips ElectronicsRegina Eckert CCLPaula Nielsen-Lazo CCLDeb Giffen Wharton School

HIGHLY COMMENDED Ernst & Young’s EMEIA Women’s Leadership Programme, designed, developed and delivered with Cranfield School of Management

Ernst&Young / Cranfield School of Management

CATEGORY:

Professional Development

Accelerating Professional Development and Strategy Execution: The ING Group High Impact Performance Program for Specialists

ING / the world we work in

By Jetske van Heusden INGGert-Jan van Wijk the world we work in

HIGHLY COMMENDED The Journey to World Class Operations: Optimising & Sustaining Asset Management Capability

Rio Tinto / The University of Western Australia (Business School Executive Education)

Partnership in design, development and delivery of the Certified Client Adviser Program

Deutsche Bank / ESMT Customized Solutions (European School of Management and Technology)

CATEGORY:

Special Cases

Global Push...Local Pull: Mobilising and Sustaining Enterprise-wide Training Globally in ArcelorMittal

ArcelorMittal / TMA World

By Sapna Arora ArcelorMittalChris Crosby TMA WorldSteven Pritchard TMA World

HIGHLY COMMENDED High-Impact Learning in a Mid-sized Company Serving International Markets

KAEFER Isoliertechnik / Metier Academy / Coverdale Team Management / Henley Business School

Forging the Future through Partnership and Innovation: The Sheffield City Region Leaders Programme

Sheffield City Council / University of Sheffield / Sheffield Hallam University

Winners of the EFMD Excellence in Practice Awards 2011


Thomas Sattelberger outlines the changes that he

believes will d

ominate business education in 2025

11EFMD Global Focus | Volume 05 | Issue 03 2011Business Education 2025: What's in store by Thomas Sattelberger

“Addressing Business Education in 2025” (the theme of EFMD’s 2011 Annual Conference) is an issue that affects the heads, hearts and souls of hundreds of thousands of people, at all life-stages, who are learning and studying business. It is a huge responsibility for those who run, manage and lead business schools and similar institutions.

The core of the issue is this: will management itself change or just the issues managers deal with?

In his most recent book, Managing, Professor Henry Mintzberg states clearly his point of view that managers deal with different issues as time moves forward but not with different managing. The job does not change – and job means here the underlying principles of management – how we set objectives, co-ordinate effort and monitor performance.

The late Peter Drucker developed a similar – but more generic – view on the nature of managerial work, which “is about human beings. Its task is to make people capable of joint performance, to make their strengths effective and their weaknesses irrelevant”.

I personally see the role of managers being significantly affected but differently from the way that Professor Mintzberg does. Digitization could mean more democracy, more “horizontal influence” management, decreasing formal power and more network roles. My guess is that Professor Drucker’s more genuine definition will survive. Task-orientated roles will erode; people-roles will not.

Whatever happens to the nature of management; we need to make some assumptions about 2025.

PETER DRUCKER ON MANAGERIAL WORK:

[It] is about human beings. Its task is to make people capable of joint performance, to make their strengths effective and their weaknesses irrelevant


Key derailments need to be correctedManagement education has to regain diversity in thinking and acting; today it too often produces lemming-like role-holders instead of individual personalities. And business schools are institutes of pure socialisation, homogenised by the same ideology.

Instead of forming strategic field marshals and ego-boosted autocrats – “humble servant” leadership needs to be revitalised. Having lost sight of the “why and where are we going” interdisciplinary and interscholastic values of the old continental European model, education has turned into profit-and-loss and shareholder-value silos in schools as in businesses. The holistic approach to business management needs to be recovered.

Since it is all about people: whole-person learning lies at the heart of management and business education. Character evolution and (self) reflective capabilities, not starting salary and bonuses, are key means to measure success in education and business life.

What it will all be about in 2025I see management centred around four things in 2025:

– creating shared value – embracing diversity – nurturing volunteer confederations– leading oneself

Creating shared valueIn a world where heavyweight global companies become as powerful as nations, they are challenged to take on a new identity towards shared value – not just the superficial cosmetics of corporate social responsibility campaigns.

Shared value is an approach that links economic business progress with societal progress and vice versa.

As Michael Porter has put it: “Capital is under siege, diminished to set policies that sap economic growth. Societal needs, not just conventional economic needs, define markets. The purpose of the corporation must be creating shared value”. (Porter/Kramer: “Creating Shared Value”, Harvard Business Review, January-February 2011).

So it will not be about chasing shareholder value by all and any means but about focusing on what society needs. It might not be a win-win play but may require sacrificing some of that previous shareholder value for societal value.


In 2025 diversity will have reached a level we can only imagine today. But we know that the trends are irreversible and that it will influence all aspects of our society, companies and individual lives

Embracing diversityHow best to manage economic, institutional, cultural and individual differences in a world in which migration, demographics, changing value systems, globalisation and digitisation enforce and accelerate diversity?

– diverse staff and cross-cultural teams– diverse and diversity-demanding

investors– multinational markets and diverse

customers – Many of different life/work- styles and

life conceptions: from net-citizenship to homogeneity-seeking followers

Embracing diversity does not mean– as in the old-fashioned view – just being tolerant and open towards diversity and inclusion. It means utilising differences and variety to gain new perspectives on old problems, as a breeding ground for innovation and creativity

In 2025 diversity will have reached a level we can only imagine today. But we know that the trends are irreversible and that it will influence all aspects of our society, companies and individual lives.

Nurturing volunteer confederationsIn a world in which non-material talent entrepreneurs, not material lenders of capital, will have the power, knowledge and therefore talent and knowledge communities will become the scarce resource.

We are in the middle of the shift from Enterprise 1.0 to Enterprise 2.0.

Behind this paradigm shift lies more than just the utilisation of social media.

Enterprises will become more and more networked, competition become more and more temporary. They will develop network cultures and increasingly a freelance ethos, the former core becoming a simple knot in the network. This will enhance co-creation via employees, freelancers and customers, utilising open innovation and open sourcing.

The creation of a deeper purpose for investors becomes increasingly important in times when the number of sustainable investors increases significantly.

Volunteer confederations of employees, customers and investors will all be working together towards a common cause. For example, volunteer communities like the Red Cross or Médecins Sans Frontières have their members engaged –they are actors for the greater good. To the contrary, companies without a deeper cause will not attract purposeful human beings, only mercenaries. Corporations will need to enable a volunteer culture.

Leading oneself This is the pre-requisite for creating shared value, embracing diversity and nurturing volunteer confederations while giving meaning and purpose. This truth is thousands of years old.

Managers will have to answer some fundamental questions:

Who am I? What aims, values, beliefs and principles do I need to live up to? My self-consciousness – am I able to fill a vacuum with authenticity? My self-criticism – am I able to grow?

Business Education 2025: What's in store by Thomas Sattelberger


What does this mean for business education in 2025?

Creating shared value in learningBusiness schools traditionally have maps for teaching; companies traditionally own territories for learning. In 2025 it is connecting both; the two learning fields have to be looked at as one.

One pre-condition:

The burial of old academic theories and old business philosophy must happen first. “Funeral by funeral, science makes progress,” Max Planck famously said. The neoclassical boundaries are gone by 2025; Milton Friedman and Rappaport are forgotten.

Based on that:

Through integrative field and action learning, territory and map go hand in hand. Research is action research. New combined territories/maps are in place creating shared value through sustainability in ecology and energy, fighting poverty, corporate citizenship, and education and health investments

Embracing diversity by building an environment for diversity both in schools and corporations.

This means enacting an open and broad talent philosophy rather than steep, narrow and elitist goldfish-bowl pathways and skipping old logics of strictly linear careers. Flaws in CVs are not rated as a blemish; breaks, not linear experiences, and unconventional stages are appreciated.

It also means recruiting talent from various and unusual sources and hiring for character in schools and business. We should build a “step out - step in” culture for talents across all professions and backgrounds at different life stages and enforce learning along the whole life and professional cycle.

To put it bluntly, we need to understand that in 2025 the male-dominated business school educating male students in order to fill male managerial ranks will be gone. This will mean a big change for EFMD, too: 549 business schools with only 58 female deans is detrimental not only to the reputation of each school but also to our foundation. We need to change that.

Nurturing volunteer confederations There will be a change from old leadership and “followership” concepts to co-operation at eye level – leading in a direct, democracy-demanding environment. Instead of outdated leadership and management of change concepts we will teach how to build and maintain new emotional and psychological contracts:

Instead of monetary or incentive-based systems, there will bonding schemes based on identification with a common purpose, shared values and goals, and room for self-realisation and creativity.

Management will be about building networks and bridges in a virtual and remote environment, with managers as facilitators and enablers.

Business education will centre around new enterprise foundation, culture and the role of leaders.

Leading oneselfSchools and corporations must provide room for reflection, spirituality and experiential learning. As Peter Drucker has pointed out, managers must confront and questions their own standing, beliefs and values:

– What are my strengths?– What are my values?– Where do I belong?– What can and should I contribute?

These are core questions, that business education must be built around.

Following the school of Aristotelian virtues: at the very heart of morality lies character because it is the moral agent – not a set of ethical rules – that is the driving force behind ethical behaviour.

This is an edited version of Thomas Sattelberger’s address to the EFMD Annual Conference, Brussels, 5-6 June 2011. ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Thomas Sattelberger has been Chief Human Resources Officer of Deutsche Telekom AG since 2007. Prior to this, he held positions on the Boards of Management of Continental AG and Deutsche Lufthansa AG, before which he was responsible for various management functions at the former Daimler-Benz AG.

Management will be about building networks and bridges in a virtual and remote environment, with managers as facilitators and enablers


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Whatever we are doing, do it betterThat, in short, is the message to INSEAD from its new dean, Dipak Jain.

Interview by George Bickerstaffe

17EFMD Global Focus | Volume 05 | Issue 03 2011Whatever we are doing, do it better: Dipak Jain interview by George Bickerstaffe

Dipak C Jain (left) is, as ever, in ebullient form. He bustles into the hotel lobby, bestows a big hug and then disappears to sort out a problem with his luggage.

He is on a brief visit to London on INSEAD business but cheerfully squeezes in the time for an hour-long interview.

He has been dean of INSEAD since May this year after more than 25 years on the faculty of Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management in America. That time included eight years as dean and an earlier five years in the dean’s office, working closely with his predecessor Donald P Jacobs, who served as Kellogg dean for 26 years.

Professor Jain stood down as Kellogg’s dean in 2009 after leading the celebration of the schools’ centenary.

“I realised this was a good time to think about the next chapter,” he says. “The school had done a hundred years and was in very good shape. I thought that if I stayed longer I would have to think of planning for the next phase and I wasn’t sure there were new things I could do. I was 52. I had spent 13 years in the Dean’s Office and I thought ‘let’s think about the next 13 years’.

“Anyway, I’ve always believed that an exit strategy is more important than an entry strategy. You need to know when to leave.”

When the call from INSEAD came he was in the middle of a sabbatical year after standing down and contemplating a return to academic life, possibly at Kellogg (though he wasn’t sure about that) or at Harvard Business School, which had offered him a faculty post.

The negotiations with INSEAD were somewhat prolonged – not least because they coincided with the eruption of Iceland’s Eyjafjallajökull volcano, which paralysed air traffic in Europe for several weeks in April 2010.

But the extra time gave him plenty of opportunity to learn about the school and, he says, “the more I learned, the more I became interested in the school”.

There are, he argues, three things about INSEAD that make it different to other schools.

First, it is a global business school because it is not tied to a particular region; it is “location independent”, as he puts it. And creating a Singapore campus ten years ago showed that it was interested in reaching out to other parts of the world.

Second, it has a focus on diversity.

“In the student body they don’t take a large percentage from any particular country. There are students from almost every country in the world – every section is like the United Nations, which I think is what the world is going to look like in the future. Students at INSEAD don’t need to take a course in cross-cultural management – it’s happening all around them every day”.

Third is INSEAD‘s commitment to research, with a PhD programme that Professor Jain says is world class.

“So I thought that a business school that is dedicated to being a top research institution, is focused on diversity and is also truly global – well this is different,” he concludes.

The move from Kellogg to INSEAD puts Professor Jain into the elite world of what he calls “serial deans”, moving from heading one top business school to leading another.

This, he believes, will increasingly be the norm.

“It’s now two terms maximum for a dean at a business school,” he says. “Personally, I think that in two terms you will have done what you wanted to do. The total time spent as a dean will be the same as Don Jacob’s 26 years at Kellogg but spread over, say, two or three different institutions.”

So, now that he is in position, will there be great changes at INSEAD?

Professor Jain says that rather than change INSEAD, he wants to build on what is there already – though there are certain areas where he wants to build.

“INSEAD says it is a ‘business school for the world’,” he says. “It’s a nice line but I want to learn what it means. And one thing I want to make sure is that people say for themselves that INSEAD is a business school for the world in the sense that it represents all parts of the world.”

There are three things that make INSEAD different – it’s a global business school not regional, its focus on diversity, and it’s commitment to research


He says there are currently three pillars to support this: INSEAD Fontainebleau is a presence in Europe; INSEAD Singapore is a gateway to Asia and the Asia Pacific; and INSEAD Abu Dhabi serves the Middle East and Africa. (In fact, increasing INSEAD’s presence in Africa is one of Professor Jain’s major initiatives.)

“But,” he adds, “you cannot be a business school for the world if you do not have a presence in America. So one of our main aspirations is to increase our presence there. We don’t know yet how that will look, whether it will be an alliance with an American school or our own campus. We could expand our alliance with Wharton or [with Wharton’s agreement] open a new alliance in addition to Wharton.”

He argues that America is a very big market for executive education and that INSEAD could exploit its global range as a key competitive advantage.

“American companies are looking for global education,” he says. “Because a large chunk of their money now comes from outside America they need people who can work in other parts of the world.”

The other thing he wants to do is reverse what he sees as INSEAD’s failure to “leverage” Paris. (In fact, Fontainebleau is about an hour from the French capital.)

“Paris is a global city. Fontainebleau is fine but a senior executive on an advanced management programme may want to bring his or her spouse to Paris for a week. They will get more excited by that than by coming to Fontainebleau where there is nothing to do after 5.30 pm.” One suspects he is only half joking.

Professor Jain also points out that an executive education centre in downtown Paris could add significantly to the school’s global business model by, for example, bringing Asian executives to programmes in Paris and taking Europeans to Singapore.

All these development will not, he argues, make INSEAD significantly bigger.

Our identity is a global school, which is a very powerful thing and is going to become more important. That is our brand


“The only thing that is likely to grow is our executive MBA,” he says. “But even there it will not be so much in terms of numbers but in resources allocated to it. The focus throughout the school will be on quality rather than quantity. The message is: ‘whatever we are doing, do it better’.”

This, of course, is all part of the fiercely competitive global market that business education has become. Now with experience of both sides of the Atlantic, how does he think American and European business schools compare?

The major difference, he says, is that American schools are financially very stable because of their endowments.

“They have shock absorbers built in. The European schools don’t have that,” he says.

A second difference, he suggests, is that American schools tend to have very clear identities – Wharton

is a school for finance, Kellogg for marketing, Stanford, for venture capital and entrepreneurship, and so on.

European schools, including INSEAD, tend to be seen as very much general management schools.

“Our identity is a global school, which is a very powerful thing and is going to become more important. That is our brand,” he says. “But, of course, other schools are also trying to become global. So one of the main things we have to ask ourselves is what would we

like to be? And if we want to be global, what do we have to do to stay ahead of the competition?”

One key might be the way business schools are organised.

“Because INSEAD is an autonomous institution you can be more entrepreneurial. If you want to do something new then the speed to market can be very fast.”

“In a university setting, I was very lucky at Kellogg to have the full support of the central administration in terms of what we did but sometimes it can slow down the process because you have an extra layer. And rightfully so because the university has a brand to look after too.”

The drawback that he sees is around governance. A university provides a strict hierarchy that is clear and understood, he points out. It may be cumbersome but it is at least transparent. In standalone institutions, he says, structures and hierarchies can be very informal so that it is very important that faculty and administrators act and behave in a way that is transparent.

Professor Jain believes there are four key challenges currently facing deans at leadings schools: how to be global; the business model for business schools; building faculty; and managing student expectations.

“All deans are asking the question: What does it mean to be global? How do you become global? Is it the number of foreign students? An internationalised curriculum? Do we build an overseas campus? Create alliances?

“Another issue is the business model of business schools. Do we have a sustainable business model?

“An important challenge is how do you continue to build the faculty? It’s not just about attracting good faculty it’s about attracting, developing and retaining good faculty. It’s a big issue because if

you have very good faculty they will be picked off by other schools. So attraction is important but retention is really the key factor.

On managing students’ expectations, he says deans need to ask themselves “are students coming to your business school for learning or earning? Some of them think that by coming to a business school a job is guaranteed. That is not the case. We are happy to help but we are not an executive search firm”.

On the future of management education, he sees business schools moving beyond business.

“There are still students who want to be scientists and engineers and don’t see management as important,” he says. “Now they may not need an MBA but they do need to know the fundamentals of business. I think it’s very important to bring the two disciplines of management and science and technology together.”

He also believes that the business school curriculum needs to be broadened.

As his name implies, Professor Jain is a follower of Jainism, an Indian pacifist religion that dates back to at least the 6th Century BC, and which strongly motivates him.

He believes that religion and the arts, particularly Shakespeare – “his thoughts on leadership are very profound” – should have a place in business school classrooms.

“I really believe that management education is going to become more and more important than ever – but not just the MBA,” he concludes, citing the growth of specialist masters programmes as a welcome trend.

“We have to think of new products, of new ways of disseminating management knowledge. I think we need to go into subjects more deeply.”

Whatever we are doing, do it better: Dipak Jain interview by George Bickerstaffe


St Petersburg University Graduate School of Management is one of Russia’s most internationalised and open business schools. Dean Valery Katkalo discussed the school’s philosophy and progress with George Bickerstaffe

WINDOWON THEWORLD

Famously, when Tsar Pyotr Alexeyevich Romanov (Peter the Great) founded his new capital, St Petersburg, on the marshy Russian littoral of the Gulf of Finland in 1703 his intention was that it would open Russia to what he saw as the modernising influence of Europe.

Not surprising, then, that the city’s Graduate School of Management (GSOM), a faculty of St Petersburg University, is one of the country’s most internationalised and open business schools.

“Remember that the school is located in a city set up by Peter the Great as the Russia’s ‘window on Europe’, ” says Professor Valery Katkalo.

Professor Katkalo, friendly and self-effacing, has been Dean of the school since 1997 and played a major role in its creation in 1993. He is also a ViceRector of St Petersburg University, the oldest academic institution in Russia and founded (again by Peter the Great) in 1724.

The GSOM SPbU (initially just the School of Management) was born in 1993, in partnerships with Haas School of Business, UCBerkeley and several international and local companies, led by Procter & Gamble. The aim was to create a modern international business school to support the development of a market economy in Russia.

The school began with just four full-time teaching faculty (of which Professor Katkalo was one) and 33 undergraduate students. Today there are more than 1,200 degree students (half are postgraduates) studying bachelor, pre-experience masters, Executive MBA and doctoral programmes plus non-degree executive education programmes.

21EFMD Global Focus | Volume 05 | Issue 03 2011Window on the World: GSOM St Petersburg by George Bickerstaffe

1724St Petersburg University, the oldest academic institution in Russia and founded by Peter the Great in 1724

GSOM now has 65 full-time professors and more than 90 part-time and visiting Russian and international professors. It has partnership links, including joint programmes and double degrees (in Master in Management and EMBA), with some of the leading business schools around the world such as HEC-Paris, Fuqua School of Business at Duke University, WU-Vienna University of Economics and Business Administration, and Aalto University School of Economics.

Professor Katkalo believes this growth is due to the combination of classical university traditions and innovative approaches to business education within the GSOM, specifically its strong commitment to the internationalisation of teaching and research, an emphasis on creating new knowledge, and strong ties to the national and international business community.

The school has had an international focus since its inception. The four original academics were initially chosen partly because they all had international experience. (Professor Katkalo studied undergraduate and doctoral degrees in economics at St Petersburg University and was a visiting scholar at Haas in the early 1990s where he was closely involved in helping to set up the partnership.)

The GSOM’s international status has been the result of a well-thought-out strategy based on progress on a number of separate but related fronts: rankings, accreditations, international partnerships and membership of leading international bodies in the management education sector. On accreditation, for example, the Association of MBAs (AMBA) accredited the school’s Executive MBA programme in 2008, the first time a Russian business school had received this accreditation for the maximum period of five years at the first attempt.

In another first for a Russian school, the Bachelor of Management programme has won EFMD’s EPAS reaccreditation, again for the maximum five-year period.

“EPAS was a very valuable learning experience,” says Professor Katkalo, “and though it’s a programme-based accreditation its value lies in synergies across the school.

“For example, the emphasis on increased improvements in internationalisation certainly does not apply to just to one set of students. Also, developing a well-functioning system of pedagogical review is not something that applies to just one programme but has potential synergies for programmes throughout the school.”

Today GSOM has over 40 of the world’s leading business schools and universities (from Europe, North and South America, and Asia) among its academic partners and runs student exchanges based on bilateral credit transfer.

In a further stage, in 1999, GSOM became part of the NEBSEN consortium with four other leading North European Business Schools (Copenhagen Business School, Stockholm School of Economics, Helsinki School of Economics, and the Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration, Bergen). Its aim was to increase the mobility of international students between institutions.

As the new millennium began, GSOM had created Russia’s first English-language ECTS-based masters programme. The school now offers four graduate programmes delivered entirely in English.

Another stage began in the mid-2000s. GSOM identified joining global associations of top business schools as a priority. This meant the general internationalisation of all programmes and activities of the school. GSOM is now the only member representing Russia in CEMS (the Global Alliance in Management Education, formerly the Community of European Management Schools and International Companies), PIM (the Partnership in International Management), GBSN (Global Business School Network), EABIS (European Academy of Business in Society).It is also a member of other bodies such as EFMD, AACSB, GRLI and GMAC.

GSOM has assiduously developed its links with the business community, both in Russia and internationally. Company executives are involved with the school through joint research projects, as guest lectures, courses, offering summer internship programmes and other activities.


The GSOM Alumni Association is also strong, with over 4,400 graduates as members.

“We consider our systemic relationship with the business community as one of our key strengths,” says Professor Katkalo. “Since our beginnings in the 1990s we’ve been very lucky to have had a very strong Advisory Board.”

Indeed, the Advisory Board, which was set up at the same time as the school and was the first in Russia, has been highly instrumental in building business contacts. For its first ten years the Advisory Board was chaired by John Pepper, at the time President and CEO of the multinational group Procter & Gamble. Now Chairman of the Board of Walt Disney International, he remains closely involved with the school.

“John offered tremendous support, both intellectually and in terms of resources to the school in the early days,” says Professor Katkalo.

Today’s 33-member Advisory Board is one that many top business schools would envy. Ranging from Russian Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov to Alexey Miller, Chairman of the Management Board, Gazprom, and Robert McDonald, President and CEO, Procter & Gamble, it takes in the heads of some of the leading companies in Russia and the world as well as deans of top international business schools. These companies are active both in recruiting GSOM graduates and in supporting development of its educational and research programmes. For example, among recent initiatives strongly backed by GSOM corporate partners are Deutsche Bahn & Russian Railways Center for International Logistics and Supply Chain Management and PwC Center for Corporate Social Responsibility.

The GSOM has taken a further interesting step towards involvement with the business world that also neatly dovetails with its desire for international links and exposure. This is an enthusiastic and successful student involvement in business games (such as the ones organised by L’Oreal, KPMG, and Microsoft) that the school actively encourages.

GSOM teams have regularly won business game competitions at both national and global levels. This year, for example, a team of three GSOM students won the L’Oreal "R U HR?" Business Game International Final in Paris.

In 2006, as part of a national review of business education, the school was selected by the Russian government as one of two

We have the ambition, of course, to be the top Russian business school with strong global standing

new “pre-eminent” business schools in Russia (and renamed the Graduate School of Management in the process). A strong distinctive feature of St Petersburg University GSOM is that it follows the university model of a business school with a diversified portfolio of (mainly degree) programmes, including bachelors, masters, Doctoral and EMBA, with an emphasis on producing new knowledge, and developing its own body of professors with strong international academic recognition and strong corporate connections.

The other school is Moscow School of Management SKOLKOVO, a brand new start-up near Moscow and also backed by a group of Russian and international business leaders. It follows the so-called entrepreneurial model of a business school with no university connections and focuses on MBA/EMBA programmes, executive education and “learning by doing”.

According to Professor Katkalo, the idea is not that the two projects of developing world-class Russian business schools will meet all

23EFMD Global Focus | Volume 05 | Issue 03 2011Window on the World: GSOM St Petersburg by George Bickerstaffe

transition but about competing successfully in the global and knowledge-based economy.

He adds that “Russia is one of the few countries with huge potential for growth. It’s not only a player in the global market it’s also an emerging market itself. If you want to study change management or study how you manage in fast-growing markets Russia is one of the very few territories in the world where you can do both. So we should be one of the key providers and facilitators of these kinds of programmes.”

As for the future, the GSOM is preparing a new campus in the historic Mikhailovskaya Dacha in Peterhof, a series of palaces outside St Petersburg modelled on Versailles in France.

The 104-hectare site contains a number of historic buildings that are being renovated, restored and adapted to the needs of a modern business school. The work is expected to be complete in about three years.

Otherwise, according to Professor Katkalo, the emphasis for the moment is on consolidation.

"Among the main foundations for GSOM’s further growth are world –class faculty development and research capabilities," he says. "Our faculty is well known for its teaching excellence and research productivity (measured by publication in A and B journals) and is growing at an impressive rate."

The school is well-known as the main producer of cases on doing business in Russia with about 360 cases and teaching notes in its collection out of which about 130 are already registered at ECCH. Another area where GSOM has recently expanded is corporate executive education, with Russian Railways, Rosneft, Sberbank and IBM among its main clients.

"We have the ambition, of course, to be the top Russian business school with a strong global standing. Achieving that means we have to continue to internationalise our faculty, develop further our research capabilities and internationally recognised PhD programme, continue to work on our already strong international alliances and so on," he adds.

"It’s not like it was when the school started, when we were trying to build a professional business school in a very unusual environment – a post-soviet country. Today it’s really about capitalising on what we have achieved, moving forward and being on the leading edge of global trends.”

of the nation’s management education needs – he believes that would need “at least a dozen” – but to work out which model of business school suits the country best.

Whatever happens Professor Katkalo (pictured above) believes that a specific Russian approach to management education is likely to emerge, though he stresses this will need to focus on the future rather than the past and must embrace internationalism.

“As you know, Russia has historically been positioned between two worlds. This has certain cultural implications but it also gives Russia some real advantages,” he says.

“There are at least three things that we can combine: the global advances in management thinking and practice, increased integration with Europe and, not least, the Russian approach to management and education, which I would say is very humanistic and people-focused.”

He points out that when the school started Russia was “a different country" which was struggling with the transition from a socialist to a market economy. Since then a generation has grown up that has only known market economics, has greatly increased international experience and is willing (and via new technologies quite able) to compare and question all elements of society. Today, Russia’s main challenge is not about


Ulrich Hommel describes the challenges involved in extending the coverage of EPAS to doctoral programmes

EPAS

ACCREDIT

ING THE EDUCATION OF BUSINESS SCHO

LARS

25EFMD Global Focus | Volume 05 | Issue 03 2011Extending the coverage: Accrediting the education of business scholars by Ulrich Hommel

The EFMD Programme Accreditation System (EPAS) has recently been extended to cover doctoral programmes. Following the publication of supplementary guidelines (Annex 17 of the EPAS Process Manual Annexes) in 2010 and a pilot phase, which has seen the accreditation of two PhD programmes and one DBA programme, this latest addition to the EPAS system became fully operational in mid-2011. From the beginning, EPAS was conceived to eventually cover the full range of academic degree programmes (see “EPAS comes of age”, Chris Greensted, Global Focus Vol 1 Issue 1 2007 pp 38-40). The pilot doctoral accreditations have convincingly shown that the EPAS model with its five pillars – institutional and wider context; programme design; programme delivery; programme outcomes; and quality assurance – is properly suited to cover these programmes as well. Some adaptations are necessary but largely in interpreting EPAS Standards & Criteria and conducting the on-site review.

ModificationsEligibility requirements have been adjusted to reflect the fact that doctoral programmes can be operated effectively on a fairly small scale (annual intake of at least five, at least ten graduates over a period of three or more years, 20 or more students in process). The implicit assumption is that doctoral students are quickly integrated into a school’s research environment after successfully completing basic course work. Hence, the accreditation process places much greater emphasis on the faculty-student interaction outside the classroom as well as on the quality of the research environment in general.

Doctoral programme accreditation requires a sufficient grasp of the heterogeneity of programme delivery. Explicit minimum standards for thesis supervision and research mentoring are a necessary building block but the on-site visit needs to move distinctly beyond the official programme rulebook and how it is mapped onto the quality assurance system. The spirit of the process in this context is as important as the letter.

Faculty and student behaviour must, in practice, facilitate effective supervision and mentoring across the board. If system failure does occur, sanctioning and corrective action should swiftly follow in order to contain the negative consequences of a “breach of trust”, to which doctoral students are particularly exposed.

The EPAS guidelines explicitly recognise that doctoral students have significant resource needs above and beyond gaining mere access to the institutional research infrastructure. They require financial support for international conference travel, possibly also for participating in external doctoral colloquia and may have special software and data needs to facilitate their research.

While DBA students can be expected to have sufficient means for funding their studies (typically reflected in higher tuition fees), PhD students often require subsistence funding as well (for example in the form of research grants and research/teaching assistantships). In practice, meeting these resource requirements is a shared responsibility of the institution and supervising faculty.

The accreditation process places much greater emphasis on the faculty-student interaction outside the classroom as well as on the quality of the research environment in general


Challenges aheadAccrediting doctoral programmes comes with a number of unique challenges. Above all, many business schools are struggling with the financial implications of offering fully fledged American-style PhD training. European offerings, for instance, often tend to be less structured, with the taught part rarely extending beyond one year of part-time study.

In addition, they frequently offer only one pathway and therefore little subject-specific training. Teaching faculty may even move away from the lecture format and towards reading-based seminars. This may be fine for advanced classes to help students in the proposal writing stage but it does not appear to be suitable for beginners lacking the proper methodological foundations.

Another issue is the weight to be assigned to practical relevance.

Its importance is obvious for DBA programmes, with graduates typically using the thesis work to advance their professional careers. Relevance is, however, also important for more traditional PhD research and not only in the context of directing students towards “hot topics” within academia.

But bringing this view to bear in programme reviews can easily lead into dangerous territory. The current journal “bean counting” culture is creating disincentives to think “out of the box” and to deviate from trodden research pathways. It encourages junior researchers to focus on the production of gradual increases in knowledge. Raising the bar too much with respect to practical relevance may lead to a similar outcome while tackling the issue from a different angle.

Accreditation should encourage a boundary-free environment for students’ intellectual pursuits but without losing complete sight of the need to foster their ability to be placed in the academic job market. After all, irrelevant research today may be considered path-breaking work tomorrow.

A programme focus is both valuable and necessaryThis latest addition to the EPAS system fills an important void in the international accreditation landscape.

Many business schools are nowadays investing heavily in the expansion of their research activities. The provision of doctoral education plays a facilitating role in this context – for example, as a driver for institutional research productivity and as a signalling device for the recruitment of research faculty.

Most of these institutions will not be operating on a level playing field with top-flight research schools for the foreseeable future but are nevertheless seeking international recognition for their achievements on a smaller scale – such as for the successful training of business scholars.

More traditional academics may contest that doctoral education cannot be evaluated separately from an institution’s overall research activities and performance. We beg to differ.

Many up-and-coming business schools have built up research-active faculty nuclei while the rest of the organisation still focuses on their traditional teaching roles in lower-level degree programmes and executive education.

These nuclei tend to drive doctoral training in their institutions and – given the schools’ historical roots in teaching – often bring to bear a strong commitment to delivering educational excellence in their roles as teachers and thesis supervisors.

Institutional research cultures may be underdeveloped, with possibly even blank spots in certain subject areas, but these issues can be dealt with by engaging in inter-organisational collaboration and by enabling students to integrate themselves quickly into the wider academic community.

Without a doubt, a critical mass of properly qualified and research-active faculty is needed to operate a doctoral programme successfully. Critical mass, however, is not automatically equivalent to total faculty and is distinctly less so for most institutions of international relevance.

Programme quality depends, first of all, on the business school’s ability and willingness to curtail the participation of non-researchers in programme delivery and, second, on preventing doctoral students from specialising in subject areas located in the fringe of the intra-organisational research universe. This is where the wheat is really separated from the chaff.

27EFMD Global Focus | Volume 05 | Issue 03 2011Extending the coverage: Accrediting the education of business scholars by Ulrich Hommel

ABOUT THE AUTHORUlrich Hommel is Director Research & Surveys Unit and EPAS Director at EFMD

Dealing with research output diversityBy design, EFMD accreditations are founded on the principle of diversity, implying that the conclusions drawn from the accreditation documents and the peer review visit should be non-prescriptive (EQUIS accreditation: value and benefits Julio Urgel, Global Focus Vol 1 Issue 1 2007 pp 32-36). Maintaining this philosophy can sometimes be difficult in practice, especially when reviewing doctoral programmes.

While we explicitly apply the diversity principle to research as well (Gordon Shenton, Global Focus Vol 4 Issue 1 2007), one cannot overlook the fact that students’ future professional success will hinge on their ability to consistently produce peer-reviewed journal articles.

Senior scholars sometimes favour broadly designed monographic theses over the increasingly popular three-paper approach as a better means of developing scholarly capabilities. Supporting this argument with tangible evidence is close to impossible and it incurs the downside that graduates enter the job market with no publication record and a potentially still unpolished job market paper. Prescriptiveness may be the better part of valour in this context.

EPAS

Accreditation should encourage a boundary-free environment for students’ intellectual pursuits but without losing complete sight of the need to foster their ability to be placed in the academic job market

More than just researchThe quality of doctoral education certainly does not only depend on a school’s proven ability to generate productive junior scholars. Students must be prepared for their future responsibilities as teachers, thesis supervisors, mentors and liaisons with corporate partners.

While faculty mentors can act as important role models in this context, schools need to offer more than just “learning by doing and observation”. This task also goes beyond the complementary caring for the students’ personal development and should be part of a doctoral programme’s core educational mission.

Few business schools have recognised this need and even fewer provide adequate resources and opportunities to prepare future scholars for their professional roles beyond research. Deans frequently complain about their constant struggle to move research faculty out of their satisficing mode when dealing with tasks unrelated to research.

We should probably reflect on the extent to which we already groom these attitudes when training doctoral students. The EPAS system aims to set the right incentives in this context, primarily because it treats the doctoral programme as a distinct entity within a wider institution.

What’s next?The EPAS system undergoes annual revisions (published in January of every year). Recent emphasis has been placed on implementing changes that lead to a better understanding of actual student learning and, in the process, to scale down the relative weight of structural aspects and management effectiveness. This is particularly relevant when addressing the challenges and issues outlined above.

Moving forward should involve a dialogue to which the wider EFMD community is invited to participate.


Arnoud De Meyer argues for a newapproach to meet new challenges – transforming

business schools into ‘Schools for Business’

Does the DNA of Business Schools need to change?

29EFMD Global Focus | Volume 05 | Issue 03 2011Transforming business schools into ‘Schools for Business’ by Arnoud De Meyer

The last ten years have been a golden era for business schools. But I am convinced we have reached a watershed.

Business schools were content with a narrow focus defined by traditional management disciplines. Our attitude was that we as business schools knew “what was good for you”.

Is this model of education inadequate for the realities of today’s global economy? Just look at the challenges and problems of the world today: the rash of violent uprisings in the Middle East threatening to bring down powerful strongholds; natural calamities rendering nations powerless; Wikileaks causing embarrassment to government leaders; and the ripple of financial catastrophes tearing institutions apart and exposing corporate malfeasance.

The causes, effects and consequences concern corporate governance and organisational management as much as political conflict, environmental sustainability and foreign diplomacy.

These challenges cannot be addressed by the traditional management disciplines alone. They require fresh eyes looking through multi-disciplinary lenses beyond just management. To do this effectively, business schools need to bring onboard scholars and experts in political science, sociology, nuclear physics, ethics and morality, technology, national security and engineering sciences.

It is becoming imperative for business schools to develop a body of research and teaching capabilities that are able to address the systemic problems of the world today in a holistic, inter-disciplinary way. The world of business, government and non-profits are increasingly calling upon experts in

academia to find integrated solutions to their complex issues. This is the new challenge.

In Business Schools on an Innovation Mission, a report released by the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) in May 2010, management and leadership were clearly positioned, side-by-side with science and technology, as vital components to the innovation value chain.

The report goes on to say that one aspect of innovation is for business schools to promote inter-disciplinary research by breaking down functional silos and disciplinary barriers in learning and research. I am in full agreement with this.

This brings me to my key message: business schools need to become “Schools for Business”.

This is a paradigm shift for the world’s business schools, a tipping point that can become a quantum leap if scholars and researchers are brave enough to break out of their comfort zones, combine their arsenal of expertise and confidently propose analysis, insights and solutions on a smorgasbord of issues that confront organisations across multiple disciplines.

Does this mean specialised, discipline-based research is no longer important? Absolutely not. Business schools still need to build up their core strengths in rigorous academic research in order to have the foundation to drive inter-disciplinary research and teaching.

Only then can they be of value and able to impart knowledge and skills to business leaders, helping them to advance their organisations, create positive social change and a better quality of life for their communities.

Over the last ten years, we at the Singapore Management University (SMU) have built up a body of high-quality, leading-edge research that is relevant and responsive to the needs of society, especially Asian issues with global impact.

At the same time, SMU has anchored itself in a distinctive brand of holistic, broad-based education aimed at producing creative and entrepreneurial leaders for the knowledge-based economy.

The business world exists as an eco-system of business, government, NGOs and non-profits, each interlocking with the other. This is also why research has to be inter-disciplinary, to consider the impact across different stakeholders.

With six schools covering the spectrum of accountancy, business, economics, information systems, law and social sciences, SMU is able to integrate the necessary elements across different disciplines to help governments and businesses solve practical problems. Being young and not burdened by legacy, this has been SMU’s advantage in building up inter-disciplinary research and education.

This is a paradigm shift for the world’s business schools, a tipping point that can become a quantum leap if scholars and researchers are brave enough


To be truly a “School for Business” it is also important to build strong relationships and strategic partnerships with the business world. In its short ten-year history, SMU has forged close ties with major industry stakeholders through internships, executive education, postgraduate studies, research centres and institutes, corporate social responsibility and philanthropic partnerships.

The university has held steadfast to its mission of integrating the two worlds of education and business, sharing the wealth of knowledge with the business world and bringing industry wisdom into the halls of academia.

SMU has 19 research centres and institutes that bridge academia and business. These were formed through partnerships and collaborations with leading business organisations and institutions. Tapping the pulse of the latest market trends, they carry out research on most current issues and share the outcomes with business leaders. I will just share a few examples.

The university’s Sim Kee Boon Institute for Financial Economics is a specialised think-tank that carries out research across financial econometrics, the impact of ageing populations on retirement funds, corporate and investor responsibility, asset securitisation and management in Asia.

Last year, three SMU faculty from different disciplines – finance, economics and information systems – carried out a collaborated study of the “Flash Crash”, which took place in New York on May 6, 2010. Sponsored by the Institute for Financial Markets in Washington DC, the study deployed complex system research to conduct a market simulation, understand the causes behind it and recommend possible interventions.

The Institute of Service Excellence is involved in a number of inter-disciplinary projects. The institute, which is rooted in marketing research and expertise in customer satisfaction benchmarking, has invited researchers in organisational behaviour and human resources to develop a new structural model to measure fair dealing in financial institutions when they conduct business with customers such as financial advisory services and selling investment products and services. The institute has also collaborated with faculty in information systems to study the relationship between IT innovations and customer experience in large organisations.

Leadership has evolved from the days of traditional ‘command and control’ to today’s collaborative leadership, which suits present business climates better


The SMU-Carnegie Mellon Living Analytics Research Centre, the newest addition to the slate of research centres and institutes, is in the middle of a study on social media by applying management science concepts to predict trust and relationships among members of the online community such as product reviewers on Epinions, and buyers and sellers over eBay. The study involves researchers in three distinct areas: information systems, sociology and organisational behaviour and human resources.

Moving on to teaching, we know that business schools (and their MBA programmes) are largely about leadership development. We are preparing graduates to take on leadership positions in the business world.

Leadership has, however, evolved from the days of traditional “command and control” to today’s collaborative leadership, which suits present business climates better. Leaders are now expected to have skills in collaboration, listening, influencing and flexible adaptation. How can business schools impart such qualities? One way is to ensure that students are well anchored in their area of expertise but also sufficiently exposed to wider disciplines outside their scope of specialisation.

SMU embraces this in our undergraduate curriculum. Every freshman takes a bundle of diverse courses as part of the University Core to develop essential skills in analytical and creative thinking, communication, leadership and teambuilding, ethics and social responsibility, and understanding the relationship between business, government and society in the context of world developments.

As they go on to specialise, a wide range of electives in the arts and sciences are available to broaden their perspectives and expose them to areas beyond their disciplines. These include courses in European languages, Shakespeare, film, dance, theatre, entertainment industries, environmental science, biotechnology and bio-entrepreneurship.

We believe a broad-based exposure makes students much more versatile, open-minded, people-sensitive and adept in real-world problem solving.

Inter-disciplinary teaching is helped, to a great extent, by having SMU’s business school within a larger university for the world of business and management.

As businesses struggle to put in place measures to address gaps in governance and regulation in the wake of corporate scandals, universities can play a part by inculcating the right values through character building.

Universities are entrusted with the public duty of education. We contribute towards the greater good of the global economy and wider society by enriching, shaping and transforming students who will go on to make a difference in society. This is a role we need to discharge conscientiously.

Transforming business schools into ‘Schools for Business’ by Arnoud De Meyer

ABOUT THE AUTHORProfessor Arnoud De Meyer is President, Singapore Management University

19SMU has 19 research centres and institutes that bridge academia and business, formed through partnerships and collaborations with leading business organisations and institutions


Hennie Oliver and Johan Burger argue that business schools can be agents for sustainable business, economic and societal development in Africa

It is no longer acceptable to live and do underpinned by the belief that the world is there for us to exploit and that there will always be resources available in abundance


Africa is frequently seen as the "dark continent", a provider of raw materials and resources for use by the developed economies of the rest of the world. Some authoritative figures in the West have even gone so far as to state that Africa is irrelevant as far as investment destinations are concerned.

The end result? An Africa where the economies and people have largely been neglected. Poverty is rife and disease is frequently endemic. Some countries are seen as prime examples of corruption and fraud, both at governmental and business levels. The continent has become a challenge as far as business and social development are concerned.

In order for Africa to grow and develop to a level where it can become self-sustainable, it needs to grow and develop its economies, businesses and the people within those businesses and societies.

It needs to be seen as a systemic whole where the political, economic, social and technological spheres all play a role to ensure a synergistic path to wholeness – something Africa as a whole is severely lacking.

It is not as if Africa has nothing to offer. It is a resource-abundant continent.

Africa, however, cannot rely on its resources alone. Industries need to be developed. Oil was recently discovered in Ghana and even more recently off the coast of Namibia, where reserves of 11 billion barrels of oil have been found. With the reserves of Angola, Ghana, and Nigeria included, Africa can indeed be seen as an oil-rich continent.

Africa also has one billion people, which is by no means a small target market. Africa is therefore no longer a continent to ignore. And those who do will do so at their own peril. China, for one, has realised this and is busy with an intensive programme of involvement in the economies of Africa.

Africa itself, however, cannot sit back and wait for the rest of the world to generate development programmes for the benefit of the African continent. Africans need to take the initiative and lead this drive to develop the economies and businesses within their societies.

Business schools in Africa are uniquely placed to assist with the development of the African continent. They have access to educated and talented people who understand the environment and cultures and who have the competencies to drive this process. Furthermore, they have the global support networks to tap into for the sake of growing and developing Africa and its people.

It is the responsibility of business schools to help businesses to grow and develop. They need to play an important role to ensure that businesses understand the challenges and are able to grow and be profitable on a sustainable basis. This requires that managers and personnel of African businesses should be educated and developed.

Business, however, is part of a broader society. African businesses therefore need to be sensitive towards the needs and challenges facing the societies within which they function. They need to understand the issues of political and social stability, of education and health, to name but a few.

They also need to understand that they drive business sustainably within an eco-system. It is no longer acceptable to live and do business within a worldview and mindset underpinned by the belief that the world is there for us to exploit and that there will always be resources available in abundance.

The greatest challenge probably deals with the development of the people of Africa. As a point of leverage, it probably also is the one area where Africa can start with initiatives that will eventually give the largest multiplier effect.

Into Africa by Hennie Oliver and Johan Burger


As academics such as James Heskett (Baker Foundation Professor, Emeritus, of Harvard Business School, in Boston) have shown, in order for profit and returns to be high enough, the first area in the value chain (or service chain) lies in developing an employee value proposition that leads to a developed and engaged employee force. Once again, this development cannot happen in isolation from broader societal developments, including embracing the issue of sustainability however broadly defined.

It is interesting to note that in a set of full South African scenarios of the early 1990s (the Mon Fleur scenarios), the scenario development team identified a healthy economy as the driving force behind the transformation of South African society. This obviously needed to take the broader context of society into consideration.

In spite of not being sufficient, a healthy economy needs to be seen as a very important requirement factor in the greater transformation of South Africa. Business schools in Africa will do well to remember this caveat.

Business schools should concentrate on that part of the solution they are uniquely qualified to participate in, namely the growth and development of the businesses of Africa and the managers and people within those businesses.

They need to empower their students to drive issues such as sustainable development for their businesses to be sustainable. They need to create an awareness of the need to have stable political and social environments, as without them there will be no stable and sustainable businesses, which would again negatively impact on the economy of the country and hence on the society.

The perpetuation of this situation has the very

real potential of developing a negative reinforcing loop, equivalent to the “doom loop” defined by American academic and author Jim Collins.

A source of concern are signs and noises from a number of business schools that are getting on the bandwagon of societal sustainability. There is no argument that the issue of sustainability is relevant and becoming more so. Business schools in Africa should, however, understand that it is their primary raison d’être to facilitate the empowerment of African business managers to help with the growth and development of those businesses.

From a managerial perspective, growing a business sustainably primarily requires an intensive study of business and business-related matters. There is a dire need for business executives and managers to understand strategy, marketing, leadership, finance, operations and so on so that they

35EFMD Global Focus | Volume 05 | Issue 03 2011Into Africa by Hennie Oliver and Johan Burger

ABOUT THE AUTHORHennie Oliver is Associate Director University of Stellenbosch Business School (Resources and International Affairs), Stellenbosch, South Africa.

Johan Burger is Director: International Programmes University of Stellenbosch Business School

can apply them to the African environment. Business schools would be well advised not to forget this in their drive to help dealing with developing an understanding of sustainability.

A further challenge, given this point of view, is to ensure that relevant theories of the developed world are applied to Africa, given the unique circumstances of Africa.

To assume that the customs of the developed world are equally applicable to Africa is a dangerous assumption. The continent has a population of approximately one billion people distributed over 30 million square kilometres. There are 26 official languages and 44 different currencies within national borders, further diversity is introduced by tribal loyalties, language differences, different religions and, to an increasing extent, class differences based on individual wealth.

Generalisations about the characteristics of Africans, therefore, have to be treated with circumspection. Business schools in Africa should ensure that they are academically relevant for Africa. They should encourage the development of homegrown theories of management in the broader field of business.

A unique example of this is the models based on the African experiences that were created at the University of Stellenbosch Business School for Leadership and Change Management by using the theory of the developed world. An example is the development of the VISA leadership model and the Beehive Change Management Model by South African leadership guru, Christo Nel.

Another example of the uniqueness of African circumstances is the introduction and development of mobile-based infrastructure by MTN, Vodacom and Telkom to make communication and financial transactions in Africa more accessible.

Business schools in Africa should be focusing on their relevance in a continent yearning for the relevant and applicable development of its people.

Taking into account the enormous expected population growth to 3.5 billion in the year 2100, they will not be able to do this on their own. The co-operation of all relevant role-players and joint ventures with the developed world and emerging economies will have to be exploited to fulfil the challenges in developing the managerial and entrepreneurial skills of the people of the African continent.

Business schools in the world that are looking for new ventures and to contribute to meaningful economic and societal development and have a willingness to adapt their education to a new developing environment will experience friendly receptions to meaningful partnerships.

Africa needs the world just as the world needs Africa.

30The continent of Africa has a population of one billion spread over 30 million square kilometres

26There are 26 official languages and 44 currencies

EFMD AFRICA CONFERENCEThe University of Stellenbosch Business Scool will host the EFMD Africa Conference, 1-3 November 2011.

For information please visit: www.efmd.org


Mark Thomas and Matt Symonds debate whether social media really have a role in promoting business schools

NOMark Thomas puts the case against:

In 1979 The Buggles had a big hit with the classic song Video killed the Radio Star. The song reflected a major worry in the music industry that radio would not be able to compete with the growth of pop music videos. This did not happen.

Despite the growth of video clips to promote songs, radio is still alive and well. In fact, with the development of the mp3 player and then the iPod it has become even easier to listen to your favourite radio programme.

In the past few years debates around the effects of social networks on the promotion of universities have mirrored the video clip debates of some 30 years ago.

Reactions to social media in the academic world have been polemic to say the least. Some declare themselves to be virulently opposed to those who use this type of communication; others see it as the only way forward and long for traditional methods of marketing to be abandoned. Both are wrong.

Young, educated people are traditionally early

adopters of new technology. It is perhaps only natural, then, that as educational institutions we are quick to follow and to use this medium to try to promote both programmes and institutions.

The numbers related to social media are certainly impressive. Twitter is now said to have 200 million users. We all now know that if Facebook were a country it would be the third most populous one after India and China. We are told that the last thing that 72% of young people do today before going to sleep is to consult their social media networks.

Almost every professor has a story to tell of Facebook, Twitter or any form of social media distracting their students from their beautifully prepared lesson.

However, ask most students what made them choose a particular school and it is unlikely that a good Facebook page will be top of their list. More likely words to be used will be “accreditation”, “ranking”, “reputation” and “jobs".

This shows that the overall positioning of a school is still the key factor in the decision-making process. And rightly so given the investment required to finance most business school programmes.

Social networks might help convey the message but they do not change the basics of what a business school has to do to attract students

37EFMD Global Focus | Volume 05 | Issue 03 2011Will social networking kill the radio star this time? by Mark Thomas and Matt Symonds

Students will go on to talk about the reason they wanted to study in a particular country or city (Place) and the overall cost (Price). For many students the choice of institution it is still a family decision and even things as mundane as brochures and fairs can persuade some. This is the Promotion part.

If this sounds shockingly like the 4Ps we should not forget that there is a reason that they are called fundamentals; they are just that.

A decision as important as to where to obtain a qualification to enhance your career prospects should be based on such rational elements. It should not be based on the latest communication technique.

Once these elements have been taken into consideration by the students then there is still a lot of hard work to be done by the school. Most people still want to be convinced and this can only be done with a meaningful interaction with someone who can answer your questions.

This could mean responding to questions on Facebook. Indeed, it would make a welcome change from a lot of the corporate messages that are currently being put out.

It may also mean doing the traditional things such as going to fairs or calling people up. Evidence suggests that the schools that have not forgotten this sober fact are the ones that are outperforming their peers.

Social networks might help convey the message but they do not change the basics of what a business school has to do to attract students.

As they evolve and business schools try to communicate efficiently with their students, they should not forget their fundamental position in society as providers of a thoughtful, meaningful analysis of the world.

Students will be delighted to see that professors are up to date on the latest technology and can have a bit of fun. But they will still expect them to provide individual answers to their own questions and to give them a solid return on their heavy investment in the form of an excellent preparation for the business world and good career opportunities when they leave. It is difficult to do this if you are limited to 140 characters.

72%We are told that the last thing that 72% of young people do today before going to sleep is to consult their social media networks


YESMatt Symonds puts the case for:

RT @EFMDnews: #Social media broadens dialogue between #b-schools & students. Rewards innovative outreach in a conversation the school does not always control

OK that fits. But I did not add a link or mention that the likes of Facebook and YouTube help to reach a wider audience and, if done well, can transform school recruitment into something targeted, memorable and shared.

For me this is not a debate about the reaction in the academic world - it is about reaction in the world of potential applicants.

It is not if you do social media, the question is how well you do it. And current results in business education are mixed. As part of a consultancy project, MBA50.com compiled links to the primary social media output of 50 of the world's top business schools. Though they all had a Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook presence, levels of content and activity varied from daily interaction with engaging content to hesitancy and neglect.

One in five schools had no traceable blog output, though tellingly their students often did. North America schools are more present on YouTube and iTunes but there is a vast disparity between those with committed video and podcast channels that organise lectures and interviews by theme, and those who have simply posted a promotional video.

And all too often the links to these activities are buried within the institutional website.

As the founder of the World MBA Tour 16 years ago, I am the first to say that it is premature to abandon the idea of a marketing mix. Face-to-face contact or a voice on the end of the telephone have their place. I’m the first to say it is

premature to abandon the idea of a marketing mix – face-to-face contact or a voice on the end of the telephone have their place

96%96% of the Millennials that make up a business school pipeline of students have joined a social network, and...

78%...78% of consumers trust peer recommendations compared to 14% that trust institutional advertising

I would not be surprised if 16 years from now social media has morphed into something else, eating up bandwidth and redefining marketing strategies. But if 96% of the Millennials that make up a business school pipeline of students have joined a social network, and 78% of consumers trust peer recommendations compared to 14% that trust institutional advertising, it is time to allocate a significant portion of a business school's marketing budget to online activity.

And I do not mean Google ads. Much of the investment in social media will be measured in staff hours and smart communication. If professors complain about students tweeting in the classroom, maybe we should be giving them something to tweet about.

Why not gather the Twitter addresses of the 65 students in the amphitheatre and send them key messages relevant to the course at intervals through or after the lecture. Get the message right and you will see how many then retweet or share with their Facebook friends.

Such ideas require time, thought and willing co-ordination but the results can be measured in student engagement, levels of satisfaction and referrals to peers.

For schools fretting about the ROI of international recruitment fairs, or the cost per lead of a half-page ad in the Financial Times, it is time to weigh them against the cost and return of lead-generation through social media to a targeted peer network.


Twitter is not so much about words of wisdom in 140 characters – it is about engaging an audience, providing them with information, a call to action

Though I began by stating that social media is a conversation that we do not always control, we can certainly give these “digital natives” interesting things to talk about.

Faculty and alumni are a business school's greatest ambassadors but all too often they are a well-kept secret. Blogs and professional networks capture the student experience and post-MBA career success while iTunes U provides a platform for expertise and testimony.

The video and podcast download numbers for HEC Paris and MIT-Sloan confirm that there is a significant audience for thoughtful and engaging audiovisual content.

In any case, while you read this article over 900 hours of video will be uploaded to YouTube, some of it from your competitors.

The media are watching us too. An overwhelming majority of reporters and editors now depend on social media sources when researching their stories, including 89% using blogs for story research and 65% using sites such as Facebook and LinkedIn. If you are proud of your accreditation, thoughtful teaching, ROI and post-MBA career opportunities, let the world know in the places they are gathering their information.

Suggesting that the decision to do an MBA is based on the latest communication techniques is missing the point – the latest communication techniques should be giving applicants the information they need to make the right decision for them.

The “social” aspect of social media also gives you the chance to connect them with students and alumni of the same sex, nationality or similar professional background. ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Mark Thomas is Associate Dean and Director of International Affairs and Professor of Strategic Management at Grenoble Ecole de Management, France.

Matt Symonds is a writer on management education issues and a consultant to business schools. He founded the World MBA Tour in 1995 (and uttered his first tweet 14 years later.)

Will social networking kill the radio star this time? by Mark Thomas and Matt Symonds

89%An overwhelming majority of reporters now depend on social media sources when researching their stories, including 89% using blogs for story research and...

65%... 65% using sites such as Facebook and LinkedIn

Gen Y is overwhelmed with marketing messages, so let them speak with a peer-to-peer audience that they are more likely to believe. If they are checking their Facebook account before they go to bed, what do you have to say to them? Or reply? This is a two-way conversation after all.

Responding to questions on online chat forums should be a priority - the person asking the question is interested enough in the institution to ask a question or visit your site and you have the chance to provide tailored information not just general material written for the institutional website. That can be time well spent because the chances are that the response for one user will helpfully inform others.

Finally, bear in mind how much of this content will accessed through iPhones and Blackberrys. So tailor the message to the medium – size really does matter. Twitter is not so much about words of wisdom in 140 characters – it is about engaging an audience, providing them with information, events or a call to action.

As The Buggles might now sing: "Take your own credit for your second symphony. Rewritten by machine and shared through new technology”.


Peggy Cunningham shares a new model of business education that could address many of the current problems the business world is facing

Values-led management education: the next step

41EFMD Global Focus | Volume 05 | Issue 03 2011Values-led management education: the next step by Peggy Cunningham

Perceptive leaders of business schools around the world as well as social critics have begun to question traditional models of management education in the wake of the recent financial crises and corporate scandals. While many recognise that something should be done, questions remain about what can and is being done.

As the Dean of the Faculty of Management of Dalhousie University in Canada, I share these questions and have searched for better models of management education. I have been seeking ones that are not only broader in their perspective but also more laser-like in their focus on ethics, corporate social responsibility and sustainability. I am writing this article to share the model we are developing and to encourage dialogue among schools and deans asking similar questions.

Before turning to our values-led model, I want to articulate why I believe change is needed. In addition to the financial crises, there are other more subtle reasons for why a new focus is needed.

Primary among these is that the role and responsibilities of business itself are changing. Even a cursory search of companies’ mission and values statements reveals the renewed focus that topics such as integrity, ethics, trust and sustainability have received. External demand for business to accept a wider set of responsibilities is also growing.

For example, recent research revealed that 88% of Canadians believe that business should do more than simply make a profit, create jobs or obey the law, and 52% say they have punished a specific company they viewed as not behaving responsibly.

Traditional management mindsets that focused only on creating wealth for stockholders have undoubtedly been questioned; however, little has been done to provide frameworks or guides to managers who must work to deal with the dynamic and complex demands of a diverse set of stakeholders.

One thing that stakeholders do agree on, however, is that business must provide greater value to more constituents than ever before (see the 2011 Eldeman Trust Barometer Findings for details on this trend www.edelman.com/trust/2011/).

Stakeholders are also demanding that business take responsibility for its actions and that it contributes in a more meaningful fashion to social well-being.

Furthermore, many of the issues facing business and the world today cross sectorial boundaries and are beyond the means of any institution to address on its own. The financial crises of the last three years have clearly demonstrated how interconnected the world's markets now are.

88%Recent research revealed that 88% of Canadians believe that business should do more than simply make a profit, create jobs or obey the law...

52%... and 52% say they have punished a specific company they viewed as not behaving responsibly


It has become an axiom that business is no longer local. Its leaders must have a global outlook, if not in terms of a firm’s operations then at least in terms of understanding its potential competition. Government, business, the judiciary, non-profits, unions, religious groups and the media (to name a few) must work together to address issues such as poverty, youth unemployment, obesity, conflict or climate change.

Despite this need to work with other sectors in a collaborative fashion, business schools rarely provide any training with regard to working with other sectors nor do they focus on collaborative strategies. Competitive strategy is often the only perspective taught.

Moreover, although business is unquestionably the most powerful institution in the world today, it is also an institution that garners high levels of distrust in many developed countries around the world. Distrust has arisen not only as the result of market failures but also as technology has stripped away the veils behind which many corporations operated. With the widespread use of the internet and social media, corporate decision making and its consequences are made public as never before.

Finally, as corporate workforces continue to age, the need to attract talent is ever more urgent. The type of person needed is changing, however. Where business organisations were once rigid, well-staffed and highly hierarchical, more and more companies are increasingly flat, fluid, and minimally staffed. People, including new hires, often have only limited supervision and must work independently while being part of teams distributed across many geographies. This opens up greater opportunities for questionable conduct.

As a result of these changes in the business environment, a new type of organisation has emerged. We describe this new form in a recent California Management Review article and labelled these firms “syncretic stewards”.

We used the term syncretic since it captures the fact that such firms were able to fuse together different groups of people (internal and external stakeholders) and focus them on a common purpose. We chose the term steward because they had a sense of responsibility with regard to creating a positive legacy for the future.

While they were certainly profitable, syncretic stewards also took their social and environmental responsibilities seriously. They are very humane in their focus and had leading-edge programmes for both their employees and their local communities. They were collaborative in their approach to stakeholders and worked to create value for a wide range of constituents.

Successful managers in these firms certainly had excellent functional skills but they were also excellent people managers, empowered others, were highly ethical, collaborative and able to manage under conditions of uncertainty.

I decided to join Dalhousie University a few years ago because I believed its focus on values-led management better reflected the needs of syncretic steward firms. When I first joined the Faculty, however, I asked numerous long-standing members about what this orientation meant to them.

Surprisingly, given the history of the model here, I received very different answers. This quickly made me realise that more clarity was needed if the values-led strategy was to be fully implemented.

Where business organisations were once rigid, well-staffed and highly hierarchical, more and more companies are increasingly flat, fluid, and minimally staffed


ABOUT THE AUTHORDr Peggy Cunningham is the RA Jodrey Chair and the Dean of the Faculty of Management at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. She was a founding member of the EFMD’s Global Responsible Leadership Initiative. Although she is trained as a marketer and has written a number of marketing textbooks, she has spent much of her career developing and teaching ethics and corporate responsibility. [email protected]

Values-led management education: the next step by Peggy Cunningham

One colleague, Peter Duinker, provided great insight with regard to this task. He saw values-led management as a positive versus a negative approach to management. Values-led management helps the organisation think about the values that are cherished and the mission that is shared. It is the opposite of a “fixing problems” management philosophy. It supports a culture of collaboration where people focus on creating shared value for all stakeholders. It was particularly helpful since our faculty is multi-disciplinary and cross-sectorial just by its structure.

In addition to including a large School of Business Administration, it also encompasses three other schools – Pubic Administration, Information Management and Resource and Environmental Studies. Exposing our students to the issues and ways of thinking across sectors is unique and powerful. But generating mutual understanding and giving all constituencies a voice can be challenging.

There were also mixed opinions about the key values that underpinned the model. Thus, the next task was developing clarity around our core values.

Searches of faculty archives revealed that people adhered to a long and complicated set of values. We knew that we had to distil these down to a workable, meaningful, inspirational and actionable number. We did this through a series of management meetings and retreats that involved all faculty and staff.

Through considerable debate and discussion we developed a set of five core values captured under the acronym “IDEAS”.

The “I” stands for integrity (ethics, character and courage); the “D” captures our commitment to diversity (inclusion, respect, giving all people a voice and collaboration); the “E” is for excellence in teaching, research, service and professional practice for staff, students and graduates; the “A” is for action and encompasses the idea that we must move forward, make decisions and get things done despite ambiguity and complexity; and finally, the “S” stands for the need to be sustainable in all of our management practices, realising that resources are finite and that we must leave a positive legacy for the future.

As the saying goes, “you cannot manage what you cannot measure”. So the next step was establishing a set of behaviours that we believed reflected these values. We can observe, measure and reward behaviours. We are currently working to incorporate these behaviours into learning goals for our students and performance metrics for our faculty, staff and management team.

To date, the outcomes of this initiative have been very positive. The faculty and staff have been energised. The culture is even more collaborative. It has fostered innovation in curriculum as we work to embed the values in our courses, and increasingly students are co-creating their learning around these values.

In addition, our more clearly articulated, values-led philosophy has attracted a different set of students – those who are more people-focused and diverse.

Finally, it has pleased the firms who employ our students and has made us distinct in their eyes. This is extremely important since, in addition to placing our graduating students, many of our programmes have mandatory internships.

One employer put it this way: “The reason we have been so pleased with hiring graduates from Dalhousie is that its programmes create a different attitue among students….so ethical, a beautiful open attitude, approachable, consensus driven and balanced”.

Thus, we are convinced that we are moving along the right path and that we are modelling a new way to think about management education. Nonetheless, there are still many challenges and hurdles to overcome, and we are constantly looking for best practices and better ways to realise our strategy.


If companies are to benefit from their corporate responsibility initiatives they must actively involve their stakeholders, notably their employees, say C B Bhattacharya, Sankar Sen and Daniel Korschun

The next challenge for corporate responsibility

45EFMD Global Focus | Volume 05 | Issue 03 2011The next challenge for corporate responsibility by C B Bhattacharya, Sankar Sen and Daniel Korschun

The bad news for managers is that mere engagement in CR is no longer enough to differentiate a company from competitors in the eyes of stakeholders

The low-hanging fruit of corporate responsibility (CR) is mostly picked. Due to widespread acceptance that doing good for social and environmental causes can be good business, most large companies have by now commissioned some form of volunteering or charitable giving initiatives, designed sophisticated environmental sustainability programmes and purged a substantial amount of unethical practices from their supply chains.

The bad news for managers is that mere engagement in CR is no longer enough to differentiate a company from competitors in the eyes of customers, employees and other important corporate stakeholders.

The challenge today is not only to make a business case for CR but rather to create, communicate and calibrate CR so that it conforms to the ever-increasing expectations of stakeholders.

Thus, the trickier, and arguably more interesting, task is still ahead of us.

That task is to understand how stakeholders view, interpret and ultimately respond to CR programmes. And it means we need to delve into the psychology that drives stakeholders’ relationships with companies.

In our forthcoming book (see end of article) we have integrated over a decade of research that sheds light on how and when CR fosters relationships that create value for a company. We concentrate not on the direct route to value, whereby a company creates value by, for example, saving money through efficient processes but rather via something we call the stakeholder route, where a stakeholder learns about a social or environmental initiative and responds accordingly.

Our approach differs from many contemporary treatments in that it is empirically based, combining insights gleaned from an array of lab experiments, field studies and analysis of secondary data.

The fundamental premise of our book is that CR provides opportunities to strengthen relationships between a company and many of its key stakeholders. Strong company-stakeholder relationships are built upon trust and a perception that the company shares a stakeholder’s values. Accordingly, we argue that for CR activity to generate value for a company it must not only reinforce the company’s core values, but also fulfil some of the most basic needs of its stakeholders.


71%In a recent survey, 71% of companies reported to the UN Global Compact that CR policies and practices are currently developed at the CEO level

Our research shows that stakeholders interpret CR based on three interdependent concepts that are in turn key leverage points for executives wishing to manage CR activities more effectively.

The first is a stakeholder’s Understanding of CR itself. Here the stakeholder assesses whether CR programmes are in fact improving societal welfare and tries to uncover what motivated the company to engage in CR in the first place.

For example, in a study conducted for a Fortune 500 consumer goods company, we found that awareness of a CR programme (in this case a gift to a child development centre) yielded significantly greater intent to purchase its products when stakeholders attributed the gift to “genuine concern” for children on the part of the company.

The second aspect of stakeholder interpretation of CR is Usefulness, or the degree to which the activities provide some form of benefit to the stakeholder.

CR may provide Usefulness in tangible ways such as energy savings from efficient appliances or in psychological ways, by enhancing self-esteem.

In a qualitative study of employees at a multinational company, we found that some employees who live in countries where there is considerable ill will towards the company use CR as a way to shield their self-esteem from verbal attacks. These people told us that when they came across criticism from friends or family they could point to the company’s CR as evidence of the organisation’s benevolence.

Thus, managers should not ignore CR’s ability to fulfil basic stakeholder needs and stakeholders’ desire to benefit personally from CR.

Understanding and Usefulness work in concert to forge a sense that there is Unity (the third concept) between the stakeholder and the company.

Unity – the overall sense that the company’s values match those of the stakeholder – is the “gateway” to the CR value that companies seek.

Given a choice, stakeholders tend to deepen relationships with companies with which they sense Unity and withdraw from companies with which they have a mismatch in values. CR is a compelling signal of a company’s central and enduring values. In support of this notion, in a study of over 500 front-line employees from across American companies we found that Understanding and Usefulness are capable of leading to important outcomes such as reducing an employee’s intent to quit and becoming a loyal customer themselves, though only to the degree that they perceive a sense of Unity with their employer.

Importantly, we do not view CR as yet another cynical instrument of corporate profit. Instead, we argue that for firms to gain value from their CR efforts those efforts must improve the lives of their stakeholders in significant ways. In other words, creating social value is a prerequisite for creating business value.

The first implication of our framework is that companies need to eschew the notion that CR must be enacted in a top-down way.

In a recent survey, 71% of companies reported to the UN Global Compact that CR policies and practices are currently developed at the CEO level. Instead, our research shows that the best way to improve Understanding of CR activities, make activities maximally Useful to stakeholders and foster Unity is to involve stakeholders in CR activities whenever possible. Stakeholders want to be the enactors of CR, with the company serving mainly as an enabler and source of aggregation of corporate resources.

The second implication from our research is that communication needs to become more prominent in CR planning. We find that for many companies awareness of CR, even among employees, is often quite low. Even at some companies that give millions of dollars to charity and enact major sustainability programmes, awareness is frequently in the low double digits.

Too many companies limit their CR communication to an annual report and a few electronic repositories (one employee we spoke to said that there was information


ABOUT THE AUTHOR

C B Bhattacharya is Dean of International Relations and E.ON Chair in Corporate Responsibility at ESMT European School of Management and Technology, Berlin, Germany.

Sankar Sen is Professor of Marketing at the Zicklin School of Business, Baruch College, a senior college of the City University of New York, US.

Daniel Korschun is Assistant Professor at Drexel University’s LeBow College of Business, where he is also a fellow at the Center for Corporate Reputation Management, Philadelphia, US.

“sitting on the L drive” but that few people ever accessed it). CR management needs to include a communication plan that clearly articulates how effective programmes are, how they fit into the company’s strategic plan and how CR can benefit stakeholders.

Finally, companies that want to maximise CR value are going to have to measure stakeholder responses with more discipline than they currently do. It is not uncommon for companies to spend millions measuring customer preferences of products and services or employee job satisfaction while few can use the same disciplined approach when assessing the value generated by CR activity.

Our framework provides three leverage points (Understanding, Usefulness, and Unity) that managers need to track when assessing CR activities among stakeholders (our book provides measures that we have used in our research). Tracking these levers against changes in the CR portfolio is critical so that managers can calibrate activities according to stakeholder reactions.

Many companies have begun to look more deeply at their CR activities, trying to assess which are providing value and which are simply not sustainable from a business perspective. Our research indicates that the key to this analysis is to delve into the mind of the stakeholder, understanding how he or she interprets CR and how learning about CR activities may improve or harm the relationship with the company.

Leveraging Corporate Responsibility: The Stakeholder Route to Maximizing Business and Social Value C B Bhattacharya Sankar Sen Daniel KorschuCambridge University Press 2011

The next challenge for corporate responsibility by C B Bhattacharya, Sankar Sen and Daniel Korschun

It is not uncommon for companies to spend millions measuring customer preferences of products and services or employee job satisfaction while few can use the same disciplined approach when assessing the value generated by CR activity


Martin Lockett and Matthew Gitsham contend that business schools cannot just research and teach ‘sustainability’. They must also embed it in how they themselves work

Business schools fit for tomorrow

49EFMD Global Focus | Volume 05 | Issue 03 2011Business schools fit for tomorrow by Martin Lockett and Matthew Gitsham

A glance at any recent issue of Global Focus reveals plenty of debate about how organisations are changing how they do business in response to long-term trends and what this means for management education.

As Georg Kell and Jonas Haertle argued in the last issue (“UN Global Compact and Principles for Responsible Management Education – the next decades” Volume 05 Issue 02 June 2011), substantial change is occurring as organisations respond to trends such as population growth, aging populations, urbanisation, poverty and human rights, public health, climate change, biodiversity and species loss. All this comes under the heading of “sustainability”. Leading organisations are adapting to these changes with new products and services, new processes and new business models, and are lobbying proactively for new rules of competition.

In business schools we are now more familiar with the implications for us. Through research we have the opportunity to help play a positive role by helping organisations make sense of this changing context and through educational work we have the opportunity to help ensure leaders are fit to lead in a radically different context compared to a generation ago.

A number of concerted initiatives have helped business schools learn this: think of the Academy of Business and Society (EABIS) or the Globally Responsible Leadership Initiative (GRLI) or the more recently established United Nations Principles for Responsible Management Education (PRME). EFMD has been a key partner behind all three.

If the world is changing then business schools have no alternative but to change too. That means that we need to bring sustainability into the mainstream of research and education – as well as to reassess our own business models and make significant changes in how we work.

In this article we outline the journey that Ashridge Business School has begun in this area. While we still have a long way to go, we have achieved enough so far to offer some valuable reflections on the nature of this change and how it really happens.

Multi-dimensional changeAt Ashridge, change related to sustainability has been multi-dimensional. In particular, we have sought to combine focused initiatives with a broader embedding of sustainability in activities that go under other labels.

For example, in our portfolio of programmes and other activities, we have:

Specialist offeringsAshridge’s MSc in Sustainability and Responsibility is intended to develop participants personally and professionally and help make organisations both responsible and successful. It complements masters and doctorate programmes in organisational change, linking to a new Centre for Action Research.

Focused modules on mainstream qualification programmesIn 2005 the Ashridge MBA pioneered a two-week core module on sustainable business. This provides the opportunity to engage directly with companies, investors, policymakers and NGOs through class sessions and a “live case” in such organisations as Marks & Spencer, Ericsson, Skanska and Innocent Smoothies.

Subject area embedding on mainstream qualification programmesComplementing an “in-depth” approach, faculty are encouraged to relate their subject area teaching and assessment to sustainability. Porsche’s strategy for sustainability was one challenging exam question. This is becoming part of our programme approval and review criteria.

Open programmesA quarter of Ashridge’s portfolio of open-enrolment programmes feature sustainable business. An exercise has begun to look for additional opportunities to embed relevant new ideas and approaches.


Customised programmesWe encourage our tailored clients to consider sustainability as part of their programmes. Sustainability featured in 8% of our tailored programmes in 2009-2010.

Organisational consultingAshridge has created a dedicated consulting practice on sustainability with recent clients including KPMG, BT, Gearbulk and UK Members of Parliament across the three main UK political parties.

Focused researchAshridge created a specialist centre to act as a hub for cross-faculty thought leadership (Ashridge Centre for Business and Sustainability) in 1996, which forms a focus for sustainability research.

Faculty engagementWe are actively encouraging all faculty to consider the implications of sustainable development in their research work. When we last checked, in June 2010, 25% of our faculty had either spoken at an event or published on a theme relating to sustainable development.

Underlying this is an evolution of our business model, an explicit aspect of our last strategic review a year ago, for example:

“Location independent learning” Ashridge is investing in interactive virtual learning platforms and methodologies to make our learning offer “location independent”, reducing the need to travel.

“Paperless” classrooms and meetingsWe are exploring ways to remove paper handouts and materials. This includes an iPad trial for MBAs, electronic distribution of meeting papers and library resources that are primarily virtual (which in turn increases accessibility, especially for part-time students).

Carbon reductionLast but not least is a focus on measuring and managing environmental impact:

We participate in the Carbon Disclosure Project and have an energy strategy under development to reduce our carbon footprint across Scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions by 34% by 2020 and 80% by 2050.

Environmental managementWe are ISO14001 certified and our reduced energy and water use, waste management and sourcing mean we now score 83% in the International Association of Conference Centres Code of Sustainability.


What we have learnedSo how has this kind of multi-dimensional change been possible? There have been many motivated members of faculty and staff who have proactively supported these efforts. But there have also been barriers.

Our organisational research shows that change works because of an open and inclusive process that invites motivated individuals to engage rather than a coercive process that forces individuals to comply. Such change is slower but more enduring. It is no different in business schools.

We have seen issues of motivation and anxiety. A few faculty disagree with the whole idea of sustainability; more do not see it as relevant to their specialism; and others see it as an important but low priority.

Among supporters of change there has been legitimate anxiety: Do I know enough? Why should I take the risk on my programme? Will my work be recognised?

Our approach has therefore been to support innovators rather than seek uniform change through compliance.

Top-level commitment has been a further important factor, with several members of the school’s management team vocally championing the need and rationale for change. This vocal leadership creates the space for others in the organisation to take the risk to lead change.

Alongside support from the top there has been consistent effort to connect interested faculty and wider staff into a relatively informal learning network. This includes guest speakers and sharing each others’ experience of innovation. This informal work has only been possible with more structured support – recruiting and developing faculty and staff sustainability specialists and designing their roles to give them time to develop and coach others.

There have been other more formal supportive interventions: creating space to recognise and reward innovation around sustainability through faculty performance management; introducing questions on the place of sustainability in the curriculum into quality assurance processes; and introducing performance metrics on sustainability into the organisational balanced scorecard.

We have taken a proactive approach towards ISO14001, which typically is restricted to an operational management system for environmental issues.

This has become a wider platform for our broader efforts at institutional change. For the past two years we have been through an annual school-wide engagement process to review where we are on sustainability, where we want to be in the long term and what that means for next year’s activities.

This has created a comprehensive set of around 100 objectives across the organisation, each volunteered and agreed by individual members of staff to pursue in the following year.

Implications for accreditation and rankingsWe believe accreditation and rankings have a crucial role to play in this change process, supporting business schools engaged in sustainability and challenging those who are only taking a compliance response.

For schools where a critical mass of faculty and staff have already grasped the need for change and have begun a journey, a stronger focus on sustainability from EQUIS and business school rankings such as the Financial Times would play a welcome role in helping reinforce and sustain the nascent change already occurring.

There are clear caveats on how this should be done. The approach needs to recognise variety and encourage innovation rather than prescribe a standard approach. There is no blueprint applicable to all institutions.

But, at the same time, the requirement needs to be substantive. To take EQUIS as an example, the current situation of sustainability as the last two words of the last EQUIS criterion is not sufficient to support change.

Requiring and rewarding innovation in business schools that put the principles of sustainable development at the heart of their purpose and overall approach is an important role that EQUIS, as well as other accreditation and ranking systems can and should play.

ABOUT THE AUTHORSMartin Lockett is Director of Academic Development, Ashridge Business School.

Matthew Gitsham is Director of the Ashridge Centre for Business and Sustainability.

25%In June 2010, 25% of our faculty had either spoken at an event or published on a theme relating to sustainable development

80%We aim to reduce our carbon footprint 80% by 2050

83%We now achieve 83% in the International Association of Conference Centres Code of Sustainability

Clockwise from left:HCP May 2010: Part 2Ashridge has replaced bottled water with inhouse filtered waterSeminars are now available via webinars on devices such as the iPadHSBC managers learning about climate change as part of their leadership developmentThe 200 year old rain water tanks under the terrace are still in use to save water use

Business schools fit for tomorrow by Martin Lockett and Matthew Gitsham


My CEO asked me to lead a global culture change initiative. It would involve thousands of people from dozens of countries and would cut right through some old traditions, well-worn practices and inappropriate behaviours

53EFMD Global Focus | Volume 05 | Issue 03 2011Does the corporate world need doctorates? by David McKie

It does. Because all large corporations have issues that need rigorous research. By David McKie

DOES THE CORPORATE WORLD NEED DOCTORATES?

After 20 years working for one of America’s largest organisations, you get some sense of the needs and priorities of the boardroom, the business unit leader, the local finance director and the commercial teams seeking to serve their customers around the world.

My story began when the CEO asked me to lead a global culture change initiative. It would involve thousands of people from dozens of countries and would cut right through some old traditions, well-worn practices and inappropriate behaviours. An off-the-shelf solution seemed a million miles away, yet quickly the thought of a more rigorous process bubbled to the surface and led to contacting business schools.

The thought of a part-time doctorate crossed my mind. What is a doctorate exactly? Will a doctorate simply tell us what we already intuitively know? How will my colleagues react to the idea that I may become Dr McKie? To what degree will my work suffer if I disappear for weeks into a darkened room?

I made the decision to enrol, was accepted and then reality hit that I was about to start what could be the biggest challenge in my life. Conversely, it could conclude as one of my biggest achievements. Enrolling for a Doctorate of Business Administration (DBA) in 1999 introduced some structure and rigour even though a sense of what research entailed initially evaded me.

Unlike traditional PhD approaches, the first year of the DBA was business issue based, which on reflection was profound.

Each of my six visits to Cranfield School of Management in Britain in the first year would involve discussing the real challenges of organisational change. I may not have fully grasped the concept of research at that stage but I did understand the needs of the organisation and the challenges we were facing.

The first 12-15 months of the doctorate could be compared with a roller-coaster ride with several full loops. The journey consisted of an iterative process of considering the business issues in light of current research. I may have hatched a new research question almost daily but the sheer passion to solve my business issue remained constant.


I met some scepticism on my journey. I worked in a culture where PhDs where associated with laboratories, not the boardroom

I overcame my first disappointment after identifying a series of issues that would involve at least ten doctorates. I and others came to realise the need to focus and consider some activities as post-doc work. But after that 12-15 months a research question was born and the doctorate was completed in four years.

Working in a global organisation required a global solution. If my research focused on western leadership methods alone or a handful of countries then I suspect it would have received little attention internally. My goal became broad and rigourous. The breadth was achieved by visiting over 20 countries during the research and the rigour by establishing a good partnership with Wharton Business School in America, which had more than ten years of global leadership experience.

I used an existing questionnaire but in a different context and tested leadership theory cross-culturally for the first time. The research collected data from over 40 countries and the questionnaire was translated and back-translated for a dozen languages.

My research took me from sitting in a kitchen drinking herbal tea with strangers in Shanghai and talking about leadership to the boardroom as we considered a global mindset and corporate values.

The chair of my panel complemented my understanding of the data because whatever the data was saying I could back it up with stories from all over the world, including stories of core-values that led people to strive for what is right, just and fair and the need to see these traits among political and corporate leaders.

My research then took me to North Carolina to use a statistical tool rarely used in cross-cultural social science research.

My response rate was 96% so each day I was bathing in wonderfully rich data that we had collected internally from colleagues. I may have spun and become dizzy in the first months but once my research question remained stable then I was on the ride of my life.

Another profound difference was the necessity to apply the research to our organisations. Research for research’s sake was not acceptable at Cranfield so our presentations required a good grasp of the business issues, research and application. As business peers we encouraged and challenged each other by applying our business knowledge and our increasing research understanding.

I met some scepticism on my journey. I worked in a culture where PhDs where associated with laboratories, not the boardroom. It became apparent that aspects of the rigorous approach brought value in their own right. Furthermore, application and value were seen mid-stream – we did not need to wait until the doctorate was finalised before introducing some value to the organisation.

My journey opened up doors into professional networks that led to my making presentations, one of which was observed by a corporate customer. The sceptics in my organisation were quickly silenced when a doctorate study was referred to in the boardroom of that customer, which in turn led to an invitation to talk about the research, especially developing a global mindset within our global leaders.

After a major career change, I found myself back in the academic world doing a more traditional PhD, which was required to practise in my new profession. But the journey was not as challenging nor was the same value produced. The core components were the same, but sequenced and prioritised differently.

20The research involved visiting over 20 countries to understand the concept of leadership

40The research collected data from over 40 countries and the questionnaire was translated and back-translated for a dozen languages


ABOUT THE AUTHORSDavid S McKie had a 22-year career with Cargill Incorporated in a variety of roles around the world. For the final ten years he was vice-president for leadership development and organisational change. In 2008 he left Cargill to retrain as a child clinical psychologist and now works with adolescents with serious mental health issues. He completed his MBA in 1994 and an Executive Doctorate (DBA) with Cranfield School of Management in 2003.

Does the corporate world need doctorates? by David McKie

I still believe research that is business issue led is the most appropriate for practitioner research and will bring more value for the corporate world. Both have value, but in their different fields.

The journey brought a realisation of what a business school offers. Since the DBA, we have opened up further avenues, including funding research, inviting colleagues to teach, employing PhD students for specific areas of research and helping shape the agendas of corporate networks.

Does the corporate world need doctorates?

This is a question that has played on my mind for a decade. The answer is “yes and no”.

I struggle to accept that large corporations do not have issues that need rigorous research and it is time we all took some risks and reconsidered how we solve problems. Business issues arise on a daily basis and clearly not all warrant a doctorate. However, business schools have an array of tools in their tool kit, one of which may solve the issue.

Summing up, the DBA remains one of the biggest achievements in my life. Over 500 internal leaders benefited from personal feedback on how they are performing as a global leader.

The journey seemed long and bumpy yet what was created has changed people’s lives. I believe all major corporations should always be involved in doctorate research as a sponsor or by releasing employees to engage in the process. Corporations and business schools need each other and a practitioner-led approach, from my experience, suggests there is recipe for success for both sides.

This is not about diluting the rigour but rather it is a different approach. Determination, patience, curiosity and tenacity are the ingredients needed to make this partnership work.

96%My research questionnaire was getting a response rate of 96% – giving us a rich source of data


Sherif Kamel looks at the challenges and opportunities in the MENA region and argues that investing in human capital is fundamental to socioeconomic development and growth

In the wake of economic challenges induced by recent political instability, management education programmes in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region face unprecedented challenges and opportunities to influence the next generation of revolutionary business leaders and entrepreneurs.

Today, more than ever before, business schools “should build on their role in producing and promoting the next generation of innovative and creative private-sector leaders and agents of change focused on business and socioeconomic development and growth,” as Dr Lisa Anderson, President of the American University in Cairo (AUC), has observed.

Over recent decades, oil-economics, political interests and international investment have contributed to the rise in prestige of management education programmes across the MENA region. The benefits of global partnerships are myriad: more diversity through international student exchange programmes, access to better research funding and grants, the spread of accredited programmes, and higher-profile faculty and alumni networks.

Now, as several of the regional economies face unexpected uncertainty, these academic institutions must utilise their resources to prepare for the critical next phases: stabilising for some and reorienting agendas to address the pressing socioeconomic and business needs for all.

The issues listed below comprise the challenges management education programmes will face, both in the short-term – recruitment and resources – and potentially in the long-term – reputation and relevance – as well as the ingredients necessary for successfully capitalising on the potential opportunities in the future.

Managing after the Arab Spring

57EFMD Global Focus | Volume 05 | Issue 03 2011Managing after the Arab Spring by Sherif Kamel

Potential challengesRecruitmentRecruitment is a big obstacle immediately facing management education in the MENA region, particularly in countries more affected by the recent political turmoil. Any turbulence hinders the process of recruiting not only qualified international faculty but also international students – both necessary for a diverse learning experience. As such, leading regional business schools will increasingly compete for top faculty and students.

Business schools in the MENA region are here to position tomorrow’s leaders. For Egypt, a country already catering to a large pool of local talent, pre-existing recruitment challenges coupled with the current regional uncertainty might contribute to further isolation – confining the student body and limiting the breadth of faculty backgrounds.

ResourcesRegional economies, particularly in Egypt, shrank almost immediately following the regional uprisings that began in January 2011. Consequentially, budget constrictions have forced reallocation of resources, suspended hiring processes, driven up the costs of matriculation and relegated some projects to the back burner – with no ultimate reprieve in sight.

ReputationInstitutional reputation is paramount for the success of management education programmes and their graduates worldwide. Faculty, students, alumni, research and patrons collectively comprise an institution’s character and are representatives of its standing. Regional programmes’ reputations have benefited in the past from increased exposure.

However, as regional governmental transformations run their course over the next few years, it remains to be seen how the political and economic uncertainty might create challenges for MENA management institutions to maintain steady reputations.

RelevanceMENA region business programmes will increasingly face demand for focused and usable research, curricula, outreach and executive education programmes.

In Egypt, as the government and courts attempt to purge ministries of corruption, the onus is on management programmes to initiate relevant research, teaching and

Institutional reputation is paramount for the success of management education programmes and their graduates worldwide


extracurricular agendas – or risk becoming irrelevant in a rapidly changing business and socioeconomic landscape.

Business ethics, transparency, innovation, human development, sustainability, entrepreneurship and leadership must immediately be integrated into classroom curricula. And extracurricular activities must engage students and faculty with the community, local business and industry. Relevant engagement is crucial in the long-term process of nation building to disseminate values such as collaboration and citizenship.

Ingredients for successAt the same time, the events of 2011 have indirectly opened doors for MENA management education programmes to realise distinctive international profiles. Success in this endeavour is contingent on three ingredients: a focused mission, relevant course content and development, and high-quality intellectual knowledge production. Once appropriately equipped, the opportunities to influence the post-uprising MENA region abound.

Mission-drivenMost traditional management education models myopically overemphasise profit generation at the expense of a sustainable bundle of economic, social and environmental values. The current flux that the region is experiencing renders such models “obsolete”. AUC School of Business’s mission promotes fostering “principled and innovative business leaders who can make a difference”. This vision is embedded in teaching, research and extracurricular activities, which are carefully designed to yield responsible business behaviour that positively impacts the community. To reinforce this commitment and to emphasise promoting social wellness, the school became one of the signatories to the Principles for Responsible Management Education (PRME) and hosting PRME MENA region forum 2-3 October 2011.

Regional focusIn the coming years, MENA institutions will need to play an active role in educating and consulting with new government and business leaders; as such, management schools must become better at integrating facets of public and private sector leadership into educational and research practices.

Yet using models and cases from Europe or America will not suffice in addressing the specific short- and long-term challenges the region faces. MENA leaders of tomorrow should think and move beyond the conventional boundaries of business.

With this in mind, AUC School of Business founded the El-Khazindar Business Research and Case Center in 2008 to develop case studies relevant to the region. Locally sourced knowledge is the future of regional management education and is fundamental for asserting leadership on the competitive global stage.

Knowledge hubsManagement research institutions must produce knowledge to achieve successful growth and development. Mirroring the popular efforts in Egypt for an emancipated political identity, management education programmes – particularly in MENA countries with diverse economies – must capitalise on local insight in order to maintain sovereignty over the international decisions that affect the region.

Furthermore, endorsing proper management education that embraces the spreading influence of information and communication technology pays immediate dividends; principally, it demonstrates the potential for a better future led by young leaders with more engaged and empowered roles in societal transformation.

Management education programmes have a responsibility to work for the democratisation of information within the MENA region, so promoting the ability to access and contribute to a collective body of knowledge. To this end, AUC School of Business established the Access to Knowledge for Development Center (A2K4D) in response to demands for participatory human expression. Areas of focus include intellectual property rights and academic scholarship on the economic, legal, political and social issues confronting access to knowledge in Egypt and the Arab World.


Potential opportunitiesAUC School of Business identifies entrepreneurship, innovation, leadership and partnerships – both in-country and across boundaries – as offering great possibilities for the future of management education in Egypt and across the MENA region.

EntrepreneurshipEntrepreneurial education is a primary building block for business schools seeking to identify potential entrepreneurs and to broaden start-up cultures.

Yet, until recently, there were few such programmes in the MENA region, a situation that motivated AUC School of Business to launch its Entrepreneurship and Innovation Programme (EIP) in 2010. EIP’s philosophy shifts the emphasis from “entrepreneurship the discipline” to “entrepreneurial thought and action,” focusing on elements that provide students with a well-rounded marketplace advantage, regardless of their career choice. EIP supports the creation of an entrepreneurial educational ecosystem that can help accelerate the growth of start-ups where there is never a shortage of innovative ideas. And it educates students to be employees of choice or self-employable; connects students with venture capitalists, angel investors, and mentors and others and is accelerating the growth of hundreds of entrepreneurial companies. EIP efforts are bolstered by a campus-wide student-led Entrepreneurs’ Society (ES).

InnovationIn Egypt, the large youth population – more global- and internet-savvy than their predecessors – demand transparency, employment and economic opportunities. The impact of these popular movements will be students who not only expect, but demand, programmes that speak to their specific skills and socioeconomic goals. MENA management education programmes must, in turn, respond with innovative curricula and research centres that capitalise on steadily improving regional technological capacities and applications. Speaking at AUC this spring, Wael Fakharany, Google’s MENA regional manager, talked about the great potential of e-commerce for enterprising Egyptians in this post-uprising era. Thus course design, teaching methods, faculty training, extracurricular programmes and executive education must constantly innovate symbiotically to maintain relevance and induce new opportunities.

Leadership The success of political change in the MENA region is conditional; it requires an availability of qualified and ethically responsible leaders in the public and private sectors. Business schools must thus concentrate on developing a new cadre of entrepreneurial leaders – ones capable of filling critical positions in local business, government and industry and able to successfully manage and compete in a global market.

Partnership Another key avenue for opportunity in the future will be through strengthening local and international partnerships.

AUC, for instance, uses partnerships to foster its mission and vision. The school partnered with TechWadi, a Silicon Valley-based non-profit, to establish a business incubator that serves as a regional centre for entrepreneurial education, mentorship, idea generation and development. A partnership with Egyptian venture capital firm Sawari Ventures created the Flat6Labs, which offer promising entrepreneurs access to faculty mentors and facilities.

Moving forwardIn the face of immense changes, MENA management education programmes are embarking on an era of vast uncertainty but also immense possibility if the region possesses an ability to anticipate how to move forward.

Societal growth, development and global competitiveness will depend on business schools’ abilities to efficiently and effectively invest in human capital and to facilitate creativity and innovation within an entrepreneurial climate.

One thing is abundantly clear: regional youths’ intellectual capacities and ceaseless ability to innovate are the oil of the 21st century – enterprising youth represent the future of a democratic Egypt and a diversified MENA socioeconomic landscape.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Dr Sherif Kamel is Founding Dean of the School of Business at the American University in Cairo.

He will chair the EFMD Conference in the MENA Region, 13-15 November 2011, Sheraton Casablanca Hotel & Towers, Casablanca, Morocco. For information please visit: www.efmd.org.

Managing after the Arab Spring by Sherif Kamel

Regional youths’ intellectual capacities and ceaseless ability to innovate are the oil of the 21st century – enterprising youth represent the future of a democratic and a diversified MENA socioeconomic landscape


Are universities socially responsible?

Yes they are says Marcin Geryk, who outlines his research into how and why they act as socially responsible neighbours

61EFMD Global Focus | Volume 05 | Issue 03 2011Are universities socially responsible? by Marcin Geryk

Are universities simply educational institutions or should they play a more significant role in society? Will stakeholders’ growing expectations cause universities to aim at improving their relations with their immediate environments? Along with economic development, the growing intensity of globalisation has increased the expectations and requirements society holds towards organisations and all public or social and economic institutions.

Institutes of higher education, due to the role they play in society, have to face particularly high demands. After all, they form future elites, they participate in the process of the development of a knowledge-oriented society and they examine our reality. This is why the notion of the social responsibility of universities is now so significant.

So far, the feeling has been that it should be only businesses, being profit-oriented, that should undertake actions directed not just at their shareholders but also at their wider stakeholders. Research conducted by the author contradicts this shortsighted view.

Education has a preferential position in the activity of modern societies. Universities are expected to contribute to science through initiating and disseminating research. This is social responsibility at its fullest. Being in possession of intellectual resources and research facilities, universities should provide incentives for innovative actions in their local environments.

Mature organisations are aware of the need for social sensitivity. They are also aware that it may serve as a way to gain a competitive advantage. Ethical considerations should constitute an important element of the long-term process of university management, scientific research and didactic goals.

Are universities socially responsible?

The social responsibility of a university has its foremost manifestation in conducting research that is strongly connected with the needs of its region and in adapting its educational offer to the needs of the local job market and to the potential and aspirations of youth. It relies on the premise that universities and their stakeholders co-exist with each other. The mutual benefits of such relations are priceless.

The influence of a university should be ancillary to its long-term goal – the release of social capital, ie interactions based on the idea of co-operation taking place among people within society. It will contribute to the enhancement of the position of the university as an important and strong institution that is responsible for the future of its society.

The research project Social Responsibility of the University As Perceived By Its Stakeholders was conducted between 2007 and 2010. The main aim of the research was to draw a map of social responsibility in the sector of higher education and attempt to evaluate the influence of pro-social actions on improving the effectiveness of management in both the short- and long-terms. The research was conducted in Poland and abroad.

An analysis of stakeholders’ needs leads to the conclusion that universities are more and more attentive to the needs of society. The quality of relations with stakeholders is one of the most important determinants of social responsibility. The key issue is to develop an effective framework for dialogue among the three leading groups: society, business and authorities.

The influence of a university should be ancillary to its long-term goal – the release of social capital, ie interactions based on the idea of co-operation taking place among people within society


The research shows, however, that pro-social actions are not always inspired by the wish to develop relations with stakeholders. The main factors motivating Polish universities to undertake pro-social actions, for example, are the desire to improve their image (87%) – and incomes (82%) – such an improvement entails. It is worth pointing out, though, that “the sense of moral duty” also had many responses (74%).

According to the research results, the notion of the social responsibility of a university is well understood. It is defined as acting in line with legal and moral standards (although only 24% of the Polish adult population have come across this notion).

Most of the respondents perceive the social responsibility of a university as part of its fundamental activity, which is education and training. In reply to the open question – what is social responsibility? – respondents said that it was a high standard of education (18%), being responsible for students, staff and society (8%) as well as preparing students for life in society (6%).

The desire to improve the image of a university and to develop its brand was mentioned as the main reason for taking pro-social actions (93%).

This result is linked with increased competitiveness and improving a university’s position in the educational market (91%) plus an aspiration for better relations with the local community (89%). It is worth pointing out that only 74% of the respondents found an inspiration for pro-social activity in the example of actions taken by rival universities.

A transparent information policy is another issue – 92% of the Polish respondents expect that universities will not only undertake pro-social actions but will also provide reliable information on them, preferably by employing independent organisations for that purpose.

The results of the last stage of the research, conducted among university representatives from 46 countries, allowed a much larger perspective of social responsibility.

The notion is widely known and it is considered in two aspects.

The first focuses on the appropriate design of the educational process so that a graduate, in his or her professional career, will follow the rules of social responsibility and will undertake various non-commercial actions for the local community.

63EFMD Global Focus | Volume 05 | Issue 03 2011Are universities socially responsible? by Marcin Geryk

The second aspect focuses on the significance of actions undertaken by universities themselves, which should, above all, offer the best education there is, prepare their graduates for life in modern society, educate ethical and responsible managers as well as specialists required by the job market and only then act for the local community on non-educational grounds.

As many as 56% of the respondents did not notice any differences between actions taken by state and private universities. The remaining ones pointed to the strong obligation of state universities, which should be involved more actively in social development.

Respondents from non-Polish universities believe that the aim of pro-social actions is to improve their universities’ relations with their environments (92%), to improve their image (89%), to increase their competitiveness and improve their position in the market (81%) as well as to fulfil their moral duty (84%). Importantly, these actions do not raise any unease among stakeholders; they are happy to allow a university to use information about such activities for its own marketing purposes.

Taking actions for local communities was mentioned as important for the image of universities by 40% of respondents. It is worth pointing out, however, that the significance of that factor received the least acknowledgement by universities from America and Canada – as few as 11% of replies. Perhaps the respondents from those countries prefer actions that are more directly involved with the promotion of their universities. However, it must be borne in mind that even actions that seem to be detached from the main area of university activity have a powerful influence on their image.

The representatives of North American and Asian universities placed more importance on the role the number of courses on offer plays in developing their image. On the other hand, European universities stressed the significance of the number of students and the size of universities.

ABOUT THE AUTHORDr Marcin Geryk is founder and chancellor of two business schools in Poland: the Gdañsk Management College and the Infrastructure and Management College in Warsaw.

93%The desire to improve the image of a university and to develop its brand was mentioned as the main reason for taking pro-social actions (93%)

An evaluation of curricula conducted by an independent accreditation institution has the most significant influence on the image of universities, 73% of the respondents claim. The number of students is the second factor – 46% of the responses; while the number of courses on offer comes third – 41%.

The most popular actions taken by the universities in the previous academic year were concerned with environmental protection (73%).

The research confirmed the fact that there are two commonly understood meanings of social responsibility – the responsibility of a university and the education of socially responsible graduates. In ranking the importance of these, support for gifted students comes first followed by respect for employees’ rights, as well as protecting the environment and important heritage site and artefacts.

An organisation reaches its highest form of development when its mission merges with that of society. It leads to a situation where the social mission is perceived as an integral part of the vision of the organisation’s development. It is then that a university becomes a truly responsible organisation and the rules of social responsibility are fully integrated with its strategic goals.

The conclusion from the research is the belief that universities integrate socially responsible actions at a strategic level. University managers, in turn, must be aware not only of their responsibility for their relations with stakeholders but also of the fact that practically all people and all socio-economic entities belong to a university’s stakeholders.

Hence, it is appropriate to confirm the hypothesis that universities have an overpowering impact on the shape of future societies. Therefore this impact has to be responsible – socially responsible.


Organisations are desperate for effective managerial leaders. But, asks Kevin Dalton, are leadership and management development professionals going the right way to provide them?

DEVELOPING TOMORROW’S LEADERS

65EFMD Global Focus | Volume 05 | Issue 03 2011Developing tomorrow’s leaders by Kevin Dalton

Organisations have come to realise that managerial leaders are the key to unlocking their creative potential. As a result developing such leaders has become big business. Large corporations spend around $70 billion a year on executive education and 20 billion work hours a year are devoted to it.

Even during the credit crunch, developing managerial leaders seems to consume a disproportionate amount of development budgets.

Despite this surge of interest in leadership and management development as a vehicle for developing the increasingly sophisticated and subtle skills needed by managers there is no real agreement in the professional community on what works and in what circumstances.

Management development remains one of the most notoriously ill-defined concepts in management. It is also the focal point for a constant stream of fads and fashions all promising to develop management capabilities.

There is a sense here of a professional area with important ambitions yet one that is uncertain of its core knowledge and pedagogical methods. It appears prepared to experiment with any modish practice, steal any glittery idea from cognate disciplines and try wholly untested ideas if they might help managers raise their game.

Where is the intrinsic body of research, evaluated outcomes and applied theory driving practice that we might expect from a mature learning activity?

It was frustrations of this kind that prompted me to write a book, Leadership and Management Development: Developing Tomorrow’s Managers (Pearsons 2010) that would provide an overview of the field and critically appraise the current state of the art - its wisdom as well as its madness.

My book attempts to distil and evaluate current debates and knowledge within leadership and management development, contextualise them within the broader sphere of management and social science thinking and draw on the results of published research.

A recurring theme of the book is the need for humility when attempting to develop the next generation of management leaders.

The dilemma is that it is not easy to teach the most important psychological qualities that managerial leaders need ie: self -awareness, moral and intellectual courage, synoptic thinking, emotional intelligence, political insight, persuasive skills and judgement, in short, wisdom . People need to grasp it themselves or condemn themselves to mediocrity.

But can a guided and partnered approach to learning help the individual derive lessons from the opportunities for self-development available to him or her and remove some of the randomness of learning by trial and error alone?

My book provides a detailed analysis of the available tools and processes – personal development plans, attachments, projects, action learning sets, mentoring and so on - their various strengths and weaknesses and the organising frameworks that are most likely to prove effective. This is the individual’s management development.

However, there is another perspective: the organisation’s management development. How can a company’s management resources as a whole be marshalled to ensure that the company has the right profile of skills, knowledge, attitudes and behaviour for the strategic challenges facing it in the years ahead?


This takes us into the area of strategic stocktaking, performance management, development planning, management succession and talent management. These institutional processes need to be in place for management development to flourish.

In the book I consider both the individual’s management development and the organisation’s management development in terms of some key debates and themes that may shape management development in the future. Here are some of the main trends:

Management development is increasingly aligned to a strong corporate strategyManagement development has historically been accused of incoherence, with ad hoc activities shooting off in various directions without a strategic framework to guide them. However, in recent years there has been a shift to integrating management development with business strategy.

Top managers are increasingly coming to define management learning as a strategic “driver” and devoting more of their time to talent selection and development of “high potentials”.

This recognition of management development as an integral part of the business plan raises its status as a function and ensures that it registers more strongly on the radar of line managers so that all levels take seriously the development of the next generation of managers.

Management development may be in the process of differentiating and re-defining itselfThe number of people who are employed only as professional managers may well be declining due to restructuring, decentralisation, flexibility and the team-based organisation. But there may also be more people who are combining bits of managing with practical work (such as team leaders, professionals and semi-autonomous teams with management responsibilities).

The implication of these trends seems to be that management development is fragmenting. At the higher end there is increasing interest in finding sophisticated ways of developing the small elites of top managers who have more demanding strategic decision-making and organisation-building responsibilities than ever before. This has led to the explosion in postgraduate and specialist post-experience courses at business schools and the rise of corporate partnerships based on customised executive programmes validated by universities.

At the same time, management development has a role in expanding management literacy to the larger number of technicians and professionals who now need to know the “ABCs of managing”. This accounts for the massive increase in the number of independent organisations providing basic skills training in management.

Because of this diffusion, management development may be losing its separate identity and becoming part of more generalised human resources development programmes.

This “democratisation” of management development may be no bad thing if it raises general consciousness of the difficult practice of management among larger segments of the labour force. But a plethora of superficial “catch up” courses and learning experiences that trivialise the complexities of managing, reducing it to a set of buzzwords, formulae and slogans, will do scant justice to management development as the thoughtful and reflective discipline it should be.

A plethora of superficial learning experiences that trivialise the complexities of managing, reducing it to a set of buzzwords, formulae and slogans, will do scant justice to management development as the thoughtful and reflective discipline it should be

67EFMD Global Focus | Volume 05 | Issue 03 2011Developing tomorrow’s leaders by Kevin Dalton

Management development is undergoing changes in pedagogy and deliveryAn on-going debate is whether management development is being supplanted by “leadership development”. Is there a body of knowledge and technique for developing leaders that is different from developing managers? Indeed, may “management”, as a role and a discrete activity, disappear altogether?

However, whatever new techniques for developing leaders may emerge it is likely that experiential and self- managed learning will continue as the premier forms of development for managerial leaders. The blending of action learning sets, peer learning, coaching, project work and self-development with formal development will no doubt become more sophisticated based on better-calibrated and progressive assessment systems.

In the academic sector we can expect to see changes in the business school curriculum and modes of delivery. The new turn to developing leadership may emphasise critical awareness, persuasion, sense-making and envisioning that may draw more fully on the arts and humanities.

Radical new arrangements by which academia tries to build the reflective focus of the classroom into experiential learning at work and bring the experiences of work into classroom discussion can also be expected.

Forms of delivery may also change: more customised programmes run with specific organisations (joint ventures, corporate partnerships, consortia), more blending using e-technology, more flexibility around the busy lives of managers and a shift away from business schools to big organisations setting up their own corporate universities.

Management development is increasingly focused on evaluationManagement development methods are becoming more varied and unusual, probably because the capabilities they try to develop are increasingly subtle and difficult to inculcate. Yet, even if some might raise an eyebrow at the value of asking managers to compose Japanese haiku poetry to improve their powers of persuasive communication, “imaginative” does not necessarily mean “charlatan” or ”ineffective”.

All the same, management development will increasingly have to be justified in utilitarian terms, promoting value for money and business goals.

There are many methodological, practical and political problems involved in trying to evaluate something as imprecise and unstructured as management development (especially informal learning). However, a strong theme for the future will be the search for reliable evaluation models that can be embedded as a systemic part of the development process and provide a tested knowledge base of evidence-led practice for the discipline as a whole.

At the end of the first decade of the millennium the prospects for management and leadership development (or is that just leadership development?) look promising.

In future, organisations are likely increasingly to view management development as a joint responsibility shared between the enterprise and the individual.

Managers, in their turn, will increasingly realise the need for constant re-skilling and personal growth so that they remain marketable.

While you cannot learn to lead or manage from books alone I hope my book will help reflective managers to learn vicariously from the models, research findings and stories of others who have been there and done it. I also hope it will provoke developers to be critical of the existing state of knowledge and professionalism within the management and leadership development field and encourage them to make their own contribution to the corpus of emergent thinking in this “frontier” discipline.

ABOUT THE AUTHORKevin Dalton is a senior lecturer in the Human Resource Management department at Westminster Business School, specialising in organisational development. He has served as Director of the Management Development Institute in the Seychelles and as Organisational Development Consultant to the Management Executive in Scotland. His new book, Leadership and Management Development: Developing Tomorrow’s Managers, published by Pearsons, is available from all professional bookshops and internet book vendors.


Industry wants individuals who hit the ground running. That is why, according to Edwin Andrews, organisations are turning to educational institutions that can provide project management talent

The age of real-world relevance

69EFMD Global Focus | Volume 05 | Issue 03 2011The age of real-world relevance by Edwin Andrews

Academe has a real opportunity to set its course for the future rather than defend its past entitlements

Financial stinginess in academe has existed throughout time. Thirty years ago private institutions were bargaining chips during negotiations for higher education allocations and it took threats of closing schools to finally negotiate funding.

But past economic hardships surely pale in comparison to the current crisis in academe. In America, the governor of Texas has forced a profit and loss approach to faculty with his “productivity spreadsheet”, essentially making them accountable for their use of the taxpayer dollar.

The Wall Street Journal reported last year that Jason Bearce, associate commissioner for education in the state of Indiana, told academic administrators they must seek “academic efficiency”, something the National Governors Association seems to mimic.

Now while there may be laggards among the tenured ranks of faculty there is a huge distinction between assessing a faculty member’s worth to an institution on financial grounds versus the ability of a faculty member to push the boundaries of knowledge with new information and learning.

My career has been equally divided between the commercial and academic worlds as an executive and dean respectively. This has afforded a real-world perspective first on what industry needs for success and, perhaps more importantly, on what academe needs to do to become far more relevant than it is today.

Academe has a real opportunity to set its course for the future rather than defend its past entitlements.

In my work with the Project Management Institute (PMI) – a not-for-profit organisation representing nearly 600,000 project managers globally – I have witnessed the growth and adoption of project management as a strategic competency that enables organisations to deliver expected benefits and value through effective planning, management and risk mitigation. PMI has grown exponentially because it is relevant to what industry, governments and NGOs want.

Over the last few years, PMI has commissioned a number of research projects primarily focused on the needs of industry. Our findings validate what others have found in faulting MBA and business programmes around the globe and the rigour associated with technical/engineering programmes.

Most major business schools now “get” the fact that in the wake of the Carnegie and Ford Foundation Reports in the middle of the last century, the rigour imposed on business programmes to give them credibility also rendered them ineffective to the business world.

600kThe Project Management Institute (PMI) represents nearly 600,000 project managers globally


Numerous periodicals recount the laments of employers unable to find graduates with the ability to execute their functional knowledge in a commercial setting

Similarly, technical schools have quickly come to understand that an engineer focused on nothing but his/her prowess as a technician totally fails the need for executing those skills against the demands of the real world.

PMI’s research on skills deficiencies utilised a major study by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) of 600 executives globally and an in-depth analysis of industry needs by the Anderson Economic Group (AEG) in Michigan.

The results of the skills research confirmed what we having been hearing for years and what MBA programmes globally finally had to acknowledge and respond to through refurbishment of their curricula.

In the case of the technical disciplines the accrediting body for engineering and technical institutes in America (ABET) soon recognised the need for more than just engineering principles; now it calls for teaching a balance of the technical and non-technical.

For example, the College of Engineering at Purdue University has coined the term “Renaissance engineer”, implying that its graduates will be imbued with both technical and real-world skills.

Srikant Datar, an accounting professor, and his colleagues from Harvard Business School also carried out an exhaustive study among leading business schools and found that MBA programmes in general lacked real-world relevance, skills or even understanding (Rethinking the MBA. Business Education at a Crossroads, Harvard Business Press, 2010).

Numerous periodicals recount the laments of employers unable to find graduates with the ability to execute their functional knowledge in a commercial setting.

The EIU study commissioned by PMI showed that 95% of executives said they need skilled recruits to achieve business success yet 75% also stated that they did not find these skills in their new hires. Instead, companies have to take technically proficient graduates and train them for months, at great expense, to be able to apply their knowledge in a way that provides a benefit to the organisation.

Now, clearly, academic institutions are not trade schools. But academe has a twofold obligation.

On the one hand it must create the next generation of scholars and therein must inspire a generation of students to aspire to the higher callings of teaching and research. Without this group we are truly destined for failure.

But academe also has an obligation to provide commerce with what it needs to succeed. The formula is simple. Without the support of commerce, and therein governments and their funding, academe will ultimately suffer.

What industry really wants are individuals who hit the ground running and who can execute against their functional grounding, enabling the organisation to succeed. That is why organisations are increasingly turning to educational institutions that can provide project management talent to meet the challenges of current business and economic environments.

Project management has two sides. One is a toolbox, often wrongly characterised as what the whole discipline represents. These are the tools of running a project: software programmes; methods; processes; templates; charts and so on.

In fact, these are useless unless the individual understands how to apply them to a given, ever-changing, situation, the project. By definition a project is a temporary organisation created and directed to accomplish a set goal for the benefit of organisational success. These are the skills of communication, motivation, team building and critical thinking.

75%A PMI commissioned study showed that 95% of executives said they need skilled recruits to achieve business success yet 75% also stated that they did not find these skills in their new hires

71EFMD Global Focus | Volume 05 | Issue 03 2011The age of real-world relevance by Edwin Andrews

ABOUT THE AUTHORDr Edwin J Andrews is Director Academic and Educational Programs and Services at the Project Management Institute

When you look, at almost all endeavours are projects of one sort or another. In a series of workshops with academic deans and corporate leaders PMI explored the skills issue and the value of teaching project management. One workshop was held in conjunction with EFMD in Europe, one in Japan and two in America. These validated the skills gap and more importantly that project management is a life skill and should be taught at the undergraduate level regardless of the functional area.

Some disciplines have picked up on this necessity. As of January 2011 the Uniform CPA (Certified Public Accountant) examination in the United States has required a project management module; meaning it will need to be taught by every accounting department. Recent surveys show that increasing numbers of working professions are seeking advanced degrees in project management. In 1994 you could count 11 degree programmes around the world specifically in project management. A recent census of the UNESCO Higher Education database (only 40% complete) shows over 481 schools offering 650 degree programmes at the masters and doctorate level in project management. Additional market research shows that upwards of 33,000 working professionals will seek a masters degree in project management in the next two years and, astonishingly, over 22,000 will seek a doctorate in project management.

Schools that have embraced project management as a degree offering have

33kMarket research shows that upwards of 33,000 working professionals will seek a masters degree in project management in the next two years and, astonishingly, over 22,000 will seek a doctorate in project management

experienced the benefits of marked revenue increases owing to student demand for classes and degrees and the resulting necessity to grow faculty numbers.

Dean Jay Halfond’s project management degree programme at Boston University started with one adjunct faculty and now boasts seven full-time faculty all supported by programme revenues. Student enrolment for the programme has doubled every year.

Departments, endowed chairs and even full centres of project management have blossomed globally. Some governments, such as China, have recognised the need for project management to fuel their infrastructural growth. There are now over 100 masters degree programmes in project management in China nurtured by the Ministry of Education. In the recession the number of unemployed workers looking for additional skill sets has resulted in many new programmes in project management at the community college and university levels.

US News & World Report in its list of the top five skills in demand highlights project management as number three.

For students there are myriad benefits to gaining project management knowledge. It is one of the fastest-growing professions and as documented in the AEG report, project managers can expect to earn twice the average salary of all other workers. PMI’s own salary survey and web sites such as About.com Tech Careers show that project managers average approximately $100,000 per year in America and considerably more in some other countries such as Brazil and Australia. So project management is really the currency of success, for commerce, for practitioners, for students and for academe. Regardless of the discipline, project management skills can play a vital role not only in training the next generation of academics but, as importantly, provide to industry, governments and NGOs the skills they need to succeed.

If we cannot provide commerce and governments with what they need, we cannot complain about our current lot regarding the economic microscope academe has found itself under. If relevancy is the name of the game, then consider teaching project management and look to the future, for it is, the currency of success.

Project management is one of the fastest-growing professions, project managers can expect to earn twice the average salary of all other workers


Upcoming events

EFMD 2011 | www.efmd.org/conferences

October 2011

2011 EFMD Conference on Undergraduate Management EducationDATES / VENUE 5-7 October / Budapest, HungaryTHEMENavigating in Troubled Waters – Is Undergraduate Management Education Adrift?HOSTCorvinus University of Budapest, Hungary

Sharing Best Practice CLIP WorkshopDATES / VENUE 7 October / Munich, GermanyTHEMEThe Corporate Learning Function as a Force of Innovation and ChangesHOST

Siemens AG

EFMD Advisory SeminarDATES / VENUE 11 October / Brussels, BelgiumTHEMECreating an Effective Marketing & Sales Process in Business SchoolsHOSTEFMD

2011 EFMD Executive Education MeetingDATES / VENUE 12-14 October / Maastricht, The NetherlandsTHEMEExecutive Education in a virtual worldHOSTMaastricht University School of Business and Economics

EFMD Advisory SeminarDATES / VENUE 14 October / Brussels, BelgiumTHEMEFostering Integrated Learning in Degree ProgrammesHOSTEFMD

November 2011

2011 EFMD Africa ConferenceDATES / VENUE 1-3 November / Bellville, South AfricaTHEMEThe Business School in Africa as an Agent for Sustainable Business and Social DevelopmentHOSTUniversity of Stellenbosch Business School

The 3rd Global Peter Drucker ForumDATES / VENUE 3-4 November / Vienna, AustriaTHEMEManagement Responsibility and LegitimacyHOSTVienna

2011 EFMD Conference in the MENA RegionDATES / VENUE 13-15 November / Casablanca, MorrocoTHEMEChallenges and Opportunities in the New MENA Region HOSTESCA – Ecole de Management

EFMD Advisory SeminarDATES / VENUE 15 November / Brussels, BelgiumTHEMEWhat’s new in Corporate Responsibility and Sustainability?HOSTEFMD

EFMD Advisory SeminarDATES / VENUE 22 November / Brussels, BelgiumTHEMEDefining a programme portfolio aligned with the school’s strategy and positioningHOSTEFMD

EFMD CEIBS International Academic ConferenceDATES / VENUE 24-25 November / Brussels, BelgiumTHEMECompetition and Cooperation between Europe and ChinaHOSTEFMD

2011 EFMD Masters ConferenceDATES / VENUE 28-30 November /Paris, FranceTHEMEtbcHOST

ESCP Europe, Paris, France

December 2011

EFMD Advisory SeminarDATES / VENUE 6 December / Brussels, BelgiumTHEMEEmbedding Corporate Connections into Business Schools Activities. An accreditation perspectiveHOSTEFMD

February 2012

2012 EFMD Meeting for Deans & Directors GeneralDATES / VENUE 2-3 February / Nottingham, UKTHEMEWhat Deans are interested in...HOSTNottingham Business School, Nottingham Trent University

2012 EFMD Entrepreneurship ConferenceDATES / VENUE 2-3 March / Maastricht, The NetherlandsTHEMEEntrepreneurial Value Creation in Businesses, Families and Institutions. A view from Educators, Researchers, Policy makers and EntrepreneursHOSTMaastricht University, School of Business and Economics

INSIDE THIS ISSUE

Jain visionINSEAD’s new Dean looks at the future

Open windowRussia’s top school goes international

House doctorEPAS takes on doctoral programmes

Tipping pointHow business schools need to change

Into AfricaBusiness education can fuel growth

Think youngManaging after the Arab Spring

www.efmd.org Volume 05 | Issue 03 2011

Change and the future:Business education 2025

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Thomas Sattelberger outlines the changing priorities and strategies that will dominate business education in 2025

“EMLYON Business School is world renowned for its devotion to lifelong learning for entrepreneurship and international management. Founded on teaching innovation and its advanced approach to management education, our mission statement ‘Educating Entrepreneurs for the World’ is at the heart of our MSc in Management Programme.

Today’s business environment requires employees that are fully versant to manage global challenges. Our programmes demand students who are capable of acquiring the knowledge and skills to operate effectively in the corporate world. Our graduates and employers alike know that EMLYON is one of the best business schools to prepare them for a demanding career.

EMLYON has long used the GMAT exam to select the right candidates for our programmes. Not everyone is up to the rigorous standards our business school demands. The GMAT helps EMLYON predict academic performance and assess the skills students need to succeed in both the classroom and professional life. At EMLYON we expect the best, and the GMAT exam helps deliver just that.”

Vice-President Houdayer on selecting for success

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©2011 Graduate Management Admission Council© (GMAC©). All rights reserved. The GMAT© logo is a trademark and GMAC©, GMAT© and Graduate Management Admission Test© are registered trademarks of the Graduate Management Admission Council in the United States and other countries.

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