Volume 02 _ Issue 01 2008

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EFMD

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The Economist provides Europe’s business leaders, current and future, with timely insight that helps them to succeed in today’s complex global marketplace.

please contact Philip Wrigley on +44 (0) 20 7830 7000 or [email protected].

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“My schedule makes me travel all around the country and even globally for more than

200 days of the year,” he says. “During this time, I get to meet some of the most successful

and influential minds in the country. Some of the corporate organisations I am in

touch with are UBS, Tata Group, Maersk-Line, HDFC, Coca-Cola, HSBC, Standard

Chartered, Accenture and others. I am currently working with an annual budget of

more than $200,000 and have a team of three talented indiv iduals working with me.”

Mr Gupt thinks the experience he is getting in AIESEC w ill help him to reach his

future goal – to work with one of the major global consultancy firms.

“I feel the consultancy field has a great future and this surely is the right t ime to enter

it,” he says. “With my experi ence in AIESEC I feel I am on t he right track.”

e large network that AIE SEC has developed makes it quite easy to get in touch

with one of i ts lo cal ch apters, which are current ly pres ent in more tha n 1,100 leading

universities across the world.

Students can access a large pool of opportunities, starting from th e global internship

programmes in technolog y, management, education or development in any of

AIESEC’s 100-country networks to being a part of global teams working on issues

such as entrepreneurship, HIV/AIDS, CSR or ot her current issues in society.AIESEC memb ers also lead teams that organise some of the world’s biggest youth

forums, facilitate the global internship programme and are in touch with some of t he

leading organisations in the corp orate and non-corporate sectors. Some of the leading

organisations that AIESEC currently works w ith on a global level are Pw C, UBS,

Alcatel-Lucent, DHL, TCS, Inbev and ABN AMRO among oth ers. All of these

organisations take on AIESEC interns through the global internship programme

to help with the management of their core processes throughout the year.

“We rely on AI ESEC to bring great talent to our organisation, a company t hat does

business just about every where in the world. Our leaders benefit from the insight

AIESEC interns bring to taking programmes we run in certain countries to ot herparts of the world,” says Microso’s Mr Bean.

e international network that AIESEC ha s developed over the past 60 years has

taken the association from war-torn Europe to all regions of the world, including

most recently the Middle East and North Africa. e original intention of fostering

“cultural understanding” between European countries a er the war is still largely in

place, though on a much big ger scale. Over the past couple of years A IESEC chapters

have been opened in Jordan, Bahrain, Qatar, Afghanistan and Iran to name only a few.

Jonas Li lienthal, part of the tea m lead ing the expansi on of A IESEC to Ir an, says that

“it is important for AIE SEC as a non-political org anisation to enhance contact

between Iran and the rest of the world”.

Challenging the way indivi duals see the world is one of AI ESEC’s principles and

allows youth to open their e yes to the world beyond what is merely presented to them

in the media and to be more global ly aware citizens. In doing so, AIESEC members

and alumni are making a positive impact on societ y – role modelling change agents

for the future.

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EFMD

One of the themes running through this issue of Global Focus is leadership – how to

inculcate it into students on programmes such as the MBA degree, how to teach it to

practising managers and how to ensure that leadership is exercised in a responsible way.

A remarkable unity of opinion about leadership is emerging – that it must be global

and that it must be responsible.

In an interview on page 8, Dipak Jain, Dean of Kellogg Business School in America,

argues that the key f unction of the MBA now is not just to teach business skills butto create responsible global leaders, echoing the report on page 26 by Anders Aspling

and Mark Drewell on two years of the Globally Responsible Leadership Initiative.

And John R Ryan, the new President and CEO of t he Center for Creative Leadership,

one of the world’s top leadership training institutions, says on page 22 that CCL’s new

Advancing Global Leadership programme is a response to t he growing challenges of

leadership in a global societ y.

“People who are involved in global leadership positi ons are today facing greater

complexity in their roles, whether it’s at the mid-level or hi gher in their org anisations,”

says Mr Ryan. “And they need to be able accurately to perceive new situations they

face, culturally as well as organisationally, with the people they interact with, and theyhave to adapt their leadership style accordingly.”

Finally, it is clear that tomorrow’s leaders are also taking the initiative themselves. On

page 62, Michelle Gallant, Vice-President Communication for AIESEC International,

the world’s largest student organisation, describes how a leadership development

platform for youth that AIESEC runs, called the AIESEC Experience, off ers practical

opportunities to lead a team, project manage and work in an international environment.

With over 23, 000 memb ers from around the wor ld AI ESEC off ers over 5,000

leadership experiences each year at the local, national, regi onal and international level

that help develop leadership skills but also cultural sensitivity, team management and

entrepreneurial skills.

Global, responsible leaders are essential to the f uture of our soci ety. Perhaps we can

take some comfort from the many initiatives featured in this issue.

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In focus...

Talking shopExcellence in Practice Award 2008New Chair for E UALEURAM 2008 ConferenceEFMD Advisory Services 2008

Life at the top Dipak Jain, Dean of Kellogg, talks to George

Bickersta ff e about business school governance, thefuture of the MBA, demographics and staying ontop of the rankings

Making the most of IT Martin Curley describes an attempt to develop

an industry-wide model to assess the business valueof IT

Do business schools need formal quality

assurance systems? Yes they do, says Chris Greensted. But they need

to be done properly

Taking the lead John R Ryan, President and CEO of the Center

for Creative Leadership, one of t he world’s topleadership training institutions, talks to GeorgeBickersta ff e

A leading force

Anders Aspling and Mark Drewell report ontwo years of the Globally Responsible LeadershipInitiative

Entrepreneurship and European growth Tea Petrin outlines why fostering entrepreneurship

is the key to maintaining and developingcompetitiveness within Europe

Is the world open? Richard Straub argues that ‘openness’ is the defining

quality of 21st century globalisation

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Leading the players in cultural changeTo manage culture you have to understand whoplays what role in sustaining, c hallenging andshiing i t says Sharon Turnbull

e role of MBA programmes indeveloping corporate executives

Ulysses Kyriacopoulos outlines how business

schools and MBA programmes can developtomorrow’s leaders of industry

Teddy bears, snow and the sex lifeof crustaceansAndrew Crisp looks at the findings of a new studyinto what makes a great business school website

e executive education challenge John Gilkes outlines the key results of the 2007

EFMD Executive Education Survey and ponderstheir implications for the future

Doing well by doing good A European project has shown that helping the

environment and encouraging profitable smallbusinesses can go hand in hand. David Watkinsexplains how

Rigour, relevance and rapprochement Pierre Berthon and Bob Galliers argue for a rethink

of academic research into business problems

AIESEC’s 60 years of activating leadership Allowing young people to take active leadershiproles is proving an important adjunct to academicprowess says Michelle Gallant

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EFMD Advisory Services – successful2007 looking forward to 2008

Excellence in Practice Award 2008Partnership in Organisational Development

Jonathan Slack new Chair of theEuropean uality Link (E UAL)

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e Bologna process is gaining momentum and impacting business and managementeducation proiders right across Europe

Calls for papers

EURAM 2008Conference

2007 European FacultyPioneer Awards

Job opportunities acrossthe EFMD network

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Emerald/EFMD outstanding doctoral research award winners

Emerald and EFMD announce the winners of the OutstandingDoctoral Research Fund Awards 2007

EFMD

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Emerald is pleased to pledge our ongoing supportto outstanding scholarship in the fi eld of Doctoral research in business and management

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All business schools have three missions: knowledge creation, knowledge diss emination

and knowledge certification. Knowledge creation is achieved through research; knowledge

dissemination through teaching; and knowled ge cer tification through the bestowing

of degrees.

In each of the three functions, both rigour and relevance must be present. Knowledge

creation requires that research is accessible to a broad audience. Knowledge

dissemination necessitates that the skills professors teach are appl icable to students.

Knowledge certification requires degrees to be relevant in today’s business world.

Kellogg focuses on producing responsible global leaders. We regard the MBA not

just as a busines s degre e but a s a way to promote lead ership within student s, providingthem with the knowledg e and resources to give back to the world. As such, we want

students to leave Kellogg with strong technical skills and a holisti c understanding

of business that can be applied across many fields and functions.

Yes. Since our objective is to produce responsible global leaders, Kellogg has worked

to solidify an approach that helps us achieve this.

Our foundation consists of four platforms. We describe the educational

component as Intellectual Depth. For this to be successful, it must be coupled with

an Experiential Learning component. Just as medical students take part in residency

programmes, business schools should have similar business residency programmesfor students to practise the theories and concepts taught in the c lassroom. At

Kellogg, Experiential Learning is an important part of the curriculum. Whether

students are helping to take life-saving drugs to market through our Global Health

Initiative programme, or serving as ex-officio board members for non-profit

organisations as part of our Board Fellows Program, they are constantly gaining

real-word, hands-on experience.

Our third platform at the Kellogg Scho ol is Global Perspective. Globalisation is

a force of gravity, and American schools cannot a ff ord to be US-centric. To help

students develop a global perspective, we’ve included a global course requirement

across all of our M BA programmes to ensure students have the broad expo sure theyneed to succeed in to day’s business world.

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e fourth platform fo cuses on Leadership and Social R esponsibility. We want to

instil in students the desire to eff ectively lead and give back bot h inside and outsideof the classroom.

So skills create hard impressions. Most students don’t get their MBA for the core

courses but are instead motivated by a strong electi ve base and unsurpassed faculty

that can provide them with the tools and knowledge to succeed. e Kellogg School’s

competitive advantage lies in it s world-class faculty, diverse coursework, emphasis

on team learning, and a culture of col laboration and innovation.

We have restructured the Office of the Dean to include a third senior asso ciate dean,

David Besanko. David is now senior associ ate dean for academic a ff airs: planning and

external relations, which gives him responsibilit y for the key administrative areas of

the Departments of Alumni Relations and Development, the Career Management

Center and the Marketing and Communications Department. He will join Sunil

Chopra and Kathleen Hagerty, who continue their roles as senior associate deans

for academic a ff airs, with Prof Chopra overseeing curriculum and teaching and Prof

Hagerty managing facult y and research.

No business school has this sort of model, and our motivation behind the restructuring

was p eople. Business s chools have several impor tant cons tituenc ies: students, facult y,alumni, corporate partners and recruiters, and media – people like you. ese are the

major stakeholders and I wanted to make sure that each falls under the purv iew of my

senior associate deans.

In business schools, academics need to b e incorporated into the organisational design.

You can out source functions but you cannot outso urce leadership or accountabilit y.

Business schools have to be customer-centric and our new model ensures this will

remain the case at Kellogg.

It is also important for succession planning as business schools ought to b e

institutional-driven and not individual-driven. I can rotate the three senior associate

deans across functions so th at each gains diverse exp erience. For example, DeanBesanko has previously served as senior associate dean for curriculum and teaching.

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e concepts espoused at European and US schools are the same, but

sometimes I feel as though European schools emphasise g lobalisation

more than US schools. I believe that schools based all over the worldcan come together in a p ositive way, creating a unified global

conceptual framework. EFMD can facilitate this movement.

Kellogg is a strong believer in collaboratio n and has certainly set a

precedent by pioneering the teamwork mo del. My current priority

is to create additional collaborative research centres for the school.

For example, one of the key issues facing the world, particularly

Europe, is immigration. As a subject it encompasses economics,

sociolog y and other disciplines and I would like to c reate a centre for

demographic research that brings these diff erent disciplines together.A strong portfolio of centres will provide students with enhanced

opportunities for Experiential Learning.

To facilitate this, I have established a taskforce to explore the

possibility of a new Kellogg building that can accommodate our

growth initiatives.

To remain at t he top, an organisation c annot be complacent. Instead,

it must demonstrate continuous innovation and progress.

Kellogg will remain on the world sta ge—especially as we continue to

innovate by becoming a centre for collaborative research and learning.

In fi ve years , I wan t Kellog g to be known not j ust as the best bus iness

school in the world but also the best business school for the world.

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Indeed, many argue that CIO really stands for “career is over”. But given the right

tools, the CI O could become an o rganisation’s “Chief Innovation Officer”.

is is what the Innovation Value Institute (IVI), based at the National University of

Ireland (NUIM), aims to do. IVI, co-founded by Intel and NUIM, It will help CIOs

manage IT as a utility to deliver value and then to really exploit IT as ‘Innovation Technology’.

e IVI consortium is a cross-industry communit y with, currently, some 40 members

including Intel, Microso, SAP, Google, Chevron, BP and consultancies such as

the Boston Consulting group, Ernst and Young and the Butler Group. ere are

six principal groups represented within the consortium: professional associations,

academia, analysts, enterprise, public sector and eco-s ystem.

is distinctive collaboration is provi ding a unique environment for the synthesis of

leading industry best practices and pioneering academic output, training and education,far beyond what any one entity could hope to achieve by itself.

It operates on a system of open innovation, a concept based on the idea that in a world

of widely distributed information, organisations cannot a ff ord to rely entirely on their

own knowledge but instead would benefit from sharing ideas and knowledge with

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INNOVATION

AHEAD

other entities. Together, this collaboration wil l facilitate major advances much f aster

and with higher qualit y than any one organisation could hope to achieve by itself.

IVI’s vision is to transform the way organisations get value from IT, through researching,

developing and disseminating an empirically proven and industry validated IT best

practice model. Its mission is to develop a unif ying approach for managing the value

of information technology investments and to validate that these approaches havea broad applicability across diff ering industries and contexts.

Already IVI consortium members are seeing value. e CIO of the Irish Utility ESB

and an early adopter of output from the IVI says “the collective intelligence of the IVI

consortium has added fundamental value to us and we are using the outputs to blueprint

our business and determine key improvement actions”.

To address the need for an over-arching IT business value framework, IVI, under the core

themes of IT Value and IT Innovation, will advance methodologies, tools and practices

that will enable organisations to optimally manage their IT capability to answer the needs

of improved IT value deliver y and IT-driven innovation. Initially, IVI is focusing on extending

the development and dissemination of the IT Capability Maturity Framework (IT-CMF)

.IT Capability Maturity Framework (IT-CMF)TM

e IT-CMF enables senior executives and IT specialists to adopt four inter-related

strategies – Managing the IT Budget, Managing the IT Capabilit y, Managing IT Like

a Business and Managing IT for Business Value (Figure 1).

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Within each o f the four IT strategies, t here are fi ve levels that are us ed

to assess an IT organisation’s level of maturity and improve the outcomes

and processes by which it operates and the business value it generates

by advancing to the next level.

e generic maturity levels (inspired by SEI’s Capability Maturity

Model for so ware development) are: Ad hoc (or no process es), Basi c,

Intermediate, Advanced and Optimising. Figure 2 combines t he four

strategies and the maturity levels.

Managing the IT Budget

Managing the IT Budget is critical to delivering current and future value.

e IT-CMF looks at the practices and tools, whic h can be used to

manage an IT budget so costs are reduced and funds freed to invest in

innovative IT solutions that deliver better value and performance. As

you can see from the Managin g the IT Budget strate gy, th e path toa sustainable economic model begins with controll ing and managing

costs to allow for greater funding in IT investment.

Managing the IT Capability

e IT capability is what information technology and IT organisations

can do collectively for a business. e IT-CMF demonstrates how

to manage the capabilit y of an IT organisation by managing IT assets

through the value chain and developing core competencies. It also

describes some tools available to measure that capabil ity. A properly

managed IT capability leads to t he continuous development of new

strategic applications to deliver sustainable economic advantage.e Managing the IT Capability strategy charts the rise of IT from

a technology supplier at Level 2 to it s full maturity at Level 5 w here

it off ers corporate strategic capability.

Managing IT for Business value

Managing for IT Business Value involves linking I T investments

to overall business benefits. e IT-CMF outlines the core business

practices and tools required to optimise an IT organisation’s business

value. ese practices and tools include Total Cost of O wnership

(TCO), Return on Investment (ROI), the Business Value Index

(BVI) and Portfolio Management. e Managing for IT Business

Value strateg y provides a structure for a n IT org anisation to mo ve

from managing IT as a technolog y project to regarding IT as a

portfolio of investments that generate value for the entire business.

Managing IT like a Business

Managing IT like a Business means running IT like any other business andthat involves shiing the focus from technology and production to a focus

on customers and services.e IT-CMF describes the internal processes

required to move an IT organisation from a technology to a service orientation

that provides customer-driven solutions to business problems. As an

organisation makes this change and moves up the Managing IT like a

Business strategy, it allies itself more closely with the organistation and its

overall business objectives.e transformation to running your IT organisation

like a business is complete when IT moves from a cost to a value centre.

IT-CMF views the eff ective management of the IT function within

a firm as focusing on these four major strategies, with the IT budgetessentially the input to the production process, the IT capability as

Managing ITlike a Business

Managingthe IT budget

Managing ITfor BusinessValue

ManagingIT Capability

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the production engine and IT value as the output. Managing IT l ike

a Business sets strategy and closes the loop by provid ing the feedback

mechanism for adjusting inputs to optimise the output value. ese

four strategies should be aligned to the organisation’s overall businessstrategies and the business context it op erates within. (Figure 3)

While the IT-CMF provides a methodology and roadmap to help

IT and business executives deliver and demonstrate more value from

IT, it wil l also provide a more detailed and integrated approach for IT

and business practitioners.

e IT-CMF is currently being designed to help organisations better

manage how they engage in measuring the business value of their IT

investments, choosing the best IT investment proposals, delivering

competitive advantage and managing IT investments for optimal

business value. Ultimately, the IT-CMF will help organisations

achieve more business value from IT through adopting a structured

improvement approach.

e IVI also administers a Professional Diploma and Certificate in the

subject area of Managing and Measuring Information Technology for

Business Value.

ese two courses meet the ch allenge of how to quantify t he business

value of IT head-on by extending the definition of business value

beyond productivit y and showing how to measure business value,

choose the best IT investments, deliver competitive advantage andmanage for optimal IT Business Value.

Both the one-day certificate and three-day diploma courses are accredited

by the National University of Ireland.

To date, IT and business executive audiences in over 20 countries

have received versions of these courses. Additi onally, both courses

are available to other academic institutions for deliver y within their

education programmes.

It is in such areas that partnership with EFMD c an be crucial to

the dissemination of t he IT-CMF model to a wider community,

particularly through the EFMD’s extensive network of business

schools and corporate members. e Innovation Value Institute hopes

to build a strategic relationship with EF MD and member business

schools to achieve adoption of new curricula that will advance the way

executives and companies achieve more value from IT and ultimately

achieve more commercial success.

As technology is increasingly a core source of competitive advantage

in business, leaders who adopt IT as ‘Innovation Technology’ and

adopt systematic approaches to improvement will likely lead and

achieve sustainable competitive advantage. Adoption of the I T-

CMF can help drive a structural improvement in how organisations

can get ahead through the use of IT. More details are available at

http://ivi.nuim.ie/

ManagingIT like aBusiness

Managing theIT capability

Managingthe IT budget

Business StratgeyBusines Context

Managing ITfor BusinessValue

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So do all sta ff strive for quality or is there a need for formal “quality

assurance” (QA) systems to facilitate the journey to perceived high

quality? Some rather negative quotes that may be heard around

business schools include:

Qu al it y as su ran ce is so oo bo ri ng !

I am /w e ar e pe rf ec t – it ’s th e ot he rs th at ar e th e pr ob le m! We have a Quality Department (aka the quality police) for that

QA st uf f so it ’s no t my jo b or re sp on si bi li t y!

Competition and quality management

Business education today is a global industry.e days of relatively

cosy local markets with captive student populations are disappearing

fast as international competition comes to our doorsteps. ere is only

one way to survive in such competitive markets and that is to off er very

high-quality products or programmes.

So what does high quality mean to a business school? Current wisdom

suggests that a business should “delight” its customers so perhaps a business

school should delight its stakeholders.

is can only be done by having a hig h-quality culture or ethos

that pervades all the activities within a school. It has to be a way of

life and not a one-off project for the uality Department or even

for those responsible for accreditations such as E UIS or EPAS.

e development of a quality culture can only come by being led,

promoted, supported and acted out by th e Dean and by his or her

management team.

A key way to do this is to have a formal management system for the

pursuit of excellence and the management of qualit y improvement,

which shoul d lie alongsi de the other management sys tems for research,

teaching and learning, marketing and financial management.

e system should specify standards, set key performance indicators,

have a measurement system for these, require regular reporting, and

be taken seriously as evi denced by management actions such as

celebrating success and taking remedial action in less successful areas.

Of course the concept of achieving high quality is a moving target

and can never be achieved. e management system should be

designed so as to take the schoo l to ever higher levels of qualit y.

e UK uality in Business Education project ( uBE)

e UK is known for having an over-regulated higher-education

system subject to reviews by a plethora of bo dies (see Figure 1).

Internally, universities carry out p eriodic revie ws of departments

including business schools whi le, externally, teaching systems are

assessed by the QAA and research by the Funding Councils. Inaddition, business schools may choose to obtain accreditation from

professional bodies such as the accounting institutes, marketing and

HR institutes, and finally perhaps international accreditation from

EFMD, AMBA or AACSB. Revie w and accreditation overload!

e uBE project was established with government funding

to research issues of quality in business schools and to propose

methodologies for improvement and tools to help make t hose

improvements actually happen. uBE developed an interactive

Road Map (see Figure 2) to help Deans identify where their schools

Business School

HEFEC

Research AssessmentExercise

EPASEuropean/Globalany business and

mgnt possible

EQUISEuropean/GlobalHolistic, coveringall school’s activities

Subject reviewProgrammevalidation andreview

AACSBUS/GlobalProgramme focus butcovering all businessand management in

whole institution

AMBAUK/GlobalMBA and PEMM

ProfessionalUK/Globaleg: CIPD, accw,CMI, BSI etc

UK regulatory quality assurance

International whole school accreditation

Accreditation and quality influences

University

Programme-specificaccreditation

QAA

Institutional auditDATS to 2005

HEA

National Student Survey

Institution

Programme / Module

Review / Evaluate

i i ii i ii i i

i i i i | i

’ i i i i i I i i i i i i i i | ’ |

i iI i i i i |

i i i |

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lay on the quality spect rum and hence to identify tools th at would take

them to the next level of performance. is structure is best seen on the

uBE web: ww w.qube.ac.uk.

EFMD accreditation systems

EFMD off ers four accreditation systems, all of which have the major

objective of helping institutions to improve either across all their activities

or in specific areas.

– E UIS – whole-school assessment against a set of international

standards for the full range of a school’s activities

– EPAS – assessment of one or two specific programmes or sets of

programmes against standards that include those for quality assurance

– CEL – assessment of non-degree programmes off ered primarily

through technolog y enhanced learning

– CLIP – assessment of corporate universities or equivalent

E UIS has not previously set explicit standards for quality assurance

but these are included in the new Standards and Criteria document that

came into force in 2007. EPAS is designed to review QA mechanisms

as shown in t he EPAS Value Chain model (Figure 3) which underpins

all the EPAS Standards and Criteria. Basically, QA mechanisms shouldpervade all the stages of programme design, delivery, outputs and review

but without being too heav y handed. A number of key QA issues arise

in each phase.

Programme design

Programme initiation: A programme will oen be initiated by a faculty

member with a particular interest in the subject area but it is unwise

to let that one person design and run the programme. Apart from

the “falling under a bus” syndrome, programmes b ased on “bees in

bonnets” can oen look peculiar when vie wed from outside and may

not have a real market or may not produce employable graduates.

Programme design process: A wide range of stakeholder vi ews should

be brought into the design process. Stakeholders include faculty

members, potential students (market research), potential employers,

and the parent school and university. A robust process for gathering

those views and debating how they should b e translated into a sound

academic programme probably needs some form of formal programme

committee, which should also be ta sked with overseeing the running

of the programme and its reviews.

Aims and lear ning outcomes: ere should be clearly stated aims and

intended learning outcomes (ILO) for the programme that state who

it is for and what the graduates will know and be able to do at the endof it. ese become the basis for quality assurance of the delivery and

the outputs of the programme. Initiall y they are the basis for the desig n

of the curriculum and a ssessment processes.

Programme approval: Programmes should have to be approved not

only by the programme committee but also further up the organisational

framework. is is to ensure that the programme fits with t he school’s

strategy and programme portfolio, that it is seen to be academically

rigorous, that there is likely to be a market b oth among students and

employers, and that there are sufficient resources to market and run

the programme. In some instituti ons and countries, approvals have

to be obtained at university and state level as well.

Programme changes: Aer periodic review, programmes will need

some form of changes, major or minor, which will usually be undertaken

by the programme comm ittee. However, major changes should al so

be approved at a higher level.

Programme delivery

Student quality:e quality of t he student intake should match the

target market and be able to achieve the ILO for the programme,

which in tur n means t hat they should meet employ ers’ expectations.

Teaching quality: Teaching should be evaluated not only by studentsbut also by some programme management oversight, wh ich may

Current position

Key indicators

Action required

Processes, productsand roles, to reachthe next level

Change management

Building a qualityculture in teachingand learning

1 Unsatisfactory 5 Extraordinary2 3

i i i i

i . .

i i i i

ExcellenceExemplar status

Quality pays for itself

Recognising thequality problem

No systems to measure/manage quality

Highlight currentfailure and opportunitiesfor survival

Set goals, createa quality policy

Define roles andresponsibilities

Identify stakeholdersand understand theirneeds

Convince senior management (e.g. VC, deans). They help

sell to staff colleagues, who try to

engage students and other stakeholders.

Develop teaching andlearning deliverables thatmeet their needs and ours

Benchmark against ourcompetition, updatequality policy as required

Seek out good ideas (e.g.use EQUIS, BMAF subjectcentre, HE Academy)

Share good practice

Manage risk

Benchmark against thebest in the world (e.g. viainternational accreditation)

Foster innovation

Extend the system toaffiliates/suppliers(manage the brand)

Harvest benefits

Celebrate success

Develop a process thatis capable of deliveringthe product sustainably

Use the process to deliverand improve the teachingand learning deliverables

Audit/review (e.g. useAMBA criteria). Incorporatelessons learned

Reward and supportgood practice

Tackling the qualityproblem

Fragmented/ineffectivesystems

Implementing qualitysystem

Quality process inplace. Compliance

Enhancing quality

Quality embedded inthe culture

4Satisfactory

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involve peer observations, sta ff -student forums and individual discussion

with facult y.

Assessment qual ity: While faculty m embers are capable of setting

assessments of an appropriate standard, it is necessary to have some

management oversight to ensure consistency of standards and to either

agree planned overlap or to remove duplication. Furthermore there

should be some oversight of t he marking or grading process to ensure

consistency and fairness.is might mean some random sample second

marking or even, as in the UK, total bl ind double marking and the use

of external examiners.e assessments should test whether the programmeaims and ILO have been achieved.

Programme outputs

Student work quality: A formal QA system for the assessment

process should ensure that the quality of student work is appropriate

to the level of the degree and that the I LO are met.e quality of

projects or theses c an be an issue here. An examination board should

be established to manage the process of decid ing progression from

one degree stage/year to another and for the degree award. is allows

for transparency and can take care of specia l circumstances.

Programme review Annual revie w: All programmes should go through some form of

annual review overseen by the programme committee. is enables

small changes to be made for continual improvement of the programme.

Periodic review: Programmes should also be subject to major review

involving all stakeholders on a periodic basis (say fi ve year s).is will

ensure that the programme stays relevant to t hose stakeholders and

that major changes in t he environment are reflected in the programme

design. Major changes should undergo a high er-level approval process.

Such reviews should also allo w for the fact that the programme may b e

no longer viable or relevant to the stakeholders and should be removed

from the school’s portfolio.

Learning from EPAS reviews

Over the past two years of reviewing 15 programmes, the good

programmes have generally shown the characteristics discussed above.

However, less good and failing programmes demonstrated the reverse

of those characteristics. One generally observed problem area has

been that programmes have been weak in the internationalisation of

the student learning experience.e other problem areas have been

more systemic and could have been resolved by having formal quality

assurance systems. is leads to three main recommendations from

the EPAS learning to date:– Implement a formal QA process

– Establish Programme Committees responsible for the initial design

and operation of the programmes

– Establish a higher-level board to approve the design and any major

changes and to monitor the operations including periodic reviews.

Conclusions

uality systems do not have to be boringly bureaucratic but they do

have to have a degree of formality to be credible and eff ective. However

they should have a light touch (wit h sanctions!).

uality systems have to be promoted and supported by senior

management.

External review and accreditation can identify unpalatable truths

and provide a catalyst for change as well as a lever for acti on.

Working in a bus iness school that i s recognised as of hig h qual ity

is morale boosting and satisfying to all.

i

Institutional, National and International Context

National HE System, regulatory and frameworkEuropean HE Area (Bologna) – when applicable

Institutional context and objectivesProgrammes to be assessed

Teaching faculty, resources and facilities

EPAS Criteria

Quality Assurance Processes

Programme Design

Programmeobjectives

Target market andintended graduateprofile

Marketing andpromotion

Intended learningoutcomes

Programme coverageand content

Delivery modes

Assessment methods

ProgrammeDelivery

Student entry

requirements andselection methods

Pedagogical methods

Quality of pedagogyand learning materials

Personaldevelopment inc.work based learning

Internationalopportunities

Corporate interaction

ProgrammeOutcomes

Assessment output

Graduate quality

Career / jobs

Alumni

Reputation

i

i i

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i i i i i | i || i |

’ i i i i i iI i i i i i i ’ i | i i | I i i |

i i i | ’ | i i

I i i i i | i i i i | i | : i i i i i i i | | i i | i i

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Previously, Ryan, a former US Navy pilo t and Vice Admiral, served for seven years

as president of three diff erent institutions of higher education: the State University of

New York Maritime College; interim president of the University at Albany, a doctoral

institution with 17,000 students where he famously lived in the student dormitory

during his presidency and donated the first three months of his salar y for student

scholarships at Maritime and Albany; and the US Naval Academy in Annapolis.

Ryan graduated from Annapolis in June 1967 with his t win brother Norbert Ryan Jr,

also a former Vice Admiral. He received a Master of Science in Administration from

George Washington University in 1975.

e Center for Creative Leadership was begun in 1970 by H Smith Richardson Sr,

founder of the Vick Chemical Co, and the Smith Richardson Foundation Inc provided

its initial financial underpinning.e Foundation — and several generations of the

Richardson family — have remained generous supporters of CCL’s work, which

aims at promoting leadership through courses and programmes for individuals

and organisations as well as research and publications dedicated to leadership issues.

CCL’s European headquarters is in Brussels under the leadership of Rudi Plettinx.

I think eff ective leadership involves at least three key components: setting direction,

creating alignment and gaining commitment. It’s important that leaders set a direction

and then encourage people to follow in that direction. e best people do it well andothers not so well.

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What people most w ant in a l eader is someone who is authent ic, who they can trust.

People now are educated, intelligent and well read and they see through people who

are maybe not as genuine as they should be. Authentic leaders start with the courage

of their convictions – they’re not holding polls or taking sur veys.ey obviously listen

to people’s views and integrate them but they also have to set the vision and the direction.

ey have to understand what direction their particular organisation needs to go in.

Creative leadership involves people thinking beyond the boundaries that limit individualsand organisations and if you think about that it extends beyond the ty pical skills that

are associated with routine leadership. Business schools teach p eople how to analyse

data, coach employees, run projects and so on but at CCL we try to go beyond that and

teach people to be innovative. And we do that through three elements: assessment,

challenge and support. e unique thing about CCL is t hat we have been doing that

since we were founded in 1970; we have been focussed on it for the l ast 37 years.

People who are involved in global leadership positi ons are today facing greater

complexity in their roles, whether it’s at the mid-level or higher in their organisations.And they need to be able accurately to perceive new situations they face, culturally as

well a s organ isationall y, with the people t hey interact with, and they have to a dapt

their leadership style accordingly.

What we’re tr ying to do wit h Advancing Global Leader ship i s a three-phas e approach.

Every AGL session involves participants in three locations: Brussels, Singapore and

America. Prior to the programme, participants complete a set of assessments and will

work on an assignment with their cross-continent learning partners. Ever yone will leave

with an action plan for add ressing h is or her global leadership chal lenge and wil l have

the opportunity to continue working with a coach to apply what he or she has learned.

We were ver y encoura ged. We’ve just finished our first AGL and there were 40 people

involved globally with about15 in both Brussels and Singapore and it was a great exercise.

We really opened up the eyes and imaginations of people who were managing the tensions

and opportunities between headquarters and local needs.

It’s the t ype of th ing that happens ever y day around the world. What we’re try ing to

do is help m en and women prepare for those kinds of opportunities. You know as well

as I that both in Europe and America, and to a lesser extent in Asia, that whether we

call it right-sizing , down-sizing or up-sizing we have taken away a lot of the mi ddle-

management opportunities in organisations where people could grow and develop

these kind of skills as a leader. And so as we get ready to lose my generation of baby

boomers we have another generation that needs experience that it cannot now get

in the workplace and so we are off ering it through the AGL.

Yes.is is my third career. I was in the militar y, then ten years in academia and now

in a not-for-profit organisation. All of them had many overseas challenges for me.

I would say that leaders today have to be, number one, more self-aware, number two

more culturally aware and number three b e able to learn on t he job, be continuous

learners. And that’s ever-more true in this global societ y we are all part of.

Only the best businesses. Let me put it this way. One of my mentors and heroes was

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Peter Drucker. He used to say that a leader has th ree responsibilities.

First, he or she is responsible for direct results. I don’t think there are

many business people wh o don’t understand that.

Where they fa ll down is in the second t wo things th at Peter always

talked about. He said t hat leaders are responsible for enhancing and

sustaining the culture they are part of. And the third thing, which I

think is becoming more and more important, is what we call talent

management. All of us have to be on the loo k-out for new talent. Andit’s not just about finding the right men and women for your

organisation – it’s about keeping tho se you already have.

We wil l be concentrating on t wo broad areas. Fir st, I t hink we are the

best in the world on individual leadership development. We have some

great programmes and we are going to continue those. e other area

we are moving onto is more cu stomise d progr ammes an d what I woul d

call corporate leadership development.ere I think we will focus onthree broad areas: strategic planning, corporate culture, and talent

management and “sustainment”, a term that encompasses not onl y talent

recruitment and development but also retaining talent for the long term.

We also want to be more international than we are. Las t year we had

21,000 individual leaders we worked with and over 3,000 organisations

in about 120 diff erent countries. But a particular focus for us now is

expanding our operations in Europe and Asia. One of my mandates

from my board of governors is to touch more lives globally. We have

been nominally a global organisation but in my opinion in the past

we have been too focussed on North America and that’s not the way

ahead for us.

I think the military is just another opportunity for leadership – though

it probably comes at an earlier age. I graduated from Annapolis as a pilot

and I was leading 50 people basically as soon as I was out of school. But in

the military you also learn how to be a follower. And I think you are more

sensitive and aware as a leader if you have been a follower – you know

what it’s like to take orders or to have someone else directing the action.

I don’t think militar y leadership is diff erent to business leadership. But when you’re in a combat situati on or y ou are away from your f amily for

six months I think that gives you a diff erent perspective on perseverance

or what real adversity is. But you don’t need to be a military person to be

a great leader; there are plenty of military people who are lousy leaders.

First of all, you have to commit to it. You can’t be a leader if you’re not

going to work at it, practise it. You don’t become a good footbal l player

unless you practise and you don’t become a good leader unless you

practise.e best way to become a leader is to want to do it, to read

about it, look for a mentor or a coach, go to a programme l ike CCL

and then practise those skills. Behaviours are very important in becoming

a leader.

It’s a bit North A merican-centric but to me t wo people stand out.

One is Abraham Lincoln. He was a man who was capable of bringinginto his cabinet people who had absolutely opposed him b efore,

who s aid he wasn’t fit to be President even. I admire him because

he did his homework, he led by example, and he had great character.

en there is a woman who you don’t oen hear talked about as heroic

or a great leader and that’s Eleanor Roosevelt. She was born into a

wealthy family but was orphaned when she was ten and had a terribl e

childhood. She became the person who really started the Civil Rights

movement and the women’s rights movement. She had tremendous

compassion for the poor and she help ed the entire world. She was

chair of the UN committee that dra ed the Universal Declaration

of Human Rights. What I really admire is that she d idn’t take opinionpolls to see what people thought about there, she just did what she

thought was right.

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Previous General Assemblies have been held at INSEAD,

CEIBS and Leeds Metropolitan University/Oasis

School of Human Relations. ese meetings of the

whole community a re arranged twice a y ear and theyare a follow-up and review of all ongoing activ ities,

an introduction of new partners and a start-up of new

actions, an opportunity for the hosts to highlight their

engagement and work on corporate global responsibility

and globally responsible leadership, and a forum where

all partners learn from the hosts and the specific context,

experience and environment they represent.

Aer the two first years of its “Call for Engagement”,

the GRLI community can celebrate being a globally

recognised productive and influential force regardingthe development of global responsibility.

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GRLI achievements so far include:

Advocacy

e GRLI is now recognised as a vanguard group leading change for a globally

responsible society by its fo cus on what we can and must do to develop a generation

of globally responsible leaders.

It has been a catalyst for the recent initiative by the UN Global Compact on Principles

for Responsible Management Education (PRME) (see Box 1) and it is today invited

to and actively partic ipates in major events, conferences and high-level gatheringsaround the world.

It is engaged in developing a reporting system on Global Responsibility for learning

organisations.

Foundation

GRLI has this year stabilised its unique governance structure by creating a foundation.e

foundation secures its independence, transparency and provides clear roles for all partners.

Research platform

GRLI has f rom the start had a focus on concept development. In the “Call for

Engagement” there is a presentation of a new purpose for the corporation. Currently,

work is proce eding regarding the f uture of management educ ation – “Reframing thePurpose of Management Education and Development”.

In parallel, other research initiatives have been taken. e Center for Creative Leadership

(CCL) (see page 22) is, for example, leading a large international project on globall y

responsible leadership. Other clusters within the communit y are planning further

action research.

Publications

e report A Call for Engage ment is available in four languages – English, Chinese,

Spanish and Portuguese – from the website ww w.efmd.org/grli. In relation to this first

report many publications have been produced. Two books stand out: Should Prometheus

be Bound? Corporate Global Responsibility (Palgrave McMillan, 2005) by Philippe de

Woot , and Learni ng fo r Tomorrow. W hole Person Learni ng (Oasis Press, 2007) by

Bryce Taylor. Moreover, many published articles in renowned journals either come

out of or are linked to the GR LI work.

e next major publications will be R eframing the Purpose of Management Education

and Develop ment and Shar ed Ex per iences & Achie veme nts – Tales on GR L.

Momentum

GRLI is steadily growing and receives regular applications for partnership.

Being a unique and leading community of action, it wil l limit its size. e current

number of partners –around 60 – wil l increase to a maximum of 120 in order tomaintain efficiency, eff ectiveness, tightness and the unique format for boosting

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engagement and producing action. Box 2 (right) lists the current partners of the GRLI.

Uniqueness

ree main dimensions characterise the uniqueness of the GRLI

– Its fully global representation and outreach; including diversity of a ll kinds

– Its combination of diff erent organisations – mainly businesses and learning

institutions; it is fundamentally driven by th e challenges and dilemmas

of the business community

– Its entrepreneurial action orientation; think big , act small, start now

We have recently returned f rom an in tensive 2 4-hour workshop with the executive

management of Petrobras in Brazil. GRLI, in collaboration with Petrobras’ partnerFundação Dom Cabral, has started a process where th is important international

company aims at integrating the concept of globally responsible leadership into its

overall management training.

Global responsibility is already a key pil lar in the Petrobras business strategy and José

Sergio Gabrielli de Azevedo, President of Petrobras and Deputy Chairman of the UN

Global Compact, has personally taken the initiative to define the globally responsible

leadership concept in the context of Petrobras and to develop a methodology for new

leadership within the corp orate group.

e next General Assembly will be held in Mumbai, India, where we will be welcomed

by Welingkar Institute of Management Development and Research in April 2008.Our Indian colleague, representing a country where the conditions are ripe for

sustained growth, says: “It’s now time to look up at t he sky and time to fl y! It’s the right

time for the GRLI m ovement to hoist its b anner in the world’s largest democracy”.

e GRLI started wit h a vision of a vibrant g lobal force. It has now become a reality

through the multiple ongoing indi vidual and collective actions on the g round by all

the GRLI partners.

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For 6 years, with the support of the European Commission, the European YoungEntrepreneurs Awards reward the most interesting business projects carried out bystudents or young researchers.

Again this year, a panel of professionals (head of firms, journalists, scientists…), willsingle out the candidates who have demonstrated both imagination and creativity intheir approach, whatever the product or activity. All students can take part in thecompetition, individually or as a team, whether in the framework of their institution

or not.The project can be in conception phase, in-progress or already launched.

Please return the application form at the latest Friday 1st February 2008

NEW THIS YEAR !

So as to help the candidates in the development of their project, thirty Europeanfinalists will be invited to participate free of charge (travel, accommodation) in the 12th

edition of the European Forum for Innovating Young Enterprise (Innovact 2008, 18th and19th March 2008, in Reims - France). There, they will meet 4 000 professionals from20 different countries, as well as 200 European innovating young companies.

The prize winners will receive financial allocations up to 3 000 euros and will benefitfrom an information campaign.

The Awards ceremony will be held in the frame of Innovact on 18th March 2008.

Application form is available on the Internet -

www.letudiant.fr, www.innovact.com or www.lors.fr

Contact - Amandine Bebi, [email protected]

List of prize winners 20061st Prize - CLÉMENT FOREST AND ALEXANDRE HOSTELLER – FRANCE, ECOLE POLYTECHNIQUE, AND CANCER RESEARCH INSTITUTE, STRASBURG.

ECHOGRAPHY SIMULATOR FOR ECHO-GUIDED TREATMENTS.

2nd Prize - SYMONS GERHARD - ENGLAND, CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY. CAMSTENT BUSINESS CREATED FOR THE IMPROVEMENT OF CORONARY ARTERY

"STENTS" THANKS TO A NEW BIO-REPELLENT BIO-POLYMER DESIGNED TO PREVENT THROMBOSES AND SAVE LIVES.

3rd Prize - NICO VELOOP - HOLLAND, EINDHOVEN UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY. VALIDUS PROJECT TO COMBAT COUNTERFEITING OF MEDICINES.

STUDENTS: TAKE PART IN THE

EUROPEAN YOUNG ENTREPRENEURS AWARDS

INNOVACT 2008

C a l l f o r

c a n d i d a t e s

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Here, the availability of entrepreneurs to bring these capabilities together

is of the utmost import ance.erefore, the efficiency of the market in

solving allocation problems is obviously tied to individuals’ capabilities.

e challenge is the development of a consultative relationship between

universities, research institutions and industry.is means co-operation

between education and training institutions, on one hand, and engineers

and production managers on the other, leading to an increase in thestock of entrepreneurial knowledge.

is further creates the need for the development of institutions that will

be able to stimulate continuous consultative relationship between buyers

and sellers as well as institutions producing entrepreneurial knowledge.

Examples of such infrastructure are op en networks, clusters, business

and university incubators, centres of excellence, technology parks,

and networks of venture capital, experimental laboratories and the

like. e innovation process is interactive and complex. Technological

advance is not a linear process of independent research activities.

Recognising the importance of entrepreneurship as one of the concretemeasures for strengthening European competitiveness and thus the

potential for growth, indicates that the view that entrepreneurship does

matter to the improvement of the human condition has come of age.

Even mainstream economists are finally realising that it is absurd to talk

about economic growth and not pay any attention to the people and

institutions most responsible for growth: entrepreneurs.

However, mainstream economics has contributed very little to the

understanding and explanation of the role of entrepreneurship in

growth. It is a paradox that t he academic study of entrepreneurship

has not been developing mainly within the field of economics butby scholars in the fields of business and management and lately

also in engineering and social science.

e prescriptions of mainstream economists for government

intervention in order to facilitate growth have almost completely

overlooked the role of entrepreneurs in this process and have therefore

not considered any policy instruments to foster entrepreneurship.

As Stiglitz has noted in his book Wither Socialism? the best that

countries can do is to experiment with various pol icy solutions and

try to learn from best practices in other countries, though in diff erent

countries this may be achieved under diff erent institutions and systems.erefore, the appropriate process of finding the optimal policies for

maximum growth and entrepreneurial society is not to waste time

on formal economic models of entrepreneurship and growth but

to set up institutional conditions for polic y experimentation.

Policy makers, even if they are highly trained economists, are not actually

relying on economic growth models but are looking at the positive

experiences of high-growth countries and are trying to

adapt such experiences to their particular

circumstances.

One of the recent studies commissioned by the European Commission

gives examples of polici es that were instrumental in bringing the

competitiveness of certain regions within countries to a level hig her

than the overall competitiveness of a countr y and to a higher level

than the overall competitiveness of the EU.

e evidence suggests that the role of public policy has been subtle but

critical for achieving fast growth and superior competitiveness. Examplesof such regions are Oberbayern and Darmstadt, Germany; Eterea Ellada,

Greece; Ile de France, France; and Niederoesterreich, Austria.

e policies provided infrastructure that supported business innovation

and thus competitiveness and growth. is enabled firms to become

successfully integrated into a global competit ive environment and

to be better equipped for harnessing human knowledge.

e key factors promoted by the polic y can be grouped into the

following categories:

– Development of modern physical and telecommunication

infrastructure– Development of dynamic entrepreneurship and strong

entrepreneurial culture (a high level of firm creation)

– Development of infrastructure supporting and stimulating a

consultative relationship between universities, research institutions and

industry and technology transfer in medium-sized and large companies

– Development of an excellent research and higher-education

institutional base, with emphasis on industrial coll aboration

(with well-organised networks, especially science-based ones,

clusters in bio-technology, electronics and engineering, sci ence

research institutes, agencies and institutions supporting innovation)– Supporting the internationalisation of firms – opening up regions

to competition across the single EU market, removing barriers

to trade and entrepreneurship.

Because eff ective public policies stimulating competitiveness and growth

combine knowledge from many diff erent areas such as engineering,

economics, sciences, law and so on in a pragmatic way, their eff ectiveness

depends on a culture of trust.

Public policy cannot be developed in the absence of strong public-

private partnership, which in turn cannot be developed without a

culture of trust. Knowledge is most eff ectively used in a trustingenvironment. For example, clusters and networks could not flourish

in a non-trusting environment. Trust is needed between partners,

between employers and employees, between b oards and shareholders,

and between state and citizens.

Trust, as Jorma Oll ila, Chairman of the Board of Royal Dutch Shell

and Chairman of the Board of Nokia Corporation, said at the

Innovation Lecture 2006 held in e Hague is “...

a mother of entrepreneurship

and a father of

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Richard Florida 2 instead opposed the notion of “spikiness” to the assumed flatness

of the world, suggesting that there were geographical points of concentration

such as centres of innovation, of skills, patent filings and of energy consumption.

In short, he argues that location still matters.

ese two diff erent lenses for looking at our world and making sense of it as far as

scenarios for economic and social development are concerned are both importantand valuable.

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Yet I believe there is an additional p erspective that we

should not ignore. e idea of “openness” is emerging

as a dominant attribute of key developments in our

economic and social f abric. We talk about open

societies, open innovation, op en standards, open

ecosystems, open source and op en architectures –

all using more or less consciously the foundationalthinking from 20th century systems theor y.

It was the biologist Ludwig von Bertalanff y 3, one

of the most acute minds of the 20th centur y, who

established the foundations for a General Systems

eory showing t he importance of a “systems view”

and giving us a vocabulary and the scientific

foundations for dealing with systems.

We look at increasingly complex interrelationships

between connected elements in systems at diff erent

levels. e traditional logic focusing on cause and eff ectis insufficient to deal with today’s systemic issues – be

they in human, electronic, ecological or biological systems.

We tal k abou t systems all the t ime bu t how much d o

we use von Ber talanff y’s thinking? When we talk about

closed systems we should remember that they are

isolated from the environment (organisation-wise

we tal k abou t bureaucracy and “silos”) a nd are subject

to the law of entropy or decay.

Open systems, by contrast, receive inputs from their

environment, work with those inputs and return themto the environment in modified form as outputs.

Closed systems are in a way “machine-like” and open

systems “living-organism-like” with significant

elements of self-organisation.

Open and closed world views

Our world was dominated in the second half

of the 20th century by the dichotomy between

communism and capitalism. While the world has

“opened up” with the advance of globalisation

and global integration during recent decades, we see even within o ur western societies t he ri

between open and closed philosophies and

concepts enduring and in some cases even widening.

Openness is associated with values such as tolerance,

individual freedom, lifelong learning, participation,

empowerment and co-operation as opposed to

typical c losed-world values of command and

control, top-down management, centralised and

bureaucratic governance, over-regulation and

collectivist dominance over individual freedom.

In today’s world of b usiness we experience every day

what openness means and what benefits it brings to

bear. Monopolies or near-monopolies are examples

of the closed world as are traditional hi erarchies with

their burgeoning bureaucracies and disconnected silos

as typical manifestations.

Democratic values in business

Hence openness seems to be tied to fundamental

democratic values. Closed social systems remind us very

much of the time of the Iron Curtain….and of old-style

autocratic enterprise governance.e “rediscovery” of

democratic values and their power in business is reflected

in recent business literature such as Democratizing

Innovation (von Hippel)4,e Wisdom of Crowds

(Surowiecki)5 and showed up in a new report of

the Arthur W Pages society in the context of

democratising channels of communications.

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Yet the way openness and democratic values show up

in management literature and research reminds us

not so much of the “voting democrac y” but rather as

vibran t, part icipative d emocr acy co mbined with a dose

of horizontal meritocracy – you earn your voice and

your space in the comm unity based on your experi ence

and contribution to the common good. Al so, openenvironments are a fertile breeding ground for broad-

based innovation.

ese ideas and values are not new – why are they

now getting new l ife? Human kind has equipped

itself during the last 15 years with a new electronic

infrastructure that can potentially connect ever yone

to everyone else and therefore has a limitless potential

to create new social systems at all levels. is

infrastructure for communication and interaction

has become extremely robust and is increasingly “highperforming” (thanks to broadband). We see explosive

growth of new interactive capabiliti es and usage.

e rise of social net working sites, virtual worlds,

blogs, wikis and 3D Internet give us a first idea of the

potential of the “interactive and collaborative web”

dubbed Web 2.0. Now we h ave the infrastructure and

tools to operate in new ways in open systems. While

many of the thoughts about openness and the need for

more open social systems have been around for some

time, this new infrastructure and new tools acceleratethe movement. Hence technology contributes and

enables us increasingly to give life to many of the values

we have been as piring to.

e big technology cycles

Carlota Perez6 , a Venezuelan scholar and expert on

technology and socio-economic development, has

demonstrated the recurrence of typic al phases in the

fi ve major technolog y cycles starting with the Industrial

Revolution of the 19th centur y. She argues that these

cycles have a duration of approximately 50 years.eystart with the eruption of a new technology, followed

by period of frenzy (“Gold Rush”) that leads straight

into a bubble.

efi ve cycles to date have in common a new technology

leading to a paradigm shi that fundamentally impacts

the way we see the world, how we live, how we organise

our societies and our enterprises, how we work and so on.

Perez talks about an installation phase and a deployment

phase following the bubble t hat in turn leads into

something good – a “Golden Age” that finally reaps

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the benefit of the new technology, spawning a huge wave of innovation.

Perez has demonstrated that digital technology is now reaching

the phase of “deployment”. e benefits, which are potentially huge,

are starting to show. While all the major c ycles have shown a similar

pattern, there is no doubt that they also have diff erent characteristics.

Even though there is now a great opportunity for innovation and

value creation there is no reason to be complacent about this – the world

is more turbulent than ever, the systemic interdependencies may showin positive and negative ways – just take for example today’s financial

markets.e speed of change is putting enormous pressure on all actors.

Yet a maturing and standardising open technology infrastructure

provides an unheard of potential for innovation in products, services,

business models and even at the societal level. With services taking the

lions share of value creation in our advanced economies (between 70%

and 80 % of GNP and employment) a transformation of our economic

activity is in prog ress, which requires not only a new enabling fabric

but a diff erent set of skills and comp etencies than were required

in the industrial economy.Impact on business

e new technology capabilities enable new organisational and

operational models. e corporation is shiing from a hierarchical,

monolithic, “multinational” model to one that is horizontal, networked

and globally integrated.

Because the operations and responsibilities of organisations can now

be componentised, “virtualised” and distr ibuted over an ecosystem

of business relationships, work can be located wherever it makes most

sense, driven by the imperatives of economics, expertise and open

business conditions. is creates new challenges for companies tomanage their identities and reputations.

In this environment companies can no longer g uarantee life-long

employment.e social contract between employee and employer

has changed in a highly competit ive and fluid open world. But, equally,

new employees may not wish to be locked into a long-term employment

relationship. In order to attract and retain key talent companies must

contribute to equipping their employees for this new open and global

environment.

Empowerment of employees and users

At the same time, employees are getting more autonomous.e riseof the knowledge worker poses new challenges to HR. e balance

between the need to regulate and manage professionals’ activities and

their need for autonomy is difficult to achieve.

Talented professionals with knowledge enjoy a technical superiority and

relative independence vis-à-vis the organisation.ey tend to relate more

to their peer-communities and professional associations than to the firm.

What they need most is interest in the job, challenge, fun and freedom.

e new generation entering the workplace (Generation “Y ”

or Millennials) perfectly reflects these new “open” attitudes.

Open innovation taking centre stage With regard to new Web 2.0-enabled ca pabil ities for empl oyees,

business partners and users to get involved with companies in new

ways, innovation its elf is changing fu ndamenta lly. Innovat ion is

becoming a more open process – “open innovation” has become

a catch-phrase with a lot of reality behind it.

Power is shiing to users, who can make themselves heard when

they have concerns but who are also increasingly contributing tothe innovation value chain to the point of becoming the innovators

themselves. Innovation is moving from company-controlled labs into

open space. “Living Labs” are becoming a strong movement in Europe

to provide an environment for open innovation and services creation.

A European Network of Liv ing Labs w as announced under the

Finnish EU Presidency in 2006 7.

Towards a “perfect storm”?

An open world is a world of great opportunity and challenge. It requires

changes in our individual behaviours and attitudes and it demands

major institutional adjustments. Business and academia will haveto find much better synerg y to face the challenges of tomorrow’s

world. Best academic thinking and best enterp rise practice are

required to develop the “perfect storm” towards an open wo rld.

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7/21/2019 Volume 02 _ Issue 01 2008


Employee questionnaires may be useful as a preliminary gauge of

attitudes prevalent in your workplace but they are unlikely to give you

a detailed picture on which to base your acti ons. How then to gauge

the “real” feelings out t here?

As a culture change programme progresses, a range of diff erent behaviour

patterns begin to emerge. Many of these, however, are not visible o n

the surface. What are these responses, why do these diff erences occur,

and how can you recognise th em?

e players

Players can be mapped using two key dimensions (see Figure 1, right).

By committed I am referring to the commitment of an individual to the success

of the organisation.e term critical refers to an individual’s willingness

to ask searching questions (these may be either positive or negative).

Using these dimensions, my research has uncovered six key groups (see

Figure 2, overleaf). I first discovered these when undertaking an in-depth

cultural study of a major global organisation. Since then, I have found

these players in all of the many other organisations I have studied.

ese roles are not fixed; they can shi. Indeed, the good news is that

you ca n influence how they change through strong and focussed

leadership strategies. Your skill in doing so is the key to any change

programme’s success.

e Evangelists

Evangelists are common in many organisations. You can recognise them

by their intense loyalty and their tendency to take all corporate messages

at face value.ey are highly committed, but deeply uncritical – andalways very keen to adopt and implement any new initiative that comes

their way.eir expectations of their leaders are very high, and they are

unquestioning in their followership.e Evangelists would not dream of

questioning their leaders’ judgment, but nor would they feel comfortable

asking probing questions to clarify their understanding. is group are

content to follow.

You might then be lured into thinking that the Evangelists are an easy

group to lead and pose little trouble. But beware. e Evangelists can

seriously impede your judgement.

Evangelists will tell you what you want to hear and it is ver y temptingto believe that your cultural change initiative is taking root much more

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quickly than it is in reality. Because of their, oen unrealistic,

expectations both of their leaders and of the pace of c hange, they can be

easily disappointed if you are unable to live up to their hopes or if they see

that you are a er all fallible.

e Actors

Equally uncritical, but much less committed than th e Evangelists, thisgroup might not be easily distinguished from them at first glance. Both

groups will lead you to believe that they have fully accepted the “company

line” and bought into your v ision. However, although the Actors may

act identically to the Evangelists, they feel very diff erently. Actors are

chameleons with well-developed thespian skills. ey want you

to believe that they have bought into the corporate message

because they fear that to dissent would bring reprisals.

Actors are very prevalent in “fear” cultures but much

rarer in cultures where challenge is encouraged.

Actors appear to change their allegiance to newideas very easily. ey do not engage very much or

identify very strongly with the organisation. eir

true feelings when exposed, however, are usually

of deep scepticism or detachment. is is a group

that is hard to detect, because they cover their true

feelings so successfully. You wil l, however, find that

they occasionally drop their guard with trusted

colleagues or in social situations.

Many Actors have revealed to me during my research that

they adopt this tactic as a result of a fear of losing their jobs if they

do not appear to conform.ey can be influenced but the danger is that theymay capitulate and become “evangelistic” in their behaviour. If you find that

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you have a large number of Actors in your organisation, you should start by asking yourself

why people feel that they cannot voice their honest opinions.

e Untouched Professionalse Untouched Professionals are usually law yers, accountants, research scientists

or indeed any professional whose loyalty lies with their profession rather than their

employer. ey oen have high market value and view the organisation as a place that

hosts them in pursuing their profession. ey feel untouched by programmes that sell

values, visions and missions , since t heir own val ues and v isions are deeply emb edded

in their professional identities.

Committed to their roles, but much less to their employer, this group is unlikely to

engage with the programme, remaining ambivalent and showing only a pol ite passing

interest in the changes you are introducing.

In other words, they can see the merit of cultural change but a s professionals they do

not think that it applies to them. ey expect their leaders not to bother th em with it

and if asked to attend associated events will assume it is for appearances only.e problem

they pose is the potentially negative impact of their ambivalence on those around them.

e Criticalinkers

An important group for the success of any change programme – and a crucial

sounding board for any leader to test their ideas and judgment on – the Critical

inkers are critical, questioning, but also hig hly committed. is means that

their ability to be critical is likely to be constructively focussed.

ese are the members of your organisation who think most deeply.ey

are not afraid to ask awkward questions. You can trust t hese people bec ause

they will tell you honestly what they feel and because they reall y do want what’s best for the organis ation. Critical inkers are loyal but if they feel

that you are making a mistake they will tell you, while remaining constructive

about how to put it right.

Not surprisingly, organisations rarely have enough Criticalinkers. You may

not always recognise their value, of course, as they can be demanding and

challenging, and even question your judgement at times. But this may be an

important safeguard. If you do not have any Critical inkers in your team you

are totally dependent on your own judgement.

e Sceptics

is is usually a large group. ese people will be found “sitting on the fence” in theearly stages of any change programme.ey tend to observe and watch their colleagues

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and superiors very carefully before deciding whether to accept or reject

any new initiative. ey do not have strong feelings or beliefs of their

own, and are the most easily led of the players.

e Sceptics oen become Actors if put under pressure (or if their

scepticism is driven underground by authoritarian leadership) and if

you do not pay attention can be easi ly influenced by any negative views

around them to undermine cultural change. On the other hand, with

consistent positive leadership, reinforced by positive role modell ing,

they can be persuaded to support their leaders’ endeavours.

e Sceptics are an imp ortant group for leaders to pay attention to,

particularly in the early stag es of cultural change. Stronger employees

with more vo cal opinions will have a bi g influence on the Sceptics.

e Open Cynics

e Open Cynics are both critical and uncommitted. Organisations rarely

contain many of these, since openly cynical behaviour is known to be “career

limiting” in most arenas.

So who are these people?ese are strong individuals with strong personal

agendas.ey have oen come to believe themselves to be untouchable,

sometimes possessing a skill or expertise that the organisation cannot do

witho ut. Or t hey may somet imes be so near to retirement that they no

longer fear reprisals for speaking their mind.

is group, for various reasons, know that th ey are untouchable. Unlike

the Criticalinkers, their loyalty is to themselves and so they set

themselves up as self-proclaimed rebels – oen saying what others donot dare. ey are very oen attention seeking – their motivation is to

be heard and recognised.

ey can be damaging to a change agenda, as they can be a strong influence

on Sceptics. On the other hand, if c arefully managed, they are a useful

group for any leader seeking to understand the concerns around the

organisation.ey oen speak with passion and hold strong beliefs and

so it is worth giving them discussion time. If they do “convert” to your

perspective they will be staunch allies and their conversion will send out

an extremely powerful message to the less vocal and less visible Sceptics.

Having acknowledged that not everybody in your organisation hasresponded to change in the same way, what can you do about it, and how

can you ensure that you engage with and motivate each group in the way

that you lead the change process and beyond?

My research has shown that these responses are not static and can shi – sometimes slowly though oen dramatically– so it is cruci al that you

keep a close eye on the movements of th ese behavioural patterns in

response to your leadership. If you are not in touch with these patterns, you

will not be able to take the appropriate actions to steer your programme.

If you lose touch with the feelings of th e people you will b e in danger

of allowing their responses to shi in directions that will b e counter-

productive to sustaining the change process.

One of the most successful strategies for influencing groups of managers

to shi in the d irection you need is to enhance their self-awareness by

showing them Figure 2 and asking them to tr y to categorise their own

teams. Prompted by the model, most managers c annot resist reflecting

on themselves and their own response to change before going on to

reflect on others. By providing a language for addressing this emotive

topic, the model has frequently prompted some ver y valuable group

discussions, oen within senior management teams.

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e business world is changing at a rate that would have been unimaginable

in the past. Rapid advancements in technolog y, changes in customer

behaviour and higher expectations from financial investors are placingtremendous and oen paradoxical demands on the top management

of corporations.

Dealing with such change forces us, as business leaders, to modif y the

way we organis e and operate al l the time. Our role in the 21st centur y

is to take advantage of our continuously changing world. If we do that

we can t hen thr ive in amazing new ways.

In today’s hypercompetitive environment our customers want our products

and services:

Free (at the lowest po ssible price)Perfect (with no defects and no chance of returns)

Now (with immediate delivery)

Although cheaper is not alw ays better, faster always is. I believe that we

all need to accelerate in order to take advantage o f this faster-moving

world. Every aspect of our business and all connected organis ations,

suppliers and clients, operate and change in real time. Targets for success

also keep changing.

In other words, whatever we did that made us successful in the recent

past will most probably not be enough to make us successful tomorrow.

We shou ld not condition ou r vie w of tomorrow by what we do today.

We all understand that our market value depends on our abilit y to create

more value for our customers all the time. I am sure that this also applies

to every business school.

e explosion of the Internet means that customers are more informed

and more demanding. In my company, S&B Industrial Minerals, we try

to connect on-line with most clients and some key suppliers. We all need

to collect and process more information on our customers and identify

areas to improve th e level of customer satisfaction. We are developing

a coherent customer-support system that will also facilitate all

transactions from order processing, billing and collection.

Consider the following thoughts. e diff erence between products

and services blurs. In other words, at least in my business, every off er

we make has both a tangible and an intangible eco nomic value fo r

our customers. What is worth noting is that the intangible part of

every off er a customer receives nowadays is becoming mo re important

or just as important as the tangible part, the product itself.

In the digital world, says Nicholas Negreponte, “one size fits all” will

be unheard of. Customisation is the trend and we have to find a way to

further customise the off ers we make to every cl ient, addressing their

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specific intangible and tangible needs. Customisation is al so a way to

reinforce my company’s strategy, as stated in our mission to be in the

specialties and not in the commodit ies business.

e term “customer service” is probably the most shop-worn phrase

of the 1990s. Everybody in business today is committed to delivering good

service and this makes it more difficult to diff erentiate ourselves from our

competitors. Every shareholder, banker and investor understands that thefuture of every business depends primarily on quality of management.

uality of management means qualit y of decisions and efficiency

of implementation. is is where business schools start to play a ver y

important role.

Admission decisions should take into account patterns of accomplishment

beyond academic ability that might indicate the potential for success in

business. Management and leadership ability are qualities that admission

officers should value. Success is almost inevitable if the selection process

does not compromise on quality of admissions. Every school can then

teach good analytical skills. Obviously the chances of better-quality

decisions increase if character and skills are coupled with experience.

Employers continue to value the core ski lls and competences that

an MBA course confers upon f uture corporate executives.e

set of formal techniques to appraise investments, analyse financial

statements, understand product costs, segment a market or develop

a personnel evaluation system remain essential tools for every

manager. Nevertheless, these skills – imp ortant though they are —

are increasingly seen as only the tip of what is exp ected of an MBA.

Beyond the toolbox of techniques, an MBA programme should develop

so behavioural skills that are becoming more decisive in the quality of

implementation of any decision. Most failures have to do with the poor

implementation or lack thereof of what appeared on paper as a good

decision.is is why all good business schools emphasise the need for

team work and the development of emotional intelligence. A manager

also needs good communication and leadership skills a s he or she bydefinition cannot do the job alone but has to manage a team of people.

I understand and I am comfortable with the vision shared by most

EFMD members, reflected in the nature of their MBA programmes:

– European in inspiration; global in scope

– Diversity as a source of richness

– Business has a tremendous opportunity to shape a better world

Each element of this compelling visi on is also expressed in the value-

creating attributes that corporate executives now develop.

European in inspiration; global in scope Without a global p erspect ive, neither corporate executives, no r the

firms they help to build, can sustain competitiveness, even in the short

run. And the global scope of a mo dern MBA should ensure that

students’ mindsets are primed to always consider the worldwide context.

Making an impact beyond domestic borders has long been a hallmark

of EFMD and its E UIS quality a ssessment and accreditation system,

so it is especially appropriate that this v ision continues to inspire

MBAs. We should never undervalue the European inspiration that

underpins this global scope, an inspiration born from democracy and

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plurality, from a respect for both logi c and art, for both thinking and

doing – hal lmarks of Greek culture for 25 centuries. Today’s MBA

programmes should be designed to accelerate the global careers of

executives by teaching them how to manage, source, sell and compete

in multicultural environments around the world.

Diversity as a source of richness

I believe li ke most of you that diversit y is a source of richness. Workingalongside fellow students from a wide range of national, ethnic and

sectoral backgrounds, MBA students learn to appreciate the ric hness

which diversit y of experiences brings. Diverse teams generate enhanced

creativity, a wider variety of problem-solving approaches and usually

better-quality decisions.

riving on the richness of diversity is another of the attributes a modern,

multi-cultural MBA delivers.ere is no one “right mo del” of an MBA,

a business school, or a business corporation. Only by embracing

diversity can the b est, and most innovative, solutions for a given

context emerge to lead the corporation forward.Business has a tremendous opportunity to shape a better world

When I served as President of the Federation of Greek Industries I always

supported the idea that good and responsible business practices will make

our world better for all. erefore I appreciate EFMD leadership in

practical developments focusing on business as a force for good, best

illustrated perhaps through its Globally Responsible Leadership Initiative.

e ever-increasing emphasis which all of us place on corpo rate social

responsibility is also a ke y element of MBA education, which, at its

best, balances the teaching of management skills with the development

of strong personal values and business ethics

MBA students should discover that corporate social responsibility

is a key integrating element of m anagement practice and theor y, thus

emerging as leaders who fully appreciate the potential the y have for

engaging in sustainable socio-economic development.

In conclusion I hope t hat I have reinforced statements that I am sure

you al ready kne w and some of you have put into practice through

variou s activities. Pleas e continue the goo d work raising the st andard

of management education in Europe by setting high standards,

benchmarking and seeking mutual cross-border learning.

This is an edited version of Ulysses Kyriacopoulos’ final address to the 2007

EFMD MBA Confe rence held in At hens in Ap ril 2007.

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Get the website wrong and not only is a large part of the marketing budget

wasted but your reputat ion ma y decl ine quickly a nd international ly.

Websites have beco me ever -more important in ed ucation in recent

years. Studies suggest as many as 7 0% of prospective students f ound

websites useful when de cidin g where to stud y and more than 50%

described websites as their most important source of information

about business schools. (e Business of Branding 2007)

But what makes a great business school website and why is it so important?

ere’s plenty of advice available, from bo th a design and technical

standpoint. Indeed, go on to Google and search for what makes a great

website an d there a re around 80 mill ion responses.

But there’s far less information about w hat specifically makes a great

business school website, hence the Association of Business Schools

in the UK asked CarringtonCrisp to research best practice with regard

to business school websites.

rough 19 interactive focus groups the study, titled WebWorks,

sought the vie ws of 270 prospective students, undergraduates and

postgraduates about 18 business school websites. Each site was

assessed across 40 criteria with ten of these producing an overall

ranking for each site.

e most impor tant thing for any website is its audience. A website is

like any other form of marketing; it’s a communication tool and so what

you are saying and who you want to say it to are of great importance.

e home page of a website is like the most expensive piece of realestate in a city but instead of just putting luxury flats on the site, you

need to build mixed use, appealing to a variety of diff erent audiences,

and still turn a profit.

A great business school website manages to deliver an appealing mix

of information for diff erent audiences while not falling to the lowest

common denominator and simply producing something bl and and

unappealing. A great site not only works on the home pa ge for

diff erent audiences, but also helps these audiences to quickly reach

the information they want – in most cases that is course details.

e top two sites in the WebWorks study were Bradford University

School of Management (http://www.brad.ac.uk/acad/management/

external/) and Cass Business School (http://w ww.cass.city.ac.uk/).

Although diff erent in style, both sites made it ver y easy for the user to

quickly reach the information they wanted from the site home page.

One of the most important findings across the study was the

preference among website users to search sites rather than use

navigation.

Each site tends to use slightly diff erent language to describe similar

courses. Rather than learn a new language on each site th ey visit or

spend time working through navigation, users indicated that they

search for phrases they understand and then work from the search

results. A site that provides easy access from the home page to key

course information will be b etter received than a potential competitor

that has complex navigation and makes poor use of the home page.

A poor home pa ge can be characterised in many ways – cluttered

layout, lack of a search engine, weak identity – but th ere was one item

that almost all study part icipants agreed on: don’t put the Dean on

the home page. O f course it’s important to welcome new visitors to

a website, especially prospective students, but the home page isn’t thebest place.

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A link to a welcome message can be usef ul but the face of the Dean adds little to the

impact of the home page, g iving no reasons for a site visitor to dig deeper into the site.

e key is creating “stickiness” – reasons for a visitor to stay with a site, explore the depth

of the site and to attract the visitor to turn a virtual relationship into a physical link.

Stickiness is key given the extent of information on the web about business education.

A search on Google for the term “MBA” will return over six million possibi lities. Not

all of these will be about business education; a recent search for “MBA” produced onthe first page of results links to the Mortgage Bankers Association and the Mountain

Bothies Association. (“Bothies” are small huts in the Highlands of S cotland where

walke rs can take ref uge.)

A potential student knows that i f they link to a site on the web and it doesn’t capture

their attention then there are many more schools to consider just a couple of clicks

away. Some studies have suggested that site users c an click away wit hin four seconds

of landing on a pa ge if the y can’t find what they are lo oking for.

e main reason for pursuing a business education is career enhancement. More than

50% of undergraduates frequently state that they study business to get a better career,

whil e among masters students the drive is more explicit, w ith over 80% su ggest ingthat their motivation is based around improved earnings potential.

Despite the acknowledged career motivation of many students, some schools hide

away behind password protection the very information t hat those visiting their site

want to know ab out – career ser vices and alumni.

Career aspects of a website can provide details of which employers come to c ampus,

destination statistics for recent graduates and information on how a school helps its

students with their career search. An alumni section can bring careers to life, providing

real examples of graduates and what they have gone on to do post-graduation.

One of the best alumni examples in the study w as at Leeds University - http://

lubsww w.leeds.ac.uk/alumni/index.php?id=354 (their alumni pa ges were rankednumber one in the study). e alumni pages provide list s of students who have set up

their own businesses and then ha s links to the websites of these businesses. One

enterprising graduate has set up a ski holi day business in Japan (w ww.WeLoveSnow.

com) and on the webcam on his site the snow could be seen falling in Japan.

If a school puts enterprise and internationalism at the heart of its branding, there can

be few better examples of this than such an a lumni display.ere is the added benefit

that this is ver y real and doesn’t suff er the slightly cynical view that some prospective

students take of case studies on websites, suspecting they have been written by

a marketing copywriter with a graduate name and picture added a erwards.

Information on careers can be similarly powerful thoug h it can also cause confusion.A search for careers on one site in the study threw up the first result all about the

career research of an academic into the sex life of crustaceans.

Accuracy is vital, particularly when it comes to news and fees. Out of date news that

hasn’t been refreshed for six months will quickly suggest to a site visitor that there

is little going on at the scho ol and what is happening cannot be of much interest.

Similarly, fee details for last year will provide a reason for a prospective student to

either discount a school or move on to another site bec ause they are unable to make

an accurate comparison across a number of school s.

Another aspect of news is press relations and websites can be an important tool

to help build contacts with the media. Oen a press office has only a small sta ff and if they are unavailable an opportunity to place a stor y could be missed.

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ere were several questions on my mind: Why were we all joiningthis rush to be more international? Will the total global market for our

services continue to grow? Will we eat into each other’s competitive

space and margins? How will our industry look in 25 years time?

In 2005 the steering committee charged with designing the Annual

EFMD Executive Education Conference had decided to undertake a

survey to map the D NA of the membership in Europe. When I joined

the committee later that year I volunteered to take on the co-ordination

of this survey. Having recently entered the world of executive education

I felt this would further my own knowledge of the sector.

I also wanted to build on the first survey by making it m ore user-friendly and of more value to members. I saw the oppo rtunity to

produce a survey that stimulated members to reflect on the key strategic

challenges they faced.

At the 2006 and 2007 conferences I presented the survey findings and

was able to start to identi fy trends. is year we also carried out li ve

market research in the conference room to validate t he findings of the

survey. I have been impressed by the degree of openness among delegates

and their preparedness to discuss and share their key strategic challenges.

I will return to those questions but first let me share the key findingsfrom three years of this survey.

Size, status and services

A wide diversity of organisations participated in the 2007 survey. In

terms of size, 20% had revenue from executive education of less than

€500,000 and less than 500 total participants. At the other end of the

scale, nearly one-fih of the 61 organisations that participated had a

turnover from executive education activities in excess of €15 million,

derived from more than 5,000 participants.

e ownership and governance of diff erent institutions also varied

considerably. Nearly half were integrated within a university, whereas28% were independent private schools.

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ere also existed a very wide d iversity in the relative

proportion of chosen delivery channels, with some

organisations focussing largely on open-enrolment

programmes and others dedicated to customised

programmes.

Becoming more international is a common

aspiration

e questions designed to gain information about

institutions’ international scope and aspirationsproduced some interesting results. Over half derived

less than 10% of their income from outside their

home country (over two-thirds less than 20%).

However, 85% expected the percentage of activity

from outside their home countr y to increase over

the next three years. ere was thus a picture of

a largely domestically focussed group with a high

aspiration to play on a wider stage.

Partners wanted

We continue to se e an increase in partne rships withother academic institutio ns. Two-thirds reported being

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in formal partnerships with other institutions, one claiming to have more

than 20 such arrangements. An impressive 95% of organisations expected

their partnership activit y to increase during the next three years.

One question we failed to ask was whether t hese partnerships had

generated real added value, that is that their b enefit exceeded the time

and eff ort invested in making them work. We had discussed this very

subject at the Executive Education Conference in Cape Town in 2003

and heard plenty of evidence to suggest that getting a real commercial

return on partnerships continues to be a c hallenge.

A myriad of approaches to supplying services

Consultancy continues to be an important activit y in a small number

of organisations but stil l represents less than 10% of income in 84%

of those surveyed.

e expertise areas that are most prevalent in our European schools

continue to be leadership and strategy, both of which are present in

around 90% of cases.

ose that have formal alumni programmes (43%) are making more

use of them, with over 90% now reporting the holding of regularalumni meetings and 78% facilitating their alumni’s access through

a website portal.

e trend towards the establishment of separate e-learning facilities

appears to have flattened out at around 40% of institutions.

Private consulting – friend or foe?

One of the mo st emotive subjects raised at recent conferences has

been private consulting by facult y. A large percentage (78%) of

organisations reported allowing private consulting, in over half the

cases more than 30 days per year. When we discussed this in Marseille

there was a distinct polarisation bet ween institutions who felt thatprivate consulting made a positive contribution to keeping their

faculty refreshed and commercially aware, whereas others saw the

practice as an unhelpful historical burden, which added further

complexity to the competitive landscape.

New clients for old

e questions on the nature of client relationships produced no major

surprises and most organisations continue to work across both public

and private sectors to varying degrees. e most interesting fact for me

was that in any one year on avera ge 70% of work comes f rom existing

clients and 30% from new clients. is le me thinking about whether we gave sufficient attention to retaining existing clients given that it is

much easier to win further business from them than to w in new clients

in an increasingly challenging marketplace.

Does contract size matter?

ere continues to be a very wide range of contract size in the area

of customised executive education. Eight instituti ons reported a

maximum contract size of less than €250,000, whereas at the other end

of the scale one organisation reported that 65% of its revenue came

from contracts worth more than €1 million. I noted that organisations

took a very diff erent strategic positioning in this respect, some choosing“not to get out of bed” for contracts worth less than €100,000.

I want it cheap and I want it now!

e 2007 survey sho wed an interesting trend in terms of the average

time from programme design to programme deliver y.is has reduced

considerably from previous years, with 28% of organisations now

reporting an average time from design to deliver y of less than three

months.ere is a definite trend toward clients demanding faster

solutions.

e survey also suggested that we are starting to see some resistance to

fee levels. When I tested this in the conference room the great majorityof delegates supported this view. ere has also been a reduction in the

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average number of participants taking part in customised programmes,

with 44% of organisations no w repor ting an average participation level

of less than 20 people.

Mature or ageing?

e trend in open enrolment is also towards a lower number of

participants on programmes. I tested with the conference delegates

whether this was because o f a desire for sma ller programmes or directly

due to a failure to fill programmes.ere appeared to be quite diff erent

views on this iss ue among delegates. Some were convinced that open-enrolment products were slowly dying whereas others saw levels of

demand holding up well in their local markets. Is this now a mature

market with minimal growth or is it ageing into continuous decline?

On reflection

Now to return to my earlier reflections.e rush towards internationalisation

is a natural response to the changing needs of our increasingly global

customers. It is also a sensible strategic direction given the relative

undersupply of executive education in the emerging economies.

However, such an approach is not necessarily right for al l, especially

those institutions of modest size with limited resources. Adoptinga niche position, whether in terms of geographic scope or product

off ering, can be a key diff erentiator in a crowded marketplace.

e competitive landscape continues to change at a fast pace, with

new entrants easily able to leapfrog the modest b arriers to entry. It is

scary that many have relatively few fixed costs compared to traditional

business schools. Is there room for everyone to sur vive and thrive?

I doubt it. Will th e industry need to rationalise and restructure?

I predict that it will.

When EF MD car ries o ut the 25th iteration of this sur vey – in 2029 by

my calculation – you should expect the world of executive educationto look quite diff erent. e only constant factor will be “change”.

I will leave readers to reflect on the strategic implications of the survey

for their organisation and for them personally. I hope that you find the

results of this survey enlig htening or at the very least cause for you to

pause for thought.

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us it was that in the early years of this millennium the European

Union decided that it wanted to halt – and then reverse – the loss

of biodiversit y by 2010 while at the same time ma king Europe

the most entrepreneurial and innovative region in the world.

ese two aspirations were respectively enshrined in the Gothenburg Declaration

and the Lisbon Agenda. At the time, business growth and environmental sensitivity

were perceived to be unl ikel y bedfellows; but as these respective a gendas have pl ayed

out what at first appeared to be probable ground for conflict instead turned out

to be a potentially fertile so urce of a whole new range of business opportunitiesas well as suggesting new g rassroots models of corporate good c itizenship.

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One recent EU project – Probioprise – brought together business and environment

experts from the networks of the EFMD, Fauna and Flora International, and the European

Bureau for Conservation and Development to explore t he extent to which Europeansmall and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) could help deliver the Gothenburg and

Lisbon promises simultaneously.

e acronym Probioprise stands for pro-b iodiversity enter pr is e . But what exactly is

a pro-biodiversity SME? is, of course, was the first question the Probioprise team

asked itself. e formal answer was that “a pro-biodiversity SME is one which is

dependent on biodiversity for it s core business and contributes to biodiversity

conservation t hrough that core business”.

But beyond that dry definition a more interesting answer emerges through lo oking

at the activities of some of the 100-plus organisations that participated in the project.

ese ranged from land-reclamation schemes, through high-tech takes on traditionalindustries such as forestry, to the development of interesting foodstuff s and ecotourism.

Four ‘typical’ enterprises

In a sense, one of the joys of the project was th at there turned out to be no “typical”

firms; but here goes…

– Imobiente is a consulting and landscaping micro-firm based in the Algarve region

of Portugal. Part of its work involves reconstituting landscapes damaged by current

civil engineering projects such as roads and dams. But it also works wit h foresters

and other landowners on much lo nger-term projects designed to mitigate some of

the poor ag ricultural practices that devastated much of Portugal in the early part of

the 20th century. is involves managing the complex interactions of soil structures,micro-organisms and an understanding of the sequence in which plants become

established in reconstituted landscapes.

– Oh! Légumes Oubliés has de veloped a range of businesses on an old family farm on

the outskirts of Bordeaux. As its name implies, it produces a range of heritage vegetables

and processes them in a variet y of ways for sale in France and beyond. On site is an

education complex and shop, which has become a well-known tourist destination

in its own right.

– Koli National Park in eastern Finland, hard up against the Russian bo rder, has for

many years sought to meet its environmental objectives through initiating small-

scale, economically viable p rojects that it then hands on to private-sector SMEs todevelop independently. Over the past 15 or so years this has helped c reate a critical

mass of SMEs in an economicall y underdeveloped part of Finland. Koli calculates

that it has directly or indirectly stimulated the creation of about 250 new firms.

–Nordic Shell is a recent start-up operating in Sweden and Norway. It grew out of an E

U project on the biological management of pollutants. Waste water with high levels of

nitrates stimulates the production of algae when it drains into the sea. e resulting algal

bloom can suff ocate fish and other seafood. Nordic Shell creates mussel beds in positions

where the muss els ca n feed on the a lgae before they bloom. It derives its income b oth

from selling high-quality mussels and from the local authorities onshore, which

would other wise have to red uce the nitrogen content of water discharging into thesea under the conditions of the European Waste Water Directives.

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What these firms have in common is the generation of profitable income streams

through the application of biological knowledge in innovative contexts: the magical

Gothenburg + Lisbon combination.Some outcomes from the project

Since a project focusing on the constraints and opportunities a ff ecting pro-biodiversity

enterprises was novel, the Probioprise project was, of necessity, exploratory in nature.

How many firms that are currently pro-biodiversity, let alone how many might become

so, is unknown.

is meant that robust quantitative studies were difficult to construct. Instead the

team focused on qualitative approaches using expert workshops and case study

writ ing to obtain fewer, but deeper, responses in order to pose key questions for

future, more extensive work. Indeed, one of the key objectives of the study was to

suggest a research agenda that could be explored further by environmentalists andbusiness analysts working together.

One way of summarising this agenda is in terms of three key issues:

– Which enterpr ises should one stud y and seek to engage with?

– What is the role of pro-biodiversity SMEs within the general European policy context?

– And what kinds of polic y-related questions can we now address on the basis

of experience gained through the Probioprise project?

Which enterprises?

A definition of pro-biodiversit y enterprises is obviously important, and by no means

easy, but perhaps less obvious is the appropriate level of analysis. Depending on thesituation, analysis of all SMEs, all S MEs in a sector or all SMEs at a site of part icular

scientific importance might be the choices.

en there is the question of whether one should “preach to the converted” in policy

terms by focussing attention on firms already doing a good job of balancing economic

and environmental outcomes or aim at encouraging the laggards to do better? For

some purposes, other options such as a supply chain analysis might be appropriate.

General EU-level policy considerations

Although the key issue of compatibility between the Lisbon and Gothenburg

agendas, and moving towards their synchronicity and convergence is the most

obvious one, the scope for attention to be g iven to pro-biodiversity enterprises inother contexts is also clear.ankfully, the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) is

now evolving in a way likel y to minimise, and possibly even reverse, previous adverse

impacts on biodiversity: sometimes the loss of biodiversity in the managed landscape

is too easily overlooked.

However, beyond this the study al so raised issues in areas as diverse as regional polic y,

social polic y, education and training, and managed networking. Some policy issues

seem best approached at the EU level and others at the national, regional or m ore

local level.

e study did not address the way in whi ch these polic y levels interact but repeatedly

identified bemused owners of SMEs who could identify conflicts between policyobjectives at diff erent levels.

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For example, a farm diversifying into rural education and tourism by opening an

education centre with a café and shop might find itself subject to new sets of regulations

and incentives relating to health and safety, retailing, educational accreditation, tourismstandards and restrictions on new buildings.

Building towards new research.

Probioprise identified examples of both regulations and incentives being used to pursue

policy in many environmental areas. Moreover, regulation can be a ver y eff ective

inducement to innovation, although the path may not be as predictable.

e Nordic Shell case, for example, showed how the desire to clean up urban waste

water led eventu ally to the formati on of a firm supplying both a biological solution

to the supply of the relevant environmental service and high-quality foodstuff s.is

could never have been predicted by those dra ing the original waste water Directives

in Brussels. Further studies might identify simi lar examples and even patterns thatcould directly influence more eff ective policy making.

One unexpected outcome was the scope for further research from a really d iversified

set of discipl ines, including many represented in European business schools. us the

experience of Nordic Shell raised issues worthy of further study by economists and

finance specialists as well as political scientists. e long time scales over which the

operations of Imobiente take eff ect could engage the attention of economic historians

as well as environmental scientists. Koli and Oh!Légumes Oubliés raised issues of

interest to geographers, tourism scholars and family business specialists among others.

Finally, many firms involved in the Probioprise project try to combine profit making,

delivering social benefits, and conserving/enhancing biodiversit y. Delivering such a“triple bottom line” involves a complex balancing act. Much more needs to be known

about how SMEs c an be created and sustained to do this successfully.

is involves work on the motivation of founders and managers, how they can best

be trained, how such multi-objective firms are best organised, what support

mechanisms are needed and so on. As wit h other issues, the project deliberately raised

many more questions than it could answer. However, further work in this area could

have beneficial spill-over eff ects for other kinds of environmentally oriented firms,

for social enterprise, and for understanding and support for SMEs generally.

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Indeed the EFM D’s E UIS accreditation guidelines strongly urge

institutions to demonstrate the practicality o f their research. And this

advice has led to some universities integrating and dissolving traditional

academic departments and blurring disciplinary boundaries. In addition,

we see a number of interd isciplinar y mana gement j ournals beginning

to flourish – journals that speak to both p ractitioners and academics.

An overview of the research process and its drivers is provided in Figure 1

above. From this we can begin to rethink the process towards some sortof rapprochement.

Figure 1 illustrates the mutually dependent nature of research and

practice that is too oen missing in the academic landscape. We argue

that, to quote Lewin (1945), “nothing is so practical as a good theory”.

Academic research in an applied field such as business should be appl ied .

It should stem from fieldwork and be tested in the field. Its impact should

be measured less by the number of citations in academic journals and more

by the impact it has on practice.e relative impact of primary and secondary

factors in Figure 1 needs to be carefully rethought.

Please, though, allow us one caveat. Let us not confuse practical lessons with the many superficial “best practice” claims found in the practitioner

literature. Best for whom? When? And in what context?ese questions

require posing – and answering – if the theory is indeed “good”.

Mark Twain said: “To ever y complex problem, there’s a simple solution

that doesn’t work”

Let’s treat the complexity of today’s business environment with the

seriousness it deserves. And t his requires serious, boundary-spanning

research that draws from and impacts on business practice. What is missing in the rigou r – relevance debate is jud gment. Aristot le

identified three components to excellence: techne – the cra of the

practical; episteme – the science of knowledge; and phronesi s – the art of

judgment. Busin ess excels at techne – academia at episteme . Sadly, all too

oen, both fail at phronesi s . It is this t hird missing element– judgement

– that is most needed in today’s world.

ACADEMICSTHEORY

PRACTICE

UNIVERSE OF POTENTIALBUSINESS RESEARCHPROBLEMS

Informs(primary)

Informs(primary)

Informs(secondary)

Informs(secondary)

Deductive

Subset of problemsselected for research

Inductive

PRACTITIONERS

Primary impact Secondary impact

Explanatory /Predictive Power

Selectionby top Journals

Research

“That’s interesting” Theoretical fit

Practical fit

“That’s useful”

“That’s logical”

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AIESEC, the world’s largest student organisation with a presence in

over 100 countries, instead argues that practical work experience is

an essential complement to academics. e leadership development

platform for youth that AIESEC runs, called the AIESEC Experience,

off ers practical opportunities to lead a team, project manage and workin an international environment – elements that employers are seeking.

AIESEC has been off ering such experiences to students for over half

a century – it will celebrate its 60th anniversary this year. An estimated

800,000 members have had the opportunity to be part of AIESEC

throughout its history and many AIESEC alumni have gone on to be

heads of state, top CEOs or business executives.

Martin Bean, General Manager – Education Strategy, Products and

Solutions for Microso and an AIESEC alumnus, says he would not be

where he is today without the experience he had in AIESEC. Bean was

President of AIESEC International in 1986-1987 and responsible for

leading a global organisation in his early 20s.

Today AIESEC has over 23,000 members from 1,100 universitiesaround the world and off ers over 5,000 leadership experiences each year

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at the local, national, regional and international level. Divyanshu Nagpal,

21, Manager – Branding and Public Relations of AIESEC in India, sums

up the experience he has enjoyed so far in AIESEC:

“My experience with AIESEC has been extremely enriching, where I haveput my theoretical knowledge into practice. I have played a large part in

carrying out national marketing campaigns in India. I have met top executives

of some of the leading organisations, worked on challenging projects,

travelled to places around the world and have friends from across the globe.”

rough the integrated experience that AIESEC provides, members

not only develop their leadership skills but also cultural sensitivity, team

management and entrepreneurial skills. One of the ess ential components

of the AIESEC Experience is going on an international internship, allowing

members the opportunity to live and work abroad in their field of study.

Internships are facilitated by AI ESEC members, fromfindingorganisations interested in taking international interns, matching them

with qualified students interested in going on exchange as well as

cultural preparation and reception for the intern when they arrive.

“Living and working in another country is one of t he most incredible

learning opportunities I have ever experienced,” says one student who

spent six months working in Turkey on an AIE SEC internship. “e

level of responsibility I was given at the Chamber of Commerce where

I worked was incredible. I learned so much, though the day-to-day

interactions with my co-workers and the local people in Gaziantep is

what taught me the most. Being in a countr y where you do not speak thelanguage is naturally challenging but finding solutions to how to work in

such an environment enhances your creativity, innovation and problem

solving skills. I am sure these experiences will only benefit me in my

future career.”

Sampreeth Reddy, President of AIES EC in India, ag rees that theexperience he is gaining in AIESEC is very worthwhile in terms of his

future career.

At only 22, Mr Reddy is currently h andling a team of 14 memb ers at

the national office and overseeing the activities of 15 diff erent local

chapters across the country. Coming from the technology city of

Hyderabad, he has a degree in engineering and looks for ward to setting

up his own entrepreneurial venture in the f uture.

“It feels great to be a ‘Global Indian’ and travel the world as the brand

ambassador of the country,” he says. “ere were days when I used to

learn in school that it is a great responsibilit y to represent your countryin an alien environment.rough AIESEC I have lived this responsibility

and now want to play a more important role in impacting global

thought when it comes to youth issues.

“I have friends from 100 diff erent countries and I know top executives

from 74 diff erent global and national organisations. I have travelled to more

than 20 countries and have been a part of the biggest youth congregations

around the world.”

Advait Gupt, Vice President External Relations for AIES EC in India,

is currently living a comparable unique experience. Also 22, Mr Gupt

has experienced life in the corporate world first hand, great experiencea er finishing his degree in business administration in Mumbai.

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EFMD

7/21/2019 Volume 02 _ Issue 01 2008


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Documents

Volume 02 _ Issue 01 2008