Arredondo advised the sector to remember that while MBA providers compete for students, “at the same time there are other dimensions where we can collaborate, such as research for instance”. The transformative power of AI “We have to unlearn how we are designing our curricula,” asserted Alain Goudey, associate dean for digital at Neoma Business School, in a keynote session entitled Emerging technologies and their impact . Technology and artificial intelligence (AI) continue to evolve at pace and, for Goudey, the repercussions for higher education will be so widespread that business schools will need to overhaul their existing approach to learning design and teaching. As Goudey cautioned, the world of work and employment for which schools prepare their students will be forever changed by AI’s ability to take on around 30 per cent of tasks. Generative AI technologies, such as ChatGPT, will also necessitate new modes of assessment. “Schools need to change assessment if AI can ace it,” Goudey remarked succinctly. However much generative AI may come to be used by students, or for that matter by staff and faculty, business schools will need to be mindful of its limitations. As Goudey flagged, the technology can currently produce inventions in its writing that culminate in inaccurate and potentially misleading results. Known as ‘hallucinations’, this phenomenon underlines a greater need for fact-checking. “Using AI is not as simple as using an internet search engine, so we need strong initiatives in this area,” Goudey surmised. In the same session, vice-dean for education at Imperial College Business School Leila Guerra picked
of Management, concurred, explaining that his school identifies clients for its students to work with in companies across Australia, Europe and the US over a period of three and six months; these partnerships are mainly conducted online and followed by a two-week in-person placement. “All educators do the same good; we are allies rather than competitors” noted Parulekar. “Mutually beneficial cooperation should benefit the third party, by which I mean society, the market and other, sometimes ‘unexpected’ stakeholders.” He added that partners need to find ‘chemistry’ and have common goals to collaborate. “Global challenges represent a big barrier to setting up an international partnership”, commented Almaty Management University rector Gulnara Kurenkeyeva. She observed that scenarios such as the conflict in Ukraine have changed the market. Kurenkeyeva also highlighted the challenges associated with co-operation between developed and developing countries, noting that her university hopes “to overcome the issue of price; the MBA course cost is higher in Europe, which makes it difficult”. She also pointed to how “language is a barrier – English speakers in Kazakhstan are growing in number, but business is still very much conducted in our native tongue”. Rosberg agreed that geopolitical tensions are proving challenging within the context of globalised, international business programmes, especially when it comes to Chinese-US relations. Arredondo commented on how Latin America has so many regulations, meaning that obtaining visas for students can prove difficult. Looking at how to succeed at building productive partnerships, Rosberg said she believes that schools must “choose something to help you stand out from the rest – and appreciate that this is an increasingly globalised society”.
The panellists explored how business schools could build positive partnerships
24 | Ambition JULY/AUGUST 2023
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