RISK ANALYSIS
Learning that does not end at graduation The half-life of professional knowledge is shortening. Skills acquired at the outset of a career become outdated faster than previous generations experienced – and the pace of change is accelerating rather than stabilising. And yet higher education still largely treats the degree as a finite product: students arrive, study, graduate; the relationship ends and the institution moves on to the next cohort. That model no longer reflects how careers develop at senior level. A professional who completed an MBA several years ago is navigating a world that looks substantially different today and will look different again in five years. The skills that earned them a leadership role are not necessarily those that will allow them to lead effectively within it over time. Business schools have a largely unrealised opportunity to reconceive the alumni relationship as a lifelong learning partnership: providing ongoing access to research, executive education and peer networks that evolve alongside the challenges graduates actually face. This is not simply a commercial opportunity, though it is that too. It is a response to a genuine need that business schools are better placed than almost any other institution to meet. Learning cannot remain episodic when the pace of change demands it be continuous. Practising what we teach The greatest risk facing business schools is not external disruption. It is internal complacency: the temptation to optimise yesterday’s model rather than imagine tomorrow’s; to perfect existing systems rather than question whether they remain sufficient; to confuse consistency with innovation and caution with quality. There is a diagnostic that any leadership team could apply. Look at your most recent strategic plan and ask how many initiatives represent genuine departures from what you were already doing, rather than refinements of what previously existed. Ask whether your governance structures are designed to enable institutional experimentation or primarily to manage institutional risk. Consider whether your relationship with accreditation is one of creative engagement or careful compliance and ask whether your institution would be willing to pilot something that might not work in order to discover something that might matter. The schools that will matter most over the next decade will not necessarily be those with the most prestigious histories or the highest rankings. They will be those with the institutional self-awareness to ask hard questions about what management education is fundamentally for – and the courage to act on the answers. Accreditation and innovation are not opposing forces. The most effective schools will maintain rigorous academic standards while creating genuine space for distinctiveness. They will meet external expectations while remaining confident enough to develop educational models that are genuinely their own, but that requires something that cannot be accredited, ranked or captured in a satisfaction survey. Business schools teach risk-taking as a leadership virtue; it is time we treated it as an institutional one.
BIOGRAPHY Professor Sankar Sivarajah is head of Kingston Business School and professor of technology management & circular economy at Kingston University London. He joined Kingston in September 2024, having previously served at the University of Bradford as head of department from 2017 and later as dean and head of the School of Management from 2019. At Bradford, Sivarajah worked with colleagues to develop and implement a five-year strategic plan that supported the school’s renewal and growth. During this time, the school strengthened its research profile, developed distinctive programmes and built closer links with business and academic partners. It retained its triple crown accreditation, was recognised as the Times Higher Education Business School of the Year in 2021 and ranked number one globally by the Financial Times in 2024 for its distance learning MBA in terms of both value for money and ESG/net zero teaching
Ambition • ISSUE 5 • 2026 37
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