Ambition is AMBA’s thought leadership magazine, offering regular insights into the challenges and trends that matter most in global management education
Ambiti n The monthly magazine of the Association of MBAs (AMBA) BE IN BRILLIANT COMPANY
Issue 47 OCTOBER 2021
Working in tandem
An opportunity for educators to bring business and leadership closer together
DRIVING NATIONAL INNOVATION As products and business models become
BUILDING JOINT PROGRAMMES Leveraging strengths and differences, Schools can build joint international programmes, with the aim of transforming the future
A BETTER SCHOOL FOR THE WORLD At France’s Audencia Business School, having a positive impact on society and the planet lies at the heart of its strategy
more complex, innovation needs specialised academic institutions
21 JANUARY 2022 LONDON
Tackling the issues that matter to Business Schools: DIVERSITY SUSTAINABILITY IMPACT INNOVATION COLLABORATION LIFELONG LEARNING
FOR MORE INFORMATION CLICK HERE
Issue 47 | OCTOBER 2021
STRATEGY
NEWS & INS IGHT
08 | ROUNDUP Ageing populations, entrepreneurial initiatives aimed at creating value in the local community, and how students’ fondness for smartphones could boost their academic performance, all feature in this month’s news
18 | WORKING IN TANDEM Bringing together business development and leadership development more closely to achieve growth
12 | GETTING PERSONAL Why globalisation and consumerism are making it more important for Business Schools to offer a personal approach to each student 22 | DRIVING NATIONAL INNOVATION As products and business models become more complex, innovation requires specialised academic institutions
Business Schools are part of a country’s innovation ecosystem
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RESEARCH AND INSIGHT: STAY AHEAD OF THE TRENDS IN BUSINESS EDUCATION
Over the past 18 months, AMBA’s Research and Insight Centre has produced a wealth of groundbreaking new research and compiled reports citing views from MBA thinkers, practitioners, faculty, and leaders across the globe on the issues that matter most in business education. Recent AMBA research has investigated Business Schools’ attitudes to poverty, rankings, climate change, and education technology. We have analysed MBA career trajectories, graduate success in the new normal, application and enrolment figures across a spectrum of programmes, and employer and student perceptions of lifelong learning. We also seek to collaborate with Business Schools and corporate partners in order to further enhance AMBA’s research offering.
If you are interested in partnering on research, joining one of our roundtables or focus groups to delve into the findings, or even sharing your thoughts on what topics you would like AMBA to explore, then please contact r esearch@associationofmbas.com
Issue 47 | OCTOBER 2021
34 | BUILDING A BETTER SCHOOL FOR THE WORLD Audencia Business School’s Dean, Christophe Germain explains why positive impact on society and the planet lies at the heart of the strategy for his School
INTERVIEWS 26 | BUI LDING PARTNERSHIPS Angelo Bisignano, Director of EDHEC Business School’s International BBA, and Denis Couturier, Director of Custom Programs and Corporate Education at UCLA discuss their innovative collaboration
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06 | EDITOR’S LETTER A reminder that growing a business should also mean developing its leaders 40 | EVENTS Updates upcoming AMBA & BGA events in 2021 and early 2022 – including the news of our first hybrid conference 44 | HUB HIGHLIGHTS Find out about the weath of analysis, thought leadership and opinion available on the AMBITION website
OPINION 42 | GUEST COLUMN Power is at play in every situation. Gail Rudolph explains how we can harness its influence to take control 46 | CEO’S COLUMN Outlining AMBA & BGA’s CSR and responsible management commitment
OPINION
Business and leadership GO HAND IN HAND
EDITORIAL Editor and Director of Marketing and Communications David Woods-Hale d.woods@associationofmbas.com @davidpaulwoods Art Editor Laura Tallon Content Editor Tim Banerjee Dhoul t.dhoul@associationofmbas.com Insight and Communications Executive Ellen Buchan e.buchan@associationofmbas.com CORPORATE Head of Commercial Relations Max Braithwaite m.braithwaite@associationofmbas.com Commercial Partnerships Manager Emily Wall e.wall@associationofmbas.com
‘Growing a business should also mean developing leaders’
pologies if I appear to be stating the obvious in the headline above. Let me clarify: while business and leadership do , of course, go hand in hand, priorities shifted during the Covid-19 pandemic, and in industries around the world, organisations put everything they had into innovating through uncertainty. In many cases, this came at the expense of investing in the development of their leaders. This presents a significant opportunity for Business Schools. Looking to the future, it may seem just as obvious to suggest that ‘growing a business should also mean developing its leaders’, but in his cover feature for this edition, Pekka Mattila brings this point home and puts it into a Business School context (page 20). He argues that, as the post-Covid recovery gains momentum, businesses taking stock of the HR projects they’ve been forced to put on hold for the past 18 months will recognise the need to formulate an overarching trajectory for leadership development objectives and activities. For this to succeed, they will need a combination of leadership development and business development – and this is where business education comes in. Mattila goes on to explain that if more organisations adopt the idea that leadership development and business development go hand in hand, they will rely on Business Schools to provide them with education to support this. And, by using leadership programmes to develop the leaders within a business, the business will succeed, because a good leader will implement vision and values, ensure effective communication, and motivate employees. Taking this theme further, Arturo Bris, Director of the IMD World Competitiveness Center (page 24), says Schools have an opportunity to collaborate with businesses in their regions, feeding their countries with research related to entrepreneurship, family business, and innovation. He says Schools must hear the demands of companies and adapt their programmes to the needs of the labour market. As the reputation of their country increases, so does the ability of the School to attract and retain better student profiles. David Woods-Hale , Editor, Ambition
Conference Producer Paul Thurston
Events Manager Abigail Burke
Marketing and Communications Executive Edward Holmes
Marketing Executive Edward Jacques Membership Manager Tariro Masukume
Head of IT and Data Management Jack Villanueva HR and Employer Relations Manager Aarti Bhasin Finance and Commercial Director Catherine Walker
THE AMBITION PODCAST
that nearly two thirds of digital strategies fail. To investigate what can be done about it, The AMBITION Podcast spoke to Robin Speculand. Speculand’s pioneering work has been featured worldwide including BBC World and Forbes . He is an educator for Duke CE, IMD, and an adjunct member of Singapore Management University. In this interview, Robin outlines the successful digital transformation at the Singaporean bank DBS – and puts practical points for how other organisations can put world-class strategies in place to thrive in the digital age. www.associationofmbas.com/podcast
The past 18 months have been hard on everyone – but especially job seekers. This month on The AMBITION Podcast, we talked to Cel Amade and ask her how students leaving their universities can stay motivated when they are feeling forgotten by their institution after not being allowed on campus and now are facing a tough job market. Amade shared motivational advice on how to fail and how to keep a positive mindset.
Chief Executive Officer Andrew Main Wilson
Executive Assistant to the CEO Amy Youngs a.youngs@associationofmbas.com ACCREDITATION ENQUIRIES accreditation@associationofmbas.com
We’re all familiar with the term ‘digital transformation’; but recent studies have revealed
Copyright 2021 by Association of MBAs and Business Graduates Association ISSN 2631-6382 All rights reserved. Material may not be reproduced without the permission of the publisher. While we take care to ensure that editorial is independent, accurate, objective and relevant for our readers, AMBA accepts no responsibility for reader dissatisfaction rising from the content of this publication. The opinions expressed and advice given are the views of individual commentators and do not necessarily represent the views of AMBA. Whenever an article in this publication is placed with the financial support of an advertiser, partner or sponsor, it will be marked as such. AMBA makes every opportunity to credit photographers but we cannot guarantee every published use of an image will have the contributor’s name. If you believe we have omitted a credit for your image, please email the editor.
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AMBA & BGA ACCREDITATION FORUM 2021
VIRTUAL 15-18 November 2021
AMBA & BGA‘s Accreditation Forum 2021 is specifically designed to help prepare accreditation professionals at Business Schools that are applying for AMBA and/or BGA accreditation or re-accreditation. AMBA & BGA is committed to ensuring that our content is still available to all our audiences, in spite of social distancing, so this year’s event will be hosted completely online. All the sessions will be live streamed in interactive webinars, and recordings of all the event components will be shared with all our delegates. The content will be led by a team of expert accreditors and guest speakers who will share their knowledge and insights over the course of the forum, and will cover the following: the structure of the accreditation process what it takes to make an accreditation submission successful best practices of successful Schools typical challenges Business Schools face – and proposed solutions marketing and communicating your accreditation to key audiences
A draft programme of the topics, timings and descriptions, as well as details about our complimentary pre-conference workshop, is available on our website, where you can also book your place. www.associationofmbas.com/amba-bga-accreditation-forum-2021
NEWS & INSIGHT
NEWS & RESEARCH
from across AMBA’s Global Network
Ageing populations, entrepreneurial initiatives in local communities, and how students’ fondness for phones could boost their performance. All this and more in Ambition’s updates. Compiled by Ellen Buchan and Tim Banerjee Dhoul
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BOOTCAMP LOOKS TO CREATE LOCAL VALUE COUNTRY: Colombia SCHOOL: Universidad de los Andes Faculty of Management A prize of $10,000 USD in seed capital was picked up by an insurance broker platform connecting customers with suitable insurers at the first Impact Entrepreneurship Bootcamp held by the Universidad de los Andes (Uniandes) Faculty of Management in Bogotá, Colombia. The bootcamp, comprising 30 hours of blended learning in English, featured both group and individual work with overseas expertise from Soumitra Dutta, former Dean of Cornell SC Johnson College of Business and Daniela Ruiz, Director of the EPIC Lab at ITAM (Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México). It was divided into two main threads. In the first, entitled ‘problem-based learning’, participants were given challenges associated with the different stages of the entrepreneurial process. The second was the venture competition with the aforementioned prize money, in which projects were presented to a jury. Andrés Guerrero, Director of the Entrepreneurship Centre at the Uniandes Faculty of Management, said that the bootcamp sought to bring together ‘important and effective lessons’ and was mindful that developing entrepreneurial abilities is far from simple: ‘High-impact entrepreneurship, understood as innovative, sustainable and scalable, requires skills that are obtained from the combination of knowledge and experience. This generally takes a long time to achieve.’ Sustainability was a key theme among participants’ business plans. Some tackled the topic overtly in their ventures – in food waste management or recycling business enterprises, for example. However, looking at cross-cutting components on which society as a whole must focus – including sustainability and social responsibility – was a consideration for all projects. Veneta Andonova, Dean of the Los Andes Faculty of Management, said that the bootcamp is the first of many planned activities in the Faculty of Management’s commitment to building and contributing to the development of entrepreneurship in the local community. ‘The participants demonstrated great skills and commitment to sustainability, innovation and the responsible use of resources. This inspires us to become a better society and have another vision of the world. By creating innovative and locally responsible companies, we can create value for Colombian society and have a global impact,’ she said. / Tim Banerjee Dhoul (TBD)
THEIR HEADS OR HEARTS? COUNTRY: UK SCHOOL: London Business School
Music can reflect our mood. A party playlist and a funeral playlist should sound very different; a song you choose to listen to on a sunny day might vary considerably to what you would play on a rainy day. In the digital age, an algorithm enables streaming giant Spotify to monitor the sentiment of songs listened to on its platform each day, and assess how the mood within entire countries changes. But what does that have to do with stocks and shares? In a new paper, entitled Music Sentiment and Stock Returns Around the World , Alex Edmans, Professor of Finance at London Business School and Academic Director of its Centre for Corporate Governance (CCG) found, together with his co-authors, that the mood of a country, judged by its collective listening habits, has an impact on the stock market. The premise is that when people are in a good mood, they listen to happy music and are more likely to spend more money on stocks and shares. The research’s key finding is that a one-standard-deviation increase in ‘music sentiment’ in a country is associated with an 8.1 basis point increase in that country’s stock market during the same week. Such an increase was also found to be temporary increase; the following week, the researchers found that the stock market decreased by a 7.0 basis. This is not Edman’s first foray into how the nation’s mood impacts its stock market. In a previous article, he found that when a country is knocked out of the FIFA World Cup, its stock market falls by approximately 0.5%. Put into the context of the UK, such a drop is worth about £10 billion GBP. Edmans believes that this research has implications for everyone. ‘Ultimately, my research provides evidence that your frame of mind influences your choice of investment, and hence returns. This has important implications for all investors, whether you are trying to select a mutual fund for your own pension or a professional trader acting on behalf of others. There is a simple message: stop for a moment and consider if your decision is guided by analysis rather than emotions. And if you are feeling particularly happy or miserable that day, it may be wise to adjourn the decision to another time,’ he said. / Ellen Buchan (EB)
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NEWS & INSIGHT
MEETING THE CHALLENGES OF AGEING POPULATIONS COUNTRY: Hong Kong / China SCHOOL: The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) Business School Ageing populations in developed countries is a complex problem, revolving around the need to support larger numbers from the older generations in countries with smaller numbers of working-age people. Japan – with a third of its population over the age of 65 – has the oldest population in the world, according to the World Economic Forum. In Niger, by comparison, almost half of the population is below the age of 15, making it the youngest country in the world. Researchers from the Department of Finance at The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) Business School, led by Professor Wai-sum Chan, have spent the past decade looking for creative solutions to the problems facing countries with a disproportionately older population. This is pertinent challenge for Hong Kong, which has one of the world’s longest life expectancies at birth. Their findings revolve around innovations in financial policies and products. One such initiative is the reverse mortgage, which can provide financial security for the older population – particularly in the context of Hong Kong’s soaring house prices in recent decades. Their research has also contributed to the introduction of public annuities as another means of receiving regular and lifelong payments after retirement. Introduced into Hong Kong as the HKMC Annuity Plan in 2018, this has been an important measure as Hong Kong’s existing annuity systems were significantly underdeveloped. Another model they have developed is a way for private insurers to design long-term care insurance products, thereby putting less pressure on public providers. Real-world applications of the CUHK research certainly aren’t limited to Hong Kong. The idea is that the teams’ findings can be used as a basis on which governments and policymakers across the world can create platforms that support the future health and economic prosperity of their citizens. / EB
EAST-WEST RELATIONSHIP STRENGTHENED WITH NEW PROGRAMMES COUNTRY: China SCHOOL: Peking University HSBC Business School The launch of two new programmes – an executive MBA and a master’s/certificate programme – marks the further development of Peking University HSBC Business School’s collaborative relationship with the University of Cambridge Judge Business School. The Shenzen home of Peking University HSBC Business School (PHBS) will be the location for up to 50% of teaching on a new global executive MBA (GEMBA) offered by Cambridge Judge, and taught by its faculty and guest lecturers. Targeting executives in Asia-Pacific, the GEMBA will carry the same curriculum as the UK School’s existing EMBA. Launched in 2009, the Cambridge EMBA runs for 20 months using a format which combines weekend study and a handful of week-long blocks. At the same time, PHBS is to launch a new master’s/ certificate programme in China Studies for Economics and Management (MCS/CCS) that will offer GEMBA participants – and others – a deep dive into China’s economy, financial market, and corporate management. The Founding Dean of Peking University HSBC Business School, Hai Wen, called the two new programmes ‘a rare opportunity to learn from two top Business Schools representing the East and the West. Students will acquire a deeper understanding of core knowledge and gain first-hand experience of contemporary business environments in China.’ Cambridge Judge’s outgoing Dean, Christoph Loch, described the GEMBA as ‘a great opportunity for experienced professionals based in the Asia-Pacific region, and beyond, especially as they will also have the opportunity to participate in China studies with our partner Peking University HSBC Business School.’ The relationship between the two Schools is longstanding. In 2019, they signed a memorandum of understanding to jointly expand collaboration in a number of fields including business, entrepreneurship and AI. The following year, their collaboration grew with the launch of two executive education programmes focusing on innovation and international management. / TBD
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EDUCATIONAL CONTENT UNDER THE AI MICROSCOPE COUNTRY: Mexico SCHOOL: EGADE Business School
CAN SMARTPHONE LEARNING INCREASE ACADEMIC ATTAINMENT? COUNTRY: Finland SCHOOL: Aalto University School of Business Heights and spiders, (and, for academics), are common phobias – but what about not being able to use your smartphone? This is a millennial nightmare and it is called nomophobia. Many have tried locking their phones in a different room to get some unconnected study time, but what if this is harming rather than honing our concentration? Research has found that using mobile phones as part of studies can limit the feeling of nomophobia, which leads to higher academic attainment. The study, conducted by Aalto University School of Business researchers Yanqing Lin and Wenjie Fan, together with faculty members Yong Liu, Virpi Kristiina Tuunainen, and Shengli Deng, is based on data from more than 10,000 participants and has been published in Computers in Human Behaviour . Even though the study was conducted at a university without any official e-learning or learning that was designed to be accessed on a mobile phone, students who created spaces in which they could share resources and collaborate through their mobile achieved higher academic attainments. The creation of such spaces on social media platforms – free from any institutional input or management – also meant that students were less likely use social media for other reasons. ‘Mobile learning acts as part of studying that is practical and compulsory, therefore it is not considered “fun” for most people, which contrasts with other apps such as social media. For this reason, users are not going to be distracted from studying, or end up procrastinating,’ Lin explained. However, there can be too much of a good thing. Students in the study who spent more time on entertainment apps and social media experienced higher levels of nomophobia. They found that this can lead to altered sleep habits which, in turn, negatively impacts on a student’s academic performance. The research team’s advice for mitigating this negative impact is to avoid using a smartphone directly before going to bed – for whatever reason. / EB
EGADE Business School is hoping to use artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance the content of its graduate programmes through a partnership with edtech firm Analytikus.The aim is to obtain and explore data quickly and accurately, enabling informed decision-making regarding the optimisation of educational content. To begin with, the focus is on webinar content; specifically, the recordings of more than 40 webinars in a 2020 series on leadership in the context of Covid-19 and the ongoing EGADE Future Forum are to be analysed by Analytikus’s AI Class Analyzer. Described as a ‘cognitive AI-based solution’, the technology takes video, audio and text from virtual conferences or classes as input data and examines participation patterns and information delivery. It can then, for example, identify the topics and words that are mentioned most often by students – information which might allow teachers and academic directors to adapt and redesign classes to improve student outcomes, in terms of learning as well as performance, motivation, and participation. ‘These types of initiatives propel our innovative approach, allowing us to understand how students filter and interpret what they learn through the teacher in his or her role as a facilitator,’ said Lucía Romo García, Educational Innovation Co-ordinator at EGADE Business School. Analytikus offers products and services in relation to admissions, careers and lifelong learning as well as content optimisation. Based in Miami, the company also has a presence in Mexico, Colombia, Ecuador and Belgium. / TBD
SHARE YOUR NEWS AND RESEARCH UPDATES by emailing AMBA & BGA’s Content Editor, Tim Banerjee Dhoul, at t.dhoul@associationofmbas.com
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Making it In partnership with Salesforce.org, AMBA & BGA gathered Business School leaders to discuss the impact of globalisation and consumerism on business education. Ellen Buchan and David Woods-Hale share key themes from the event personal
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igher education is becoming borderless, moving from a domestic industry to a global one, competing internationally. According to the European Commission, almost half of all member states consider attracting and retaining international students to be a policy priority. For students, options around where to study are expanding at no extra cost, while from an institutional perspective, the range of potential customers is increasing. However, this means the level of resources allocated to marketing must also increase, as will the need to implement high-quality and efficient marketing strategy. In addition, institutions will have a wider range of nationalities, cultures, and behaviours on campus, and will have to adapt and personalise all processes and services in order to provide a unique student experience to those new global profiles. Currently, students on campuses are a mix of digital natives (the generations of young people born into the digital age), digital immigrants (those born during the 1960s and ‘70s who learned to use computers at some stage during their adult life) and analogue natives, born before 1960. By contrast, in 2025, 100% of the students will be digital natives. Providing a quality experience for a digital native student will – and must – become a critical decision point in the potential student (customer) interaction with the institution at the marketing and recruitment stage. Students will treat educational institutions as a regular business from a consumer perspective. This is supported by a 2020 consumer report by Salesforce.org, which shows that 78% of students expect their experience to be personalised. In a bid to explore these themes, address the challenges above and share insights into the solutions needed to address the fast-changing marketplace, AMBA & BGA, in association with Salesforce.org, brought together a group of Business School leaders to discuss the impact that globalisation and the rise of consumerism is having on business education – and how this will reshape the fundamentals of the MBA in the future. Here are some highlights of that conversation. Julio Villalobos, Director, CXO Strategic Industry Advisor, Education EMEA Center of Excellence, Salesforce.org We need to treat our students not only as students, but also as customers, which is how they are being treated in many other industries. We must keep that concept in our mind and reflect it in our processes around the student’s 360º journey. Students became alumni – potential lifelong learners and customers of the future. Timothy M Devinney, Chair and Professor of International Business, Alliance Manchester Business School I think students have been trained by the administrative structures of universities and Business Schools to believe that they are customers. I have always argued against that. The problem is that when you start taking a consumer attitude (asking if they want ‘fries with their theories?’, as I jokingly put it) we end up in a world in which Business Schools are very transactional, and are measured according to the immediate satisfaction of the student, who may have no idea of the future value of what they are being taught.
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We need to treat our students not only as students, but also as customers, which is how they are being treated in many other industries
this. So instead of a one-year programme, you have a portfolio of provision from the institution. This becomes very relational and ensures students don’t forget what they learn because they get ‘booster shots’ that keeps that knowledge from waning. You could partner with other institutions to become a portal for learning; some elements you would provide, others you would just facilitate. Different institutions could then specialise, rather than having to be be all things to all people. They could be much nimbler and more adaptive. Vincenzo Baglieri, PhD, Associate Dean Masters Division, SDA Bocconi School of Management The amazing success we had in the past couple of years on MBA programmes is mainly because of the move from a transactional approach to a relational approach. That was the consequence of redesigning programmes to include more ‘peripheral’ activities, working on the soft relational competencies, and taking care of students from a lifelong perspective. With the full-time MBA students, it’s harder, because they are more transactional then the executive MBA students. They apply because they are very ambitious people, and they expect an impressive return on investment. Thus, the Business Schools teach them all the content
they may need, even if it’s useless in the very short term. I guess we should take more of a longitudinal perspective, moving from a full-time MBA to a full-lifetime MBA programme. I see a potential change in our business model, because the one we all adopt currently is still very transactional; we are still based on a very old model. We operate like factories, but we should act as theatres. We are not creating a product, but having a transformative impact on our students. Jane E Armstrong, Senior Director, Education Industry Solutions, International, Salesforce.org Students have greater expectations and are used to a more relationship-driven, customised approach in their day-to-day lives, due to consumerism. Thus, they have similar expectations of their universities. There is an opportunity for universities to further enhance relationships with students and to deliver a more personal experience, making it easier for them to get the support they need – inside and outside of the classroom – and to provide more rewarding and enriched learning experiences. As one university president often states: ‘Everything in the classroom should be hard, but everything outside of the classroom should be easy.’
The interaction with international students, in particular, is mainly transactional. They pay their money, do a lot of things, and then go home and hope to be able to get a job. We have seen, in the case of Australia (where international students have questioned the value of their university experience) that this can be a short-term win but, in the long run, it corrupts the overall educational experience. The question I have always asked is: ‘Do you have a transactional model, or do you have a relational model?’ The best Schools are very good at avoiding the transactional model and trying to build a relational model, but you must invest a lot in order to do this, and few micro-credentialing. Rather than signing up for a one-year programme where students go through modules intensively in a year, they sign up for a plethora of things. I propose that institutions sign contracts with students that commit to providing them with a whole series of opportunities, for a set of fees, over a period of 10 years. The idea that you enter higher education at the age of 25, and know what you want, simply doesn’t work – nor is it realistic. Even if you know what you want to do (or think you do), the ground is going to shift under you. You want to minimise the risk associated with Schools know how to do this well. I have started to argue for a rental model of degrees; it goes back to
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some cultural changes in terms of the organisational culture of universities, knowledge centres, and MBA centres. It requires different values, norms and ways of thinking about the students. I believe in creating communities, because whether we’re talking about customers or clients, it is better in terms of values to create a community where every member has the support of the community. In terms of the delivery of knowledge, an idea that we have in our programme comes to mind. Every graduate is able to go back to our School and take any course they want for free – so that they can refresh the knowledge and find out about about trends, gain new skills, and so on. What’s important is the sharing of the experience and skills. So, the students receive some of their knowledge from our graduates; they are practitioners, they can share their experience with current students. I think that the changes in the business models are about the relationship, about the creation of community, and being open to the knowledge of our graduates and the students. It should be two-way communication. José M Martínez-Sierra, General Director, UPF Barcelona School of Management Right after I arrived at Harvard in May 2012, there was a headline in the Boston Globe saying that
This is where there is an opportunity to make a university more ‘consumer’ driven and to deliver a more seamless, tailored student experience. In terms of future opportunities, universities need to leverage – and harness – their data. However, that’s often challenging because the data tends to be very siloed and disconnected. Increasingly, universities are asking how they can connect the data across their institutions so that they can have the insights to make the strategic decisions needed to deliver their missions and visions. Also, universities are increasingly exploring and adopting new technologies that support ‘cradle to grave’ – from recruiting the right students to their institutions (those who they know will be successful) to engaging these individuals as lifelong learners (the people who want to come back for reskilling or upskilling). Thinking about all these opportunities, universities are fundamentally questioning how to adapt their business models and embrace digital transformation. Grażyna Aniszewska-Banaś, Associate professor, Canadian Executive MBA Director, SGH Warsaw School of Economics I think that digitalisation changes the consumption patterns, the communication patterns, and requires
ROUNDTABLE ATTENDEES CHAIR David Woods-Hale, Director of Marketing and Communications, AMBA & BGA PANELLISTS Grazyna Aniszewska-Banas, Director of Executive MBA, SGH Warsaw Jane E Armstrong, Senior Director, International Education Industry Solutions, Salesforce Vincenzo Baglieri, Associate Dean of Masters Programs, SDA Bocconi Timothy M Devinney, Chair and Professor of International Business, Alliance Manchester Business School Gerardine Doyle, Associate Dean, UCD,
Michael Smurfit Business School Jose Manuel Martinez-Sierra, Director General, UPF Barcelona School of Management Julio Villalobos, CXO Strategic Advisor, Salesforce
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Our cohorts of 2020 and 2021 have asked whether they can return in future to participate in new modules and executive programmes, which highlights that the lifelong learning for MBA alumni is definitely something that our students desire. We create a personalised experience. For example, each individual student has their own mentor – an alumna/alumnus of our MBA programme, many of whom are working in senior positions in leading global financial services, technology or pharma companies, or are entrepreneurs. During their MBA journey, our students work closely with their mentor who guides them throughout their learning and leadership journey. This mentorship experience is very important. In addition to the classroom experience, and the rapport developed with our faculty, extracurricular and co-curricular activities are critical to the personalised, lived student experience. We have been innovative in developing the leadership skill set of our students by enhancing our global leadership programme and enabling our students to develop their intercultural competencies.
has accentuated this – students crave human connection and interaction. In the coming years, our challenge is going to be around how we achieve and maintain that optimal experience; which elements of our programmes (teaching, teamwork, and co-curricular activities) will be in person and which may be suitable for the online environment? While our students are with us on campus, how can we provide the best possible student experience? This is going to be our greatest challenge: finding that optimal blend that will achieve our learning outcomes, while also providing a personalised learning journey. Conversations with our students throughout the pandemic brought this idea of personalisation to the fore as a feature of our MBA programmes which is very important to them. We reopened our campus for two weeks in September 2020; however, we then had to return to online delivery due to public health requirements. Our students crave and value peer-to-peer interaction and strong connections with faculty, and so the relationships they build up during their MBA journey contribute to that special and personalised experience.
Harvard and MIT would join EdX. A number of articles said that was going to change higher education, with these two institutions (and others) giving out degrees for free. There was a wave that said everything was going to change. What we have learned from it is that the fundamentals always remain. Education, and our Schools, are providing students with two things: one is skills, and the other thing is a network. That professional network is going to be with you throughout your life. It’s a combination of what we do in the classroom while the students are in our Schools, plus this great club that we are trying to build at the same time. I think that the transformation we are going through is in the second part of our dimension; it’s the community we are creating and how this community and professional network is coming along in relation to our learning. Gerardine Doyle, Full Professor, UCD Michael Smurfit Graduate Business School, University College Dublin MBA students come to us because they want an excellent, personalised student experience; they want to be here in person and on campus. The experience of the pandemic
Every graduate is able to go back to our School and take any course they want for free
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Leadership and business development must be designed in tandem within organisations – and Business Schools can provide the education to support this, writes Pekka Mattila Aspect
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Develop the right leadership programmes Leadership development programmes often offer a ‘buffet-style’ experience. These programmes dish out a spectrum of coaches and facilitators with many tools and concepts. However, the selection is so varied that it could lead to ‘overeating’, where participants end up with huge piles of literature and other materials, but lack the opportunity to apply their learning to their work. This approach can often overwhelm participants, but the goal is not for every individual to adopt every tool and concept on offer. Instead, a high-quality leadership development programme caters to many different skills and needs. Here at Aalto University Executive Education, we strive to integrate a live business case into each programme so that participants can test their new skills and knowledge and see what works for them. Leadership training with a vision Leadership development programmes are linked to organisations’ long-term visions. In the best-case scenario, the strategy is also still in the making and the strategy dialogue takes place, in part, on the leadership programme platform. This way, the programme provides an opportunity to validate hypotheses on the go. Programmes make it possible to facilitate these discussions in a structured manner. In strategy work, it is important to decide what we choose to believe as ‘truth’. All industries have become more challenging; they find competition in unexpected places, or notice their competitors innovating with revenue and business models. Smart organisations will view leadership development programmes as voyages of discovery to uncharted territories, or as an opportunity to validate assumptions. Support for strategy implementation Many organisations will have already formed a strategy but not yet implemented it. In this scenario, a leadership development programme can provide outside support and guidance, or serve as a platform for launching projects. Having a programme means that projects don’t get buried under competing
eadership development is crucial in creating competitive business advantage. It improves financial performance, helps attract and retain talent, drives strategy execution, and increases success in navigating change. Leadership development should be seen as part of overall business development. In short, leadership and business development are two sides of the same coin. But not all organisations have caught up with this view. This could be due to the fact that resources in both public and private organisations tend to fluctuate, and HR projects are the first to fall victim to cost-cutting. This causes the business to lose sight of the bigger picture. HR development and business development happen in parallel, but in silos – they are often very disconnected, even though they depend on each other. When running a business, ultimately the main goal is to make a profit, and HR can contribute to this, but during periods of economic instability, the main aim is to keep the business afloat. Anything that is not needed to keep the business running takes a backseat. Developing employees is important, but ensuring they keep their jobs is even more so. When an upturn eventually comes around, the business begins to address the maintenance backlog accrued during the cost-cutting period, and must start from scratch as HR projects were put on hold, or phased out. To avoid this chain of events, smart organisations will formulate an overarching trajectory for their leadership development objectives and activities. For this to succeed, they need leadership development and business development. Leadership development programmes offer external inputs as stimuli. However, growth does not take place in a classroom, it happens when leaders apply the skills they’ve learned in their work. By combining business development and leadership development, employees can apply these skills immediately. Only by combining leadership and business development will individuals be able to conduct experiments, implement experience and insights, and close the knowing-doing gap. It also allows them to validate what they’ve learned and see how it works in their own contexts.
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‘excellent’ capabilities and the organisations financial performance, while merely ‘good’ performance showed no correlation.
priorities. They have a structure, a timetable, a support system, and control points. The challenge most organisations face is that people get excited about ambitious new strategies and visions, but ask what’s going to happen next. This places pressure on management to show that the vision will lead to action, and that they are serious about implementing it, not just trying to be trendy. In this situation, a leadership development programme may serve to prove that things are changing. When implementing strategy, the timeline is important. It’s vital that the organisation gets moving in weeks, and achieves a concrete milestones within months. This may be as simple as announcing that a task force has been launched – another thing with which leadership programmess can help. Goals provide focus Leadership programmes are not only a great way to make people feel included, but also a way to channel the organisation’s energies in the right direction. But this only works if the programme is directly linked to the organisation’s ambitions – so the more concrete objectives organisation can present, the better. Effective goals are always measurable because it helps identify what must happen to achieve results. Leadership skills impact the bottom line As I’ve already stated, leadership development is proven to help organisations achieve their business development goals, but it also gives backing to the entire management team responsible for implementing the organisations strategy. Research carried out by Mckinsey & Company and Egon Zehnder in 2011 revealed that while talent is always important, only exceptional talent makes a real difference. According to the report, there was a high correlation between executives with
In appraising leadership development, we should move from measuring intellection and cognitive skills to evaluating the concrete actions taken and the results achieved. The real impact of a leadership development programme should manifest itself in improved business development performance. What does this mean for Business Schools? If more organisations adopt the idea that leadership development and business development go hand in hand, then they will start to rely on Business Schools more and more to provide them with the education to support this. Combining leadership and business development benefits both the organisation and the Business School. It benefits the organisation because, as I said earlier, leadership development and business development are two sides of the same coin. By using leadership programmes to develop the leaders within a business, you will help the business to succeed, because a good leader will implement vision and values, ensure effective communication, and motivate employees. It will benefit the Business School because more people will attend the School, but it also brings in a variety of different voices who have had experience in different industries. Working together with an organisation allows them to bring in real-world problems, discuss and come up with a solution – which will then benefit the individual when they face a similar problem in their job. By combining leadership and business development, you are truly enhancing their education.
PEKKA MATTILA is the Group Managing Director of Aalto University Executive Education and serves as a Professor of Practice at the Aalto University School of Business. He works frequently with European, Asian, African, and North American executive audiences on themes ranging from strategic management and agility, strategy co-creation, business model innovation, and executive leadership to top team dynamics, change management, organisational culture, and strategic marketing.
Leadership programmes are not only a great way to get people involved and make them feel included, but also to channel the organisation’s energies in the right direction
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The vital role
of Business Schools in driving national innovation
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As products and business models become more complex, innovation requires specialised academic institutions, writes Arturo Bris , Director, IMD World Competitiveness Center
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Today, entrepreneurs need to be more than just creators; they need to learn how to monetise their ideas
My recent book The Right Place: How National Competitiveness Makes or Breaks Companies argues that, in determining corporate success, factors such as leadership and strategic choices, are marginal. From my research, and that of others, we can conclude that the impact of leadership teams on corporate performance is moderate at best; some CEOs increase value, but some destroy value. The factors determining corporate success are global and national. My work shows that 80% of a company’s stock return variability is explained by factors such as the business cycle, trade wars, geopolitical tensions, and regulation. The Covid-19 pandemic has taught us that the fate of organisations is often dictated by uncertainties that are not controlled by companies. In that context, decisions at a country level, such as capital markets design, education policies, and fiscal rules for talent attraction, have a greater impact on innovation than the DNA of potential creators. Specifically, educational institutions play a vital role in shaping innovation. Stanford comes to mind as a global leader in the production of startups, with Alphabet being its most successful result. Facebook and Microsoft were born in Harvard dorm rooms, while, in total, Harvard is the alma mater of 1,310 entrepreneurs. Michael Dell was a student at the University of Texas when he founded his computer brand. Dropbox was born in MIT; WordPress at the University of Houston; Reddit at the University of Virginia and Fedex at Yale. Skype was developed by a graduate of Uppsala University (Sweden), and Logitech was founded by two colleague students at EPFL in Switzerland. Specialist institutions for innovation As products and business models become more complex, innovation requires specialised academic institutions. That is why Business Schools have been the seed of many important innovations of the past
n the late 19th century, two French brothers – Auguste and Louis Lumière – invented the cinematograph. They are credited as the founders of modern cinema, and owned more than 170 patents in imagery development, and in other fields such as medicine. They are among the few French nationals to be honored on Hollywood’s Walk of Fame. In those days, most revolutionary innovations were coming from England or the US; for example, the steam engine or electricity. Why is it, then, that the Lumières – young men from Lyon, a mid-size city in France – gave the world such important technology? Auguste and Louis’ creativity was the result of their family – their non-conformist father was the owner of a photography business – and their personality traits (risk attitude, curiosity) also influenced their creativity. However, the main factor for the birth of cinema in Lyon is an educational institution – La Martinière – from which the brothers graduated as engineers. La Martinière could be described as the MIT of the day, with a curriculum that promoted technology, chemistry, industrial knowledge, and experimentation. As well as being the alma mater of some of Lyon’s prominent industrial and commercial leaders, it attracted students from all over the world who were interested in technology and innovation. The ability to innovate Very often, we attribute the innovation of specific people or countries to individual attitudes or national culture. When I ask members of IMD’s executive programme why they think that, in Europe, there are no digital platforms along the lines of Alphabet (in the US) or Alibaba (China), they either blame a risk-averse attitude among European entrepreneurs, the lack of a ‘failure culture’, or inadequate regulation. While countries such as Israel and Taiwan are innovative by nature, the same can be said of Jordan and Ukraine. So why do we rarely see see disruptive innovations coming from the latter two?
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