STRATEGY
The pandemic opened up other possibilities we could explore
GUSTAVO GENONI
outlook in business education. To this point, Gastón Labadie, Dean of the School of Management and Social Sciences at Universidad ORT Uruguay, reminded attendees that actions speak louder than words, describing two dual degrees his School has recently arranged with counterparts in China (‘the main trading partner for Uruguay for quite a few years’) and its plans for further agreements with institutions in India. ‘The Indian connection would be very interesting because we have a set of Indian firms that have significant presence in Uruguay, in part even sharing services for the region,’ he commented. ‘Globalisation is even more important than it used to be.’ Brito agreed, adding that ‘what we learned from the pandemic will actually foster further globalisation instead of reducing it.’ He reasoned that Covid-19 had allowed Schools to ‘bring elements of globalisation to all students’, whereas previously, only some were able to take a semester abroad or make international trips.’ However, despite this potential for Schools to collaborate through digital innovations, there was no suggestion that in-person learning would be rendered obsolete. ‘An important part of an exchange programme is the cultural education – doing things in a different culture, broadening your perspective, extending your network,’ said Genoni. ‘And that cannot be done online.’ Labadie highlighted the ‘repressed demand for travelling from professors, students and young people’. ‘I think the new normal is going to come both ways – a hybrid combinations of distance learning, face-to-face learning and further traveling in terms of exchanges and degrees,’ he said.
This would minimise operational costs, while offering students diversity of course content. ‘I think this [idea] could be now exploited further and we could make joint courses instead of joint degrees, [in which there are] two or three Schools offering courses together,’ he said. ‘That would enrich our experience with of our students.’ He added that the use of remote synchronous learning makes faculty exchange easier and more affordable and is therefore likely to be retained: ‘Faculty exchanges is a key driver because it can promote the further collaboration between Schools.’ Challenges remain, however. Sharing his perspective on the changing nature of alliances, Gustavo Genoni, Dean of the Universidad de San Andrés Business School, reported that some of his School’s guest professors have been banned from teaching at other universities by their home university. ‘They see that the competitive playground has expanded and therefore [have decided that] they cannot keep sharing resources if they are going to compete.’ Digitisation is behind much of this expansion, as Genoni explained: ‘We have Schools from all over the world offering programmes in Argentina. We have to compete on executive education with big universities we didn’t have to compete with before. We have to compete with Harvard, which is crazy because they are much older, much more experienced and much bigger than us. So, we will have to rethink our offer, consider where we want to compete and where we don’t want to, and decide on our niches and areas of focus.’ However, the overriding feeling among the three Business School leaders was that the social isolation experienced by many during Covid-19 has merely served to emphasise the value of a global
GASTON LABADIE
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