Ambition is AMBA’s thought leadership magazine, offering regular insights into the challenges and trends that matter most in global management education
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Global agreement on the responsibility of Business Schools for addressing climate change, in new AMBA research
Why management education must mend broken approaches to sustainability
Growing confidence in implementation heralds a new world order of edtech
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A MARCH 2021 Contents News and research 08 Network news
Changing climate Business School leaders acknowledge the sector’s responsibility for tackling climate change
Research on R&D spending, brand management and robots among this month’s collection of updates
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12 A climate of change?
The views of Business School leaders give reason for optimism, but attest to the size of the task ahead, in new and exclusive research from AMBA & BGA, in association with Jyväskylä University School of Business and Economics 26 A whole new world Confidence in the use of edtech has soared during the pandemic. AMBA & BGA analyses the progress of business education’s
Sustainability How to mend management education’s broken approaches
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new era, in new research, in association with Barco
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Brave new worlds New research into the impact of Covid-19 on Business School innovation and use of edtech
Features 20 Broken approaches
Why management education's provision of sustainability has tended to convey the wrong message to students and how this can be remedied
Events and opinion 04 Editor's letter 07 From the CEO 34 Awards Despatch from the online ceremony of this year’s AMBA & BGA Excellence Awards, with a full list of all 2021’s winners and finalists 40 Global Conference 2021
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AMBA network updates News and research from AMBA-accredited Business Schools across the world
Excellence Awards Find out which Business Schools triumphed in this year’s AMBA & BGA Excellence Awards
AMBA & BGA's flagship event
42 Guest column
A new model of leadership
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Editorial Editor and Director of Marketing and Communications David Woods-Hale d.woods@ associationofmbas.com @davidpaulwoods Content Editor Tim Banerjee Dhoul t.dhoul@ associationofmbas.com Art Editor Laura Tallon Insight and Communications Executive Ellen Buchan e.buchan@ associationofmbas.com
A hot topic that's getting hotter
I'm going to give the game away by launching into this edition and quoting the conclusion of our cover story: to say that climate change is a ‘hot’ topic would be an understatement . I'm sure the point above won't come as a surprise to many but, as little as five years ago, the very existence of this issue was still being debated. In more recent years, a global movement to secure the future of our planet has pushed climate change firmly into the public arena; and now the damage caused by human activity is undeniable. AMBITION most recently featured the climate crisis on our cover in late 2019, when I reported in my editor's
of our human impact on the environment. Will the good habits we have been forced to put in place be easy to maintain in the longer term, as we move forward into the ‘new normal’? And, with the world in need of leaders that are willing to make sea changes in the way they run business, are Business Schools doing enough to produce knowledgeable graduates who care actively about the environment? What is the position Business Schools need to adopt in the midst of an environmental crisis? In the spring of last year, as the world moved into lockdown, AMBA & BGA conducted a survey across its global network of Business School leaders, to evaluate their opinions
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Corporate Head of Commercial Relations Max Braithwaite m.braithwaite@associationofmbas.com Commercial Partnerships Manager Emily Wall e.wall@associationofmbas.com HR and Employer Relations Manager Aarti Bhasin Conference Producer Paul Thurston Marketing and Communications Executive Edward Holmes Membership Manager Tariro Masukume Head of IT and Data Management Jack Villanueva Finance and Commercial Director Catherine Walker Chief Executive Officer Andrew Main Wilson Executive Assistant to the CEO Amy Youngs a.youngs@associationofmbas.com Accreditation enquiries accreditation@associationofmbas.com
letter that the International Energy Agency had stated – quite simply – that the world’s existing climate policies wouldn't be enough to end the upward march of record energy emissions rising beyond 2040 without a ‘grand coalition’ of governments and investors. The
of how well Business Schools were responding to the climate crisis, how their programmes are shaping the minds of sustainable leaders, and how they foresee business being able to cope with the crisis. We share the findings of this piece of
'More has to be done and time is running out'
global energy watchdog also warned that the growth of renewables would not be sufficient to put a ceiling on the energy sector’s emissions before 2040. The headline: governments are not doing enough; it’s up to business and society to take action – and fast. And then along came Covid-19… The climate protesters of 2019 could not have foreseen the fundamental shifts that 2020 would bring. Reports of the waters in the Italian city of Venice becoming so clear it was possible to see fish, and evidence of road and air emissions plummeting and pollution clearing, began to creep though the Covid- 19-dominated news agenda, as lockdown served to expose the extent
research on page 12, and while they're far from damning in terms of the progress being made by Schools and their students, there is a strong, shared opinion among participants that more has to be done and that time is running out to devise and implement practical solutions to the crisis the planet is facing. This hot topic is literally – as well as figuratively – getting hotter and there is no more time to debate the issues, delegate responsibilities, or question our personal and professional roles in addressing the climate crisis. Sustainability and climate change has to take its place at the core and forefront of business education strategy in
order to address an issue shared by all of us. David Woods-Hale, Editor, AMBITION
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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CEO'S COLUMN
Business education in a post-Covid-19 world: part two
In the second and final part on the subject of post-Covid-19 business education, Andrew Main Wilson shares his thoughts on the impact of technology and climate change
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s I suggested in my column for AMBITION last month, I believe the higher education market will polarise into two types of learning.
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refresher learning will be delivered online. We are encouraging all our Schools to create post-graduation lifelong learning modules, particularly in areas like IT and marketing. We are in the midst of a digital revolution. We are seeing the rise of automation, AI, and big data. These trends are disrupting workplaces, education, and the way we do business. A good MBA programme already includes modules on AI, big data, and digital marketing. The key focus of an MBA is to develop talented business executives, by preparing them for future leadership roles. Once an MBA graduate reaches a senior leadership position, their role is to lead the organisation and recruit specialist experts in the fields above. The human, emotional intelligence skills and the ability to charm and persuade people are not impacted by technology. Employers expect a good Business School to teach students the essentials of finance, strategy, marketing, operations, IT, and big data – but they are also looking for evidence that the graduate can lead their organisation through inspiration, persuasion, and innovative strategic foresight. IT is enabling the organisation, but it will be humans that are leading it.
One of the other major topics of the day is climate change and sustainability. As such, we recently launched a research project to look at Business School responses to climate change. Virtually every School in the AMBA network is trying to incorporate some or all of the UN SDGs in the modules that comprise their MBA, or other related programmes. It is important that students of both business and science work together to create environmentally friendly, sustainable products, which are no more expensive for consumers than existing products to curb current reluctance to switch to environmentally friendly products when there is a price premium to pay. Most students feel passionate about trying to make a difference to society, but can feel overwhelmed when they look at all 17 SDGs. I recommend to students that they should choose two or three of the SDGs – those where they feel they can make the biggest contribution towards improving life on earth. Unfortunately, the Covid-19 pandemic has inevitably distracted people in the short term. However, this makes it all the more vital that, once the pandemic is over, we all refocus and redouble our efforts on sustainability and responsible management.
University undergraduate degrees and postgraduate master's degrees will again be delivered face to face on campuses. There will be more blended learning than ever before, but I don't see those degrees turning into 100% online learning degrees overnight. Right now, many students are missing their first experience of time away from home by not being on campus. They don't want to stay with their families or sit in rented accommodation on their own, doing a three-year degree course. Social networking and face-to-face tuition is a key part of an undergraduate degree experience. That's also true, for slightly different reasons, for master's degrees, where the social networking to build business contacts, is vital. What I think will change significantly, is post- university ‘rest-of-life’ learning – especially for MBA students, with a 30-40 year career ahead of them. Much of that annual, ‘just-in-time’
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NEWS & R E S EARCH FROM ACROSS AMBA’S GLOBAL NETWORK Sonority’s role in brand perception, R&D spending among biopharma firms, a flying approach to executive education, and more, in this edition’s roundup of news and research
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from Business Schools in the AMBA network. By Ellen Buchan and Tim Banerjee Dhoul
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ROBOTS NOT IN OUR HOMES, BUT IN OUR HOTELS
Robots who had a human voice, showed emotions, and physically looked human were preferred by customers in service settings that included a bank or hotel reception. A robot’s perceived usefulness and intelligence was also important to customers, but relational characteristics, such as rapport, were seen as less important. Lastly, customers found it easier to use human-like robots as they are then able to apply the usual social expectations and rules of human-to-human interactions. ‘Our research shows the perception of human-like qualities in service robots can facilitate engagement with customers, as it incorporates the underlying principles and expectations people use in social settings in a person’s interaction with social robots,’ Blut said. When viewed in conjunction with last month’s research, the suggestion is that in a public setting, customers want to engage with robots who seem human, but when outsourcing tasks in their homes they would like robots to be more… robot. / Ellen Buchan (EB)
COUNTRY: UK SCHOOL: DURHAM UNIVERSITY BUSINESS SCHOOL Last month’s news and research pages in AMBITION (February 2021 edition), featured research from St.Gallen which found that robots used in the home, such as automated lawnmowers or vacuum cleaners, could cause discomfort or guilt in the user when they were more ‘human-like’, for example, if they had a human face, voice, or name. However, new research from Durham University Business School adds an interesting twist to this with the finding
that in a customer service setting, customers prefer robots to have human-like characteristics. The study was based on 11,053 individuals interacting with service robots and was carried out by Durham University Business School’s Markus Blut, together with researchers from International Business School Suzhou, Paderborn University and the University of Rostock.
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LEADING THINK TANKS NAMED IN INDEX
International Director, Marlos Lima, taking note of the institution’s rise in the index from its first appearance in 27th place 12 years ago, one year after the index was established: ‘It is a clear sign that FGV has been participating ever more in decisions that are made in Brazil and abroad, through its analysis and recommendations.’ The annual index forms part of the Think Tanks and Civil Societies Program (TTCSP) of the Lauder Institute at the University of Pennsylvania (UPenn), which conducts research on the role played by policy institutes in governments and civil societies around the world. Laying claim to a database of more than 8,000 think tanks, the index aims to take differences between think tanks and the spaces in which they operate into account, ‘in an effort to help make sense of this highly diverse set of institutions,’ its website explains. Other AMBA-accredited Schools are associated with entries in the ‘Best University-Affiliated Think Tanks’ category, including the Institute of Development Studies (IDS) at the University of Sussex in the UK – home to the University of Sussex Business School – and Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO) at MGIMO University in Russia – home to MGIMO School of Business and International Proficiency – which both placed inside the top 10. / Tim Banerjee Dhoul (TBD)
COUNTRY: BRAZIL SCHOOL: FGV EAESP, FUNDAÇÃO GETULIO VARGAS Fundação Getulio Vargas (FGV) – home to FGV EAESP (São Paulo School of Business Administration) – has been ranked third on a list of the top think tanks worldwide in the latest Global Go To Think Tank Index Report . In placing third, FGV lies behind the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in the US and Belgium’s Bruegel in first and second place, respectively. The Brazilian institution, meanwhile, has also been named a Center of Excellence in both the ‘Central and South America’ and the ‘Best Managed’ segments of the rankings. ‘This is the result of decades of work and it shows that FGV is now an active player on the international stage,’ said FGV’s
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BUILDING THE ECONOMIES OF TOMORROW
COUNTRY: RUSSIA SCHOOL(S): RANEPA
‘Yes, we have now entered a recession. Maybe the worst since the Great Depression,’ said the International Monetary Fund’s Managing Director, Kristalina Georgieva, in a discussion on the future of economic growth with Vladimir Mau, Rector of the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA), as part of this year’s Gaidar Forum. ‘The countries that approached the pandemic with resilient and strong economies were able to weather the shock much better,’ Georgieva added. ‘That is why it is so important to have a solid foundation. And for this, the labour market must be agile, the commodities and services market must be flexible.’ Georgieva also said that countries should focus on building the economies of tomorrow rather than to seek a return to the economy of 2019: ‘We recommend that all nations create the financial leverage to make their economies more stress-resistant, with less consumption of hydrocarbons. If this is not done, there is a risk of falling behind the train of change.’ The conversation formed one of 118 thematic sessions featuring 400 speakers at this year’s Gaidar Forum. Held in a hybrid format of online and offline, and hosted by RANEPA, the event is said to have attracted more than 100 thousand people to its livestream. The key objective of the forum, titled ‘Russia and the World After the Pandemic’, was to find answers to challenges posed by the pandemic in macroeconomic terms as well as those pertaining to higher education and the social sphere. Another session, for example, explored the interaction of universities and regional authorities in Russia’s implementation of regional development programmes, and featured governors and rectors of leading universities from the regions (oblasts) of Samara, Tomsk and Kaliningrad. Here, the discussion centred on points of collaboration between regional government and higher education institutions, the benefits of interaction, and even the extent to which regional governments should invest into a university. RANEPA incorporates a number of AMBA-accredited Business Schools, including the Faculty of International MBA Programs at the Institute for Social Sciences, the Institute of Industry Management and the Institute of Public Administration and Civil Service (IPACS). / TBD
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JOIN THE MILE-HIGH EXED CLUB
COUNTRY: SPAIN SCHOOL: ESADE BUSINESS SCHOOL
Iberia and ESADE Business School are hoping to transform inflight entertainment into inflight education, following an agreement that will see ESADE supply the airline’s online entertainment platform with masterclasses. These inflight courses are designed to engage with the technology gap created by the fourth industrial revolution and the fast pace of the business world, by giving learners the tools they need to keep up with digital change. The first courses which have been made available to flyers are on the topics of business agility, AI, e-commerce and multichannel strategies. The courses are gleaned from ESADE’s range of In/On programmes, which offer online and blended executive education. There is no doubt that business leaders need to keep their business knowledge up to date, and continually learn in the fast-paced business environment. So, why not complete these at the convenience of getting from A to B at the same time? The question is – will people want to give up their bad movies and a chance to catch up on sleep in order to freshen up and widen their business expertise? / EB
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TAKING ACTION WITH OCCLUSIVE CONSONANTS
COUNTRY: FRANCE SCHOOL: GRENOBLE ECOLE DE MANAGEMENT A brand should start with the letter ‘B’, ‘D’, ‘P’ or ‘T ‘, rather than with an ‘F’, ‘L’, ‘S’ and ‘V’, according to Caroline Cuny, Marketing Professor at Grenoble Ecole de Management. That’s because the pronunciation required for names beginning with occlusive consonants conjure feelings of action due to the movement of the mouth, as opposed to the passivity associated with names that begin with a constrictive consonant. In the context of service failure, this can help the younger generations of consumers to regain a perceived loss of control in their interactions with a brand. ‘When young adults are faced with a loss of control in terms of their interaction with a brand (and therefore a sense of being unsatisfied), they prefer brand names with occlusive consonants instead of constrictive ones because the brand generates a stronger feeling of action that can take back control of the situation and thus re-establish a feeling of personal control,’ Cuny said in explaining the results of three studies involving students and young adults conducted with Jamel Khenfer, a Professor at the College of Business at Zayed University in the United Arab Emirates. Brands would do well to use occlusive consonants independent of the meaning behind the words for their names, and to create phrases with the most occlusives in order to suggest stronger action when producing slogans, according to the research – published in the Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services under the title, 'Brand Preference in the Face of Control Loss and Service Failure: The Role of the Sound of Brands'. The overall message here is that brands might be missing a trick when it comes to the use of sensory information: ‘How sound is interpreted can offer a wealth of information to help in the creation of brand names, in particular for brand names that have no 'meaning' in semantic terms. It would be a pity to not take advantage of sounds, in particular when services delivered by a brand might not always be perceived as perfect by customers and these sounds can help support the customer relationship,’ Cuny said. / TBD
PULLING THE PLUG ON R&D TOO LATE?
COUNTRY: CANADA SCHOOL: SCHULICH SCHOOL OF BUSINESS
When an increase of spend is not mirrored in the return on the investment (ROI), this would ring alarm bells for organisations of any industry but could be a particular problem among biopharma firms. A new study has found that biopharma firms are investing too much in the R&D stage of drug production and failing to put a stop to it even when it looks unlikely the drug will succeed. The study analysed 1,300 early-stage drug discovery projects worldwide, and is co-authored by Moren Lévesque, Co-Director of Entrepreneurial Studies at York University’s Schulich School of Business. It all comes down to the amount of risk involved in developing a drug. If a drug has similar predecessors then it is relatively low risk, but these drugs can face more competition and ROI can be low. Drugs which are new and have no predecessors on which their development can be based have significantly more risk, even though they could potentially yield a high ROI. The recommendation from the research is that the biopharma firms should only continue investing in drugs which are in the middle of this risk continuum. The problem identified is that high-risk projects are likely to focus on drugs for rare diseases and the suggestion is that this is where governments and policymakers should be stepping in. They should be encouraging biopharma firms to continue with research into these rarer drugs, but also encouraging the sharing of data about these drugs to allow for joint effort to be made in their development. The development of the Covid-19 vaccines has now shown how competing firms and university researchers can work together effectively and, for Lévesque, show the way ahead: ‘Such programmes that combine expertise and efforts will undoubtedly remain needed in the new normal ahead of us.’ / EB
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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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There are grounds for optimism in the sense of responsibility Business School
leaders feel with regards to addressing climate change, but much work remains
to be done. Ellen Buchan and David Woods-Hale outline the findings of new and exclusive research from AMBA & BGA
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S enior Business School leaders recognise the the required solutions, according to the AMBA & BGA International Climate Change Report , in association with Jyväskylä University School of Business and Economics. Among 597 senior leaders at Business Schools across the world that impact climate change will have on business and their personal lives but share an optimism that hopeful students and the wider business community will find
while 71% agree that this change would have a negative impact on their lives. However, there was less consensus on taking personal action in this area – while 51% said they have changed their habits and behaviour in the past six months to lessen their impact on the environment, 48% said they have not. Business School leaders are also apprehensive about the future of our planet when looking ahead to the next 10 and 25 years. Business School leaders’ perspectives on the future of climate change When asked to select what they believed were the most important issues that businesses would face over the coming five years, those relating to the environment were high on the agenda. The most frequently cited options were ‘thinking about how businesses can become more sustainable’ (cited by 42% of participants), ‘the ability of companies to innovate’ (38%), and ‘embracing cleaner, more environmentally friendly technologies’ (35%). Leaders were less inclined to select issues such as ‘creating diverse teams’, ‘automated technology and robots’, ‘closing the gender pay gap’ or ‘increased selection and competition’. Business Schools' role with regards to sustainability and climate change Where does the responsibility for addressing climate change lie? There is widespread agreement among Business School leaders that ‘scientists in the field of climate change’ have a large amount of
were surveyed as part of the research, 88% believe that
their Business School has at least some responsibility to tackle climate change.
‘88% believe that their Business School has at least some responsibility to tackle climate change’
However, only 3% are currently of the belief that their Business Schools’ efforts in addressing climate
change are ‘excellent’. It is therefore clear that leaders see the need for significant improvements at their institutions. When it comes to Business
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School leaders’ personal beliefs
about climate change, 69% are in agreement that the temperature of the planet is changing due to the activity of humans,
PARTICIPANT DEMOGRAPHICS The results in this report are based on a survey, conducted between
March 2020 and May 2020, of 597 Business School leaders based in the following regions: Europe (excluding the UK) (45%); UK (14%); Latin America (11%); Africa (6%); Asia (excluding China) and the Middle East (5%); North America and the Caribbean (7%); Oceania (2%); China (including Hong Kong, China) (5%). Among those who participated in the survey, 49% are senior leaders at a Business School, i.e., a dean or director; 10% work in designing or delivering management programmes at Business Schools; 9% work as a business management academics; 8% work with management students and graduates (e.g., careers and alumni staff); 18% work in another capacity within a Business School (common examples cited were accreditation and marketing departments); and 6% said they work in other roles within business and management education.
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What impact do you believe the environment will have on the future of business in the coming decade?
To what extent do you agree or disagree that business can find the solutions to tackle climate change?
Strongly disagree
No impact at all
Don’t know
Don’t know
1% 0%
1% 0%
Not very much impact
Tend to disagree
4%
3%
Neither agree nor disagree
A great deal of impact
7%
Strongly agree
40%
45% 51%
47%
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A fair amount of impact
Tend to agree
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Which of the following areas do you believe would enable Business Schools to maximise their impact in helping to avert climate change? (Participants could select up to two responses.)
Which, if any, of the following activities does your Business School conduct to help alleviate climate change?
100%
100%
90
90
80
80
70
70
60
60
50
50
40
40
30
16
30
20
20
10
10
KEY FINDINGS • 69% of Business School leaders agree that the planet’s climate is changing and think human activity is the main driver of this change.
managers should play in contributing to climate change prevention, the mean score was 5.9.
• 46% believe Business Schools need significant funding to support research into the relationship between business management and climate change prevention in order to maximise their impact in this area. • 87% of Business School leaders think that business is capable of finding the solutions to tackle climate change; 40% strongly believe that this is the case. • 51% of Business School leaders have either changed their behaviour ‘a great deal’ or ‘a fair amount’ in the past six months to lessen their impact on the environment. But 48% have not changed their behaviour ‘very much’ or ‘at all’.
• 71% believe that the impact of climate change on their lives will be negative.
• 65% of Business School decision makers think their own School’s current role in working to prevent further climate change is ‘excellent’, ‘very good’, or ‘fairly good’. • When Business School leaders were asked to rate their programmes out of 10 in terms of how effectively they thought their teaching was in covering the role that
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responsibility for dealing with the current situation – 72% agreed that they are either ‘fully responsible’ or ‘very responsible’. The governments of the world’s eight biggest economies – the G8 – meanwhile, were labelled as being ‘fully responsible’ or ‘very responsible’ by 58% of participants. The equivalent figures for businesses, Business Schools and the UN are 55%, 53%, 52%, respectively. A smaller proportion (46%) of Business School leaders polled felt that students from their Business School or the general public are ‘fully responsible’ or ‘very responsible’ for dealing with the climate change situation. How well do these different groups handle their responsibility, in the eyes of Business School leaders? Among respondents, 13% rated the efforts of scientists in doing their bit to prevent climate change as ‘excellent’, while 69% rated them as either ‘very good’ or ‘fairly good’. In comparison, 62% think their own Business School is ‘very good’ or ‘fairly good’, but only 3% would say current efforts in working to prevent climate change are excellent. More than half (56%) rated their students as ‘excellent’, ‘very good’ or ‘fairly good’ on the issue. At the other end of the scale, a much smaller proportion (21%) of participants think governments of the world’s biggest eight economies were ‘fairly good’ or better in their current efforts to tackle climate change (21%). Business School leaders are also sceptical in their views of the business community in this regard, with just 29% rating current efforts as ‘fairly good’, ‘very good’ or ‘excellent’. How business education needs to improve Nearly a quarter of participants (22%) said their Business School was ‘neither good nor poor’ in their current efforts in working to prevent climate change, while 13% scored their institution as ‘fairly poor’,
‘very poor’ or ‘terrible’ – indicating clear room for improvement in the eyes of Business School leaders. Improvement could come from further resources being earmarked for efforts in this area – 46% of those surveyed said Business Schools need significant funding to support research into the relationship between business management and climate change prevention, and a further 33% are of the opinion that academics need training in terms of how to disseminate their research findings for greater effect. Meanwhile, 30% of Business School leaders believe that there needs to be more collaboration between Schools on the topic of climate change. Of course, that doesn’t mean that there isn’t already research and collaboration taking place at Business Schools in the field of climate change. Close to half of respondents (48%) said they are sharing knowledge and research on business and climate change with the global Business School community, and nearly two fifths (39%) said they are producing research on ‘how businesses can act to mitigate their carbon footprints and reduce climate impact’. However, only 33% reported incorporating climate change as a core module within their Business Schools’ curricula. The impact of climate change and personal beliefs Business School leaders were asked if their programmes had changed over the past three
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‘33% reported incorporating climate change as a core module within their Business Schools’ curricula’
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years to ensure they offer their students an up-to- date understanding of the significance of business management in helping to tackle climate change. In response, 66% reported that their programmes had indeed changed, while 24% said they had not changed and 10% were not sure whether they had changed or not. Almost all Business School leaders (96%) believe that the environment will have some sort of impact on business in the coming decade. Encouragingly, 87% believe that business is capable of finding the solutions to tackle climate change effectively, and 40% strongly believe that this is the case. None of the respondents think that the climate is not changing, but 2% do believe that human activity is not responsible for this at all. However, a clear majority – 69% – believe that the climate is changing and that human activity is the main driver for this. Nearly three in 10 (28%) believe human activity is only partly responsible for climate change, while again being of the belief that the climate is changing. More than nine out of 10 (92%) of leaders agree with the statement that recent environmental disasters (for example, hurricanes, bush fires, and extreme hot and cold weather) are due to climate change. Only 1% of respondents disagree with the statement and 6% ‘neither agree nor disagree’ with it. A fifth of respondents (20%) believe the impact of climate change will have a ‘very negative impact’ on their own lives, while 51% say it will have ‘a fairly negative impact’ on their lives. Among those polled 13% are unsure if the impact will be positive or negative and 15% are of the belief that the impact of climate change on their own lives will in fact be either ‘very positive’ or ‘fairly positive’. It could be that this final proportion interpreted the question as an opportunity to
consider how they, as an individual, might make a positive contribution towards addressing climate change. Then again, it is also possible that they simply do not regard the effects of climate change (if they perceive any) as being detrimental to their own way of life. Conclusion To say that climate change is a ‘hot’ topic would be an understatement. As little as five years ago, the very existence of this issue was still being debated. Yet, a global movement to secure the future of our planet has pushed climate change firmly into the public arena; and now the damage climate change is causing is undeniable. The AMBA & BGA International Climate Change Report is a call to action for, but also from, the leaders at Business Schools to do more to tackle the rising pressures of climate change. The report also contains cautious optimism for the future potential of Business Schools – and the ability of business in general – to come up with the solutions that can help save the planet.
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To access the full report, please visit www.associationofmbas.com/research
HANNA-LEENA PESONEN Dean, Jyväskylä University School of Business
example, designing dedicated courses and programmes, as well as incorporating sustainability aspects into all courses), research to support sustainable transition in business and society, as well as drawing on faculty expertise for advancing the climate change agenda within businesses and society. The carbon footprint of the Business School itself should also be monitored and actively reduced in order to signal the significance of the issue. Improving a Business School’s own climate footprint provides the foundations for credibility in climate change education and research. The views of the world’s leading Business School decision makers give reason to be hopeful that Business Schools are indeed prepared to re-evaluate their role in the society, to start critically revisiting traditional economic and business concepts, frameworks and theories, and to further integrate climate change into all activities. This will nurture a new generation of business leaders that are prepared to deal with the challenges that climate change poses for businesses and to act as a force for good to create solutions to tackle climate change and other sustainability challenges.
and Economics
The United Nations has declared the 2020s a ‘Decade of Action’ which calls for accelerating sustainable solutions to all of the world’s biggest challenges – climate change included – towards delivering the promises of its 17 SDGs by 2030. The results of the AMBA & BGA International Climate Change Report provide a unique perspective on the current state and future outlook of world-leading Business Schools in regard to incorporating climate change in business education and research. The views of almost 600 senior Business School leaders give reason for optimism. Participating Business School leaders consider the need to develop business sustainability as the most important issue facing business in the next five years and recognise the strong link between climate change and business. Almost all Business School leaders agree that human activity – business included – is a driver for climate change. Similarly, almost all recognise that business is going to be impacted by the environment and climate change. Businesses have been part of the cause of the environmental problems but can, and must, play a role in providing solutions to tackle climate change. The same applies to Business Schools themselves: the responsibility of Schools for dealing with climate change is understood by the majority of survey participants. In the open answers many have voiced a need for Business Schools to rethink their purpose in the world and would like to see business and Business Schools as a ‘force for good’. According to the results of this report, Business Schools are taking efforts to prevent climate change, even if a lot more could still be done. More can be done in education (for
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Management education’s approach to sustainability is broken –
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here’s how to fix it
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The true meaning of sustainability has been distorted and Business Schools are as much to blame as big business. Lars Moratis and Frans Melissen offer a three-pronged path towards a better approach for those in management education
AMBITION | BE IN BRILLIANT COMPANY O ver the past decades, Business Schools have been heavily criticised for neglecting their societal role – both from within the institution and by outside stakeholders. Often-heard critiques have targeted Business Schools as pursuing a too narrow and rigid scientific model of management, teaching capitalism as the only form of organisation to their students, and
integrate these topics into management education have ranged from offering electives and mandatory standalone modules to making these topics part and parcel of foundational strategy, marketing, and management courses. The next crisis: conveying the wrong message Now, Business Schools do not seem to be critics' target of choice when looking for the causes of, and culprit behind, the Covid-19 pandemic – perhaps because the pandemic has manifested itself primarily as a health crisis and, by implication, it has been governments' handling of the spreading virus that has been the news of the day since March 2020. While, at first, it may appear that all this has little to do with educating managers and business leaders, in reality it does – albeit not so much in terms of rapidly switching to online modes of delivering management education. This becomes clear when reviewing Business School faculty's discipline-oriented interpretations of the business consequences of Covid-19, or the way they are overhauling curricula by emphasising the importance of risk management and changing their business models to demonstrate their relevance. In fact, the Covid-19 pandemic has catapulted Business Schools into an existential crisis yet again, and the silence about it is deafening, both by critics and Business Schools themselves. Moreover, sustainability is not part of the solution for this crisis – it is part of the problem. The problem with management education's provision of sustainability is that it has tended to convey the wrong message to students. For one, management students have been taught that corporate responsibility for sustainability is supra- legal, implying that what is not against the law, is neither unsustainable nor unethical behaviour. In addition, students are being taught that being profitable is a social responsibility in itself, if not the primary responsibility of business. Pandemic parasitism It may hence come as no surprise that online reservation platform, Booking.com, which has boasted billions in profits over the past few years and has brought back some $4.5 billion USD in stock in 2019, requested
surrendering to rankings and the market. Others have accused Business Schools of being complicit in the wave of corporate fraud scandals that took place around the tum of the century and have pointed at their role in the 2007-2011 financial crisis. One 2009 research paper from Temple University’s Robert Giacalone [now at John Carroll University] and Donald Wargo even posited that Business Schools were at the roots of the global financial crisis because they promulgated theories, such as profit maximisation and materialism, that made it easy for business managers to eschew ethical behaviour in favour of short-term profits. Dubbed 'academies of the apocalypse', Business Schools suffered an existential crisis and were urged to reflect on their societal role. An important outcome of the resulting soul-searching efforts was that Business Schools across the board increased their attention to business ethics, CSR, and sustainable business. Their efforts to
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‘The Covid-19 pandemic has catapulted Business Schools into an existential crisis yet again, and the silence about it is deafening’
‘Management education needs to take a radical step away from the dominant way it approaches sustainability’
and received financial support from the Dutch government as part of the latter's Covid-19 emergency stimulus package. In a similar vein, large companies in the fashion sector decided to cancel their summer collections, all in line with the contracts they have with factories in low-income countries that produce them, burdening the latter with the costs of massive numbers of unsold products. Within such narrow interpretations of responsible and sustainable corporate conduct, not behaving irresponsibly quickly becomes outright pandemic parasitism. A second example can be found with Amazon. While launching a US$2 billion USD Climate Pledge Fund in June 2020, Amazon apparently failed to provide for adequate protective measures for its warehouse employees to ensure safe and sanitary working conditions during the pandemic. In the same period, according to a Financial Times report, the company boasted over US$400 billion USD in additional market cap and hired some 175,000 new employees to keep up with spiking online shopping. For reputational reasons, companies may be keen to jump on board the climate bandwagon in order to prevent being labelled a laggard on today's most challenging societal issue, but a healthy workforce and good employee relations (the 'inner' side of sustainability) are part of the same course – even though this may be far
less visible to the public and not nearly as mediagenic. A more nuanced instance of pandemic parasitism is the online campaign that Unilever ran for its beauty brand, Dove, over the past months. The company used iconic images of worn-out nurses and doctors, marked by the protective equipment they had worn for hours and hours while treating Covid-19 patients – arguably intended to demonstrate that the company cares for these healthcare workers and to support the message that they provided free products for the pandemic's heroes. Whereas this could easily qualify as opportunistic corporate behaviour and one could question why such an engagement would need to manifest itself as a brand campaign, management students are familiarised with such behaviour under the sustainable guise of cause-related marketing. Teaching all too shallow conceptions of the roles and responsibilities of companies with regards to sustainability implies that Business Schools should share in taking the blame for such examples of corporate behaviour in times of social upheaval.
is seen for what it is: a symptom of a systemic crisis. Essentially, the pandemic boils down to a deeply disturbed and unsustainable relationship between humans and nature that is fuelled by an obsession with growth and short-term economic gain, firmly rooted in a neoliberal worldview. Central to this worldview is colonising nature, depleting natural resources, seeing human beings as production factors, reducing animals to raw materials, and seeing society as serving corporate interests. It is a worldview that propagates a culture of institutionalised exploitation. Privatising profits and socialising costs are the name of the game. Societal challenges are, first and foremost, business opportunities. Climate change, biodiversity loss, and poverty are inevitable collateral damage. This worldview has become so normalised and pervasive in contemporary business culture – and reproduced by Business Schools - that it has distorted the true meaning of sustainability: ‘sustainability’ is no longer a form of social criticism or a notion that exemplifies the importance of building an ecologically sound and equitable society for current and future generations alike, but is framed within a political ideology that essentially runs counter to it. No wonder that this has led Business Schools to adopt and create a language of popular sustainability newspeak that includes concepts such as 'environmental profit and
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A deeper crisis: a culture of institutionalised exploitation
The existential crisis for Business Schools that the Covid-19 pandemic reveals runs considerably deeper than these examples, though. This becomes clear when Covid-19
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1. Management education should make ‘critical studies’ a central part of its curricula. Through critical studies, students can scrutinise the assumptions that underpin what is considered to be ‘normal’ corporate conduct, successful business models, and contemporary business and society relationships. Critical scrutiny of these assumptions will also strengthen students' understanding of existing power structures in economy and society and the political nature of sustainable development. This may include studying degrowth – defined by economic anthropologist, Jason Hickel, in the book Less Is More – as a socioeconomic approach towards restoring the balance between the global economy and the living world in a way that reduces inequality and improves human wellbeing. Engaging in critical studies would also include a thorough reflection on the roles and responsibilities of Business Schools, the worldviews that govern their knowledge production and dissemination activities, and what direct and indirect impacts Business Schools have on society. 2. Management educators should stimulate their students' moral imagination in order to envision new ways to address moral problems and find solutions for our world's grand challenges. Moral imagination challenges us to build empathy and solidarity with those who might not be considered parts of our
loss accounts', 'true pricing', 'ecosystem services', 'the business case for sustainability', and 'nature-positive economic recovery'. In fact, sustainability only seems to be acceptable when it has a business case, hence protecting the regime's vested interests, be they: reducing operational costs; the ability to attract and retain talent; developing new markets; and/or building or restoring corporate reputation. This has given rise to an obsession with the concept of ‘green growth’ in business, government and NGO circles – a fallacy which revolves around ever-growing economies without fundamentally changing business models and economic models. However, as Professor Steve Keen of University College of London's Institute for Strategy, Resilience and Security has recently argued, the neoclassical economics of climate change are appallingly bad, with economists being overly optimistic about the economic damage from climate change. As he writes in a 2020 paper in Globalizations : 'If climate change does lead to the catastrophic outcomes that some scientists now openly contemplate, then these neoclassical economists will be complicit in causing the greatest crisis, not merely in the history of capitalism, but potentially in the history of life on Earth'. Speaking about catastrophic outcomes, the 2020 report, Fatal calculations: How economics has underestimated climate damage and encouraged inaction , concluded that 'the economic damages by not acting may be so large as to be unquantifiable'. When that is the situation, why worry about building a business case? Additionally, despite policy rhetoric, there is no empirical evidence on resource use and carbon emissions that supports green growth theory. How Business Schools can step away from current approaches to sustainability
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‘The problem with management
education's provision of sustainability is that it has tended to convey the wrong message to students’
With Business Schools being part and parcel of the factors that have caused the systemic crisis producing the Covid-19 pandemic and some of the pernicious corporate behaviour
that emerged amid it, management education needs to take a radical step away from the dominant way it approaches sustainability. There are three
courses of action in this direction that Business Schools should take:
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