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Issue 46 SEPTEMBER 2021
Celebrating 30 years of the MBA in China Trends and opportunities
ADAPTATION OR INNOVATION? How the Covid-19 pandemic has changed Business Schools’ priorities, as well as the fundamentals of the MBA
ENHANCING GENDER EQUALITY Strong relationships between Business Schools and corporates can encourage diversity, equality, and inclusion in society
CHANGING THE NARRATIVE Why navigable, supportive, targeted, integrated, and transparent long-life learning could replace lifelong learning systems
Issue 46 | SEPTEMBER 2021
STRATEGY
NEWS & INS IGHT
09 | ROUNDUP Shadow banks, the impact of subjective analytical choices in research, and the adoption of orangutans as part of MBA students’ personal development make headlines included within our regular news and research review
14 | THE MBA IN CHINA The MBA has flourished in China for 30 years, contributing significantly to economic development
22 | ADAPTATION, REPAIR, OR NEW OPPORTUNITY? How Covid-19 has changed Business Schools’ priorities 30 | GENDER EQUALITY Forging partnerships that encourage diversity at NEOMA Business School 36 | THE DBA Distinguishable from the MBA and PhD, the DBA is a vehicle for creating managerial and
The world will not be the same. Everything has become reachable from everywhere
societal impact 30
Higher Ed Trends Report 2021
Insights into Higher Education Trends from more than 2,000 Students and Staff across North America, Europe, and Australia.
sfdc.co/trends-report
Issue 46 | SEPTEMBER 2021
INTERVIEW
42 |CHANGING THE NARRATIVE Michelle R Weise is on a mission to change the future of education, envisioning a shift from lifelong learning to long-life learning
REGULARS
06 | EDITOR’S LETTER Discovering new opportunities for innovation in the post-Covid-19 business education landscape 48 | AMBITION HUB Highlights from AMBITION’s coverage of analysis and thought leadership on current and trending business topics – for Business School leaders and MBA students and graduates – available via the AMBA website. This month, we find out why ambivalence
OPINION
46 | GUEST COLUMN Dan Hughes maps out the competencies needed for the next decade 50 | CEO’S COLUMN Andrew Main Wilson, CEO at AMBA & BGA, looks forward to a new academic year for most Business Schools
is healthy, but ambiguity is not 48
OPINION
Finding new OPPORTUNITIES
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
‘Embed a culture of flexibility and adaptability’
T he month of September represents the start of a new academic year for a large proportion of our readers, giving us an opportunity to close one chapter and open another. As such, it seems fitting to dedicate a feature in this edition of Ambition to taking stock of the past 18 months, sharing our learnings, and working together to identify ways in which we can translate our experiences of managing through Covid-19 into strategies and models for the next phase. In July, I was joined at one of AMBA’s regular roundtables by a number of Business School decision makers and thought leaders to discuss how we have adapted to a new orthodoxy as a result of the pandemic – and how this has been an impetus for long-lasting change. According to research launched in February by AMBA, in association with technology company Barco, digitalisation will be the most important concept in the running of a Business School over the next 10 years, with almost two thirds (63%) of Business School decision makers believing it to be very important. A further 83% of School leaders think it likely that the very fundamentals of the MBA will change within the next decade. However, statistics can only tell half the story, so I was keen to explore what these findings mean to Business School leaders at the coalface, in real terms – and our roundtable was a great opportunity to discover some of the ways in which Schools are rising to the challenge. You can read a selection of takeaways from this event on page 22. One of the comments that resonated with me came from Gunther Friedl, Dean of TUM School of Management. He said: ‘Mindsets [in Business Schools] need to change to draw on possibilities and flexibilities, but students themselves need to be flexible as this is the new normal.’ While Covid-19 has provided an impetus for change, and technology has been its enabler, the institutions that successfully embed a culture of flexibility and adaptability across all their stakeholder groups will be the most successful business education institutions as we move forward. 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
paralysis’. He joined the podcast to introduce some practical ways for everyone to be an activist.
Agility is a word which is thrown around in professional circles, but what does it mean? To shed light on the phenomenon, MBA and DBA graduate Simon Hayward joined the AMBITION Podcast and shared some useful tips from his book, The Agile Leader , on how to increase your own and your team’s agility, as well as insights into collaboration and leadership. At some point, we have all felt anger at a social issue but not known how to react, or felt powerless in the face of it. Steve Davis describes this mindset as being ‘outraged to the point of
In the next decade, as much as 70% of business could be powered by artificial intelligence, so we invited Sudhi Sinha, author of Reimagining Businesses with AI, to predict what the jobs of the future might look like – and how we can prepare.
Chief Executive Officer Andrew Main Wilson
Executive Assistant to the CEO Amy Youngs a.youngs@associationofmbas.com ACCREDITATION ENQUIRIES accreditation@associationofmbas.com
The podcast is available on Amazon Music, Spotify, Stitcher, Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud,
TuneIn, Google Podcasts, and Deezer. www.associationofmbas.com/podcast
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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Issue 43 MAY 2021
AMBA’s Ambition magazine
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Cutting through the noise...
IMD on preparing managers for a future of continuous anticipation and adjustment
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LEARNING FROM LITERATURE: ‘Good leaders read a lot.’ The importance UPF Barcelona School of Management places in culture and the humanities
REIMAGINING THE ALUMNI CLUB: Mannheim Business School emphasises the value of continuity in clubs that have been going from strength to strength
RISK-TAKING TO ENGAGE STUDENTS: The value of humour and how TBS Education’s David Stolin struck up a partnership with a renowned comedian
AMBA & BGA EXCELLENCE AWARDS 2022 THE & GALA DINNER
OPEN FOR ENTRIES Business Schools are invited to share the success of their organisation, their students, and alumni in the following 11 categories: Business School Awards (BGA) BGA Business School Impact Award 2022 IT’S TIME TO SHOWCASE YOUR ACHIEVEMENTS FROM THE PAST 12 MONTHS.
Student and Graduate Awards (for AMBA-accredited Schools) MBA Student of the Year 2022 MBA Entrepreneur of the Year 2022 MBA Leadership Award 2022 MBA Startup of the Year 2022 Student and Graduate Awards (BGA) BGA Student of the Year 2022
Business School Awards (AMBA & BGA) Best Innovation Strategy 2022 Best Lifelong Learning Initiative 2022 Best CSR and Sustainability Initiative 2022 Best Business School Partnership 2022 Best Culture, Diversity and Inclusion Initiative 2022
CLOSING DATE FOR ENTRIES: FRIDAY 24 SEPTEMBER Find out more about the process and access entry guidelines and top tips at: www.associationofmbas.com/amba-bga-excellence-awards-2022
NEWS & RESEARCH
from across AMBA’s Global Network
The impact of subjective analytical choices in research, shadow banks’ impact on inequality... and orangutans. Ambition ’s latest updates from the AMBA network include all this and more. Compiled by Ellen Buchan and Tim Banerjee Dhoul
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NEWS & INSIGHT
RENEWABLE ENERGY FUELS EQUALITY COUNTRY: UK SCHOOL: University of Sussex Business School
COVID-19: DEADLY PANDEMIC OR INVESTMENT OPPORTUNITY? COUNTRY: Denmark SCHOOL: Copenhagen Business School Covid-19 has hit some communities harder than others. Simple factors, such as being able to work from home and having access to quiet spaces or a garden, have impacted people’s experience of the pandemic. However, research from Copenhagen Business School suggests that the actions of shadow banks – deregulated private investment funds such as private equity funds and hedge funds – may have exacerbated these differences of experience. For one, from March to December 2020, US billionaires were found to have been able to increase their fortunes by more than a third, while many low-income workers in the US slipped into poverty. ‘The most economically vulnerable have borne most of the hardships of the pandemic, while those with economic capital have profited from both hard-pressed and booming sectors. The shadow banks have contributed to economic and social inequality,’ said lead author, Megan Tobias Neely, Assistant Professor at Copenhagen Business School’s Department of Organization, on the findings from the report published in the American Behavioral Scientist . During the pandemic, shadow banks are said to have been ‘shorting’, or borrowing stock and selling it on the free market, before buying it back at a lower cost if the price drops. They are also thought to have been targeting both flourishing sectors, such as healthcare technology, and sectors which have been struggling, such as airlines. Private investment funds will look to resell companies quickly, which equates to little or no appetite for investments in new technology, skills or protective equipment. Such a strategy during the pandemic heightens the extent to which frontline workers are overstretched and unprotected. Furthermore, the study finds women are disproportionally impacted, as they are more likely to make up frontline staff. The aim of the research is to expose practices in the financial sector which lead to inequality, with recommendations for tax and regulatory reform and for the democratisation of institutions. / EB
Countries which invest in renewable energy have greater income growth and lower levels of income inequality, according to new research conducted by academics at the University of Sussex Business School and the University of Portsmouth. ‘The positive relationship between economic growth and renewable energy is endogenous,’ said Panagiotis Tzouvanas, Lecturer in Finance at the University of Sussex Business School. ‘The more you invest in renewable energy, the higher the economic growth. In turn, the higher the economic growth, the more renewable energy consumption. The challenge is to reach a sufficient level of economic development to initiate this win-win cycle.’ The study, based on an analysis of data from 200 countries between 2000-2019, found a 0.2% decrease in income inequality for every 1% increase in renewable consumption in countries where renewable energy already represented 47% of total energy consumption. The research also found that, in terms of economic growth, a country had to reach a threshold of $17,000 USD income per capita before it saw a rise in renewable energy consumption. Each $1,000 USD increase in income per capita beyond that threshold then led to a 1% increase in renewable energy consumption. This win-win situation is not found in the early stages of a country’s economic growth. In fact, when this was the case, the study found that renewable energy consumption and production declined when an economy grew and that income inequality also grew when renewable energy consumption first started to increase. This is due to the initial cost of the renewable energy systems being put onto the consumer. Even so, the authors of the report believe this to be evidence that policymakers need to promote the use of renewable energy, because it will ultimately propel more equal growth. The recommendation is for policymakers to use incentives, such as renewable energy certificates, to increase renewable energy consumption in their countries . / Ellen Buchan (EB)
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ORANGUTAN-THEMED GAMIFICATION COUNTRY: Poland SCHOOL: Faculty of Management and Economics, Gdańsk University of Technology
POLICY PROJECTIONS FOR IMPROVING HIV RISK REDUCTION COUNTRY: New Zealand SCHOOL: Wellington School of Business and Government Policies aimed at reducing the risk of HIV in Sub-Saharan Africa tend to focus on the distribution of contraception. However, in the context of enduring cultural expectations for women to bear premarital children to demonstrate fertility and suitability for marriage, other policies would be more effective. This is according to new research from Yao Yao, a Lecturer in the Wellington School of Business and Government’s School of Economics and Finance, Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington. ‘If women have the incentive to bear premarital children, they may intentionally avoid using contraception. Policymakers need to consider the cultural incentives that are in place for women in Sub-Saharan Africa to engage in premarital fertility,’ said Yao. Using a lifecycle economic model to see how decisions relating to marriage, sex and education affect the risk of contracting HIV, Yao found that the premarital fertility motive accounted for 13% of the HIV prevalence among young women in Kenya. When this reason was combined with the motive of avoiding the cost of contraception, the figure rose to 33%. Yao then assessed the potential effectiveness of three policies that did not focus on the distribution of contraception. The provision of an income subsidy for women was found to have limited effect. However, when such subsidies were made conditional on school attendance, she found that the HIV prevalence rate would be reduced by 14%. Her third policy evaluation looked at the potential of providing subsidies specifically for HIV-infected women to receive antiretroviral therapy. This was found to reduce the overall HIV rate among young women in Kenya by as much as 41%. ‘The treatment subsidy works well because it is also a prevention… But on the other hand, because this treatment reduces risk, it also encourages risky behaviour, because the virus seems less dangerous,’ Yao concluded. At the Wellington School of Business and Government, Yao Yao teaches macroeconomics and development economics. / TBD
MBA students and staff at the Faculty of Management and Economics, Gdańsk University of Technology (Gdańsk Tech) are adopting Raja and Albert – currently the only two orangutans you can see in a zoo in Poland – as part of a new gamification platform designed to aid students’ personal development online. Created with the help of the Center for Innovative Education, the Impact Project platform allows students to collect bananas and other rewards as they take on 36 tasks across four pillars (strategic thinking; people management and self-development; operational excellence; and foundations). Gamification is often regarded as an effective way to boost student engagement, and the orangutan-themed platform certainly has its eyes fixed firmly on offering incentives for MBAs’ progression through the tasks. Students are also placed into teams and given group tasks through the platform, facilitating peer-to-peer networking. There is, of course, a further overarching goal to the platform and that is to raise awareness of the plight of the orangutan – all three species of which are critically endangered according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of mammals – and the increasing destruction of its natural habitat – the palm forest, from which humans derive palm oil for use in foods, cosmetics, cleaning products and fuels. Raja and Albert, meanwhile, are residents of Gdańsk Zoo. They are said to enjoy drawing and have recently celebrated their 40th birthdays. Delivered in English, the Gdańsk Tech MBA – officially titled the International MBA in Strategy, Programme and Project Management – is a two-year programme offered in a modular format with classes taking place over three full days (Friday to Sunday) once a month. / Tim Banerjee Dhoul (TBD)
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NEWS & INSIGHT
COVID-19 LESSONS INFORM MBA REVAMP COUNTRY: Belgium SCHOOL: Vlerick Business School
SAME STORY, DIFFERENT ENDING
COUNTRY: Germany SCHOOL: ESMT Berlin
You would be forgiven for thinking that a group of researchers who set about analysing the same hypotheses with exactly the same data would all reach the same conclusions; after all, numerical analyses are generally thought to have ‘black and white’, right or wrong, solutions. However, this may not always be the case. Martin Schweinsberg, Professor of Organisational Behaviour at ESMT Berlin, sought to examine whether this oft-held perception is consistently accurate. To do this, Schweinsberg recruited analysts from around the world and asked them all to investigate the same dataset against two hypotheses. These surrounded the question of whether or not a scientist’s gender or professional status impacts their participation in group conversations. The dataset for analysis contained more than 3 million words from 728 contributors, as well as 150 variables, spanning more than two decades (1996-2014). The analysts proceeded to come up with 29 different results. Commenting on the findings, Professor Schweinsberg explained: ‘Our study illustrates the benefits of transparent and open science practices. Subjective analytical choices are unavoidable, and we should embrace them because a collection of diverse analytical backgrounds and approaches can reveal the true consistency of an empirical claim.’ The differences in the results stemmed from the analysts’ ability to select their own sample sizes, statistical approaches, and co-variates. Schweinsberg and his team used a platform called DataExplained to assess how the researchers’ differing analytical choices led to the variation in results. The findings of this piece of research show the impact of a researcher’s individual choices on their ultimate conclusions. The report also makes a strong case for making data publicly available where possible, and for transparency with regards to the analytical route taken by researchers. / EB
Lessons from the Covid-19 experience have inspired many of the upcoming changes to be made to the full-time MBA programme at Vlerick Business School (Vlerick). ‘The Covid-19 period has shown what can be done by Business Schools in a virtual environment’, said Yolanda Habets, Head of MBA Programmes at Vlerick. Theory in the programme will now be tackled in an interactive online setting, freeing up time to concentrate on application and discussion during classroom sessions. ‘Students want to get the most out of their experience on campus, networking with their peers, bouncing ideas off each other and learning from the interaction with professors and each other,’ Habets explained. ‘It makes sense to ensure that all in-person sessions facilitate this, instead of students gathering in a room to simply study theory.’ Another change will be to group all courses into five overriding modules, aimed at emphasising essential learning areas. These include ‘Global understanding’, ‘Dealing with transformation’, and ‘The future of the finance function’. ‘This allows us to overcome the usual silo-thinking with the traditional offering of an individual course. In the real world, those silos either don’t exist or – even worse – create significant problems for impactful management,’ said Martin Weiss, Professor of Strategy at Vlerick and Programme Director for its full-time MBA. Also new to the programme will be a greater emphasis on entrepreneurship and leadership. Sessions and coaching throughout the programme’s year-long duration will aim to build students’ leadership skills. The new focus on entrepreneurship, meanwhile, will seek to go beyond the ins and outs of starting a company to consider the importance of entrepreneurial mindsets in whatever size and age of organisation students go on to work for. Based in Brussels, Vlerick’s full-time MBA has a class size of 45 (as advertised at the time of writing) and runs for 10 months. / 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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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
The draft programme, speaker information, timings, and details about our complimentary pre-and-post conference workshops are available via our website, where you can also book your place. www.associationofmbas.com/amba-bga-accreditation-forum-2021
STRATEGY
Celebrating 30 years of the MBA in China Business education is flourishing in China, contributing significantly to the economy and industry development. Here, deans from Chinese AMBA-accredited Business Schools talk about key trends, challenges, and opportunities. Daniel Kirkland reports
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BA education in China has developed over the past 30 years, and there are currently 243 MBA university programmes across the country. AMBA has been working in China since Zhejiang University was first accredited in 2006. Since then, significant progress has been made across China’s business education landscape, including developments in member Schools’ international strategy and effective global networks; high-quality faculty development; curriculum upgrading and innovation in teaching; student talent cultivation; notable social responsibility initiatives; active industrial partnerships; continuous impact and sustainability; and concerted participation and developments among Chinese member Schools in AMBA & BGA international events and collaborative initiatives. Marking the anniversary of the MBA in China and the global impact its evolution has made, at AMBA & BGA’s Global Conference earlier this year, Zhongming Wang, International Advisor for China at AMBA & BGA, Professor in the School of Management, Zhejiang University, discussed the history of business education in China and looked forward with optimism to the future. He was joined by deans from Chinese AMBA-accredited Business Schools Fangruo Chen, Dean of Antai College of Economics and
Management, Shanghai JiaoTong University, Fan Wang, Assistant President and Dean at the Business School, Sun Yat-sen University, and Jiang Wei Dean of the School of Management at Zhejiang University Here are some highlights from their discussion. Zhongming Wang (ZW): This year marks the 30th anniversary of Chinese MBA education – and more than 40 years of business education in China. AMBA has accredited Business Schools in China since 2006. So, over the past 30 years, Chinese Business Schools have been experiencing great progress and success. I’m pleased to be joined by three deans to present their best practice and discuss strategies for the future. I would like to invite Fangruo Chen, Dean of Antai College of Economics and Management, Shanghai JiaoTong University, to say a few words. Fangruo Chen (FC): Indeed, this is the 30th anniversary of the start of the MBA in China. Business Schools were restarted in the mid-1980s in China, and a few years after that, MBA programmes were established. Here at Antai College, Shanghai JiaoTong University, the Business School was called the School of Management. It was re-established in 1984 and the MBA programme started in 1991. Over the past 30 years, we have accumulated some 40,000 alumni. The faculty has developed tremendously. We have about 180 full-time faculty members and a full spectrum of business education programmes, including undergraduate programmes, master’s
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FC: The goal is to connect theory with practice. We know this is an ‘old’ topic, but we have a new way to push this goal one big step forward. There are two models of research: one is discipline-based and the other is industry-based. Discipline-based research is the traditional model. As Business Schools, we have various disciplines – finance, economics, accounting, marketing, management, operations, and so on. These are discipline models of doing research and we want to build on top of this traditional model with another layer – another model of knowledge creation. We called this industry research. Horizontal research is discipline-based, and vertical research is industry-based. In 2018, we established the institute for industry research, and we want to use this platform to promote industry research within the Business School. This initiative was supported tremendously by our alumni. It’s almost as if our alumni base was ignited by the idea that the School is using industry research as a strategy. Faculty support has also been huge. We have 180 faculty members and, of these,110
programmes, PhDs, MBAs, EMBAs, executive education, and a DBA programme. It’s a full spectrum of programmes and the scale is increasing as we speak. The international dimension is also developing very rapidly, but it has been impacted by Covid-19. We have a few programmes that relate to international students and have established programmes and partnerships with overseas Schools. We’ve seen a huge development in business education in China in general – and Antai College in particular. So, you can measure that in terms of faculty, students, alumni, and various international outreach programmes. ZW: Fangruo, in 2019 at the AMBA & BGA Global Conference in Istanbul, you gave an interesting presentation on how business education can be linked with industrial sectors, and industrial sector upgrading, as well as how business education can be embedded into industrial innovation. Can you share any recent progress, given the Covid-19 challenge?
In China, most students say that they don’t like online teaching and consider face-to-face teaching to be much better
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Business Schools in China are similar. At that time, we followed the US model, and considered the publication of research to be the top priority of the Business School. We hired more talent from outside China so we could publish papers, and our research ranking improved. We also brought in new ideas from the US and Europe. At the time, the feedback from students was that we were pioneering. For the past 10 years, the School has focused on following global best practice and we consider it our mission to integrate the West and East. We ask each of the faculty that, when they teach the MBA or EMBA courses, they not only use the Harvard texts, but write their own text so that we can do something more local. Our view is global, but we have a response that is local. In the future, we have to do something to align with the university strategy and, in some sense, help the university, so we have to consider how our strategy can align with that of the university. We have 11 hospitals [near the Business School]. and want to do something to help our healthcare industry because it’s a win-win strategy, so we have special programmes in healthcare and hospital management. At the same time, we have a supercomputing infrastructure in China, so we offer a special MBA track for ‘big data’ and supercomputing areas. Over the past five years, we have also been [developing courses] around the role the [Communist] Party [has] in business decision-making. This is a hot topic, considering Party development and enterprise, and we plan to continue to conduct projects in this area. In China, most students say that they don’t like online teaching and consider face-to-face teaching to be much better. So, for example, in our EMBA programmes, we’ve delivered three online courses since the beginning of the semester and during the early stages of the pandemic. But when students finished the online course and re-entered the campus for face-to-face teaching, they asked us to repeat the same courses [in a physical setting] with the same faculty, because they
are participating in various industry research efforts. We have 30 research teams looking into industries including healthcare, energy, finance, and accounting. This is not just a research effort, it’s a research effort to connect theory with practice. We’ve created teaching programmes in connection with industry research – courses focused on various industries, so people interested in particular industries can share their experience. We also have professors and industry leaders to teach in those courses. The initiative has brought us closer to other parts of the university. For example, last year we launched an artificial intelligence (AI) MBA. Think of this as an industry-based MBA programme in collaboration with the engineering school. ZW: Fan Wang is the Assistant President and Dean of the Business School at Sun Yat-sen University. Professor Wang, can you say a few words about Sun Yat-Sen’s best practices? Fan Wang (FW): It is my pleasure to share something of the Business School at Sun Yat-sen University of Guangzhou in China. The Business School is a good example of how China opened to the world in 1980. We [created our] Business School in 1985. In 1992, we launched our MBA programmes and, later, our EMBA programmes. Currently, we are the largest Business School providing the MBA programmes in south China. The history of the MBA and EMBA programmes in my School is very interesting. In the beginning, we had very few students or faculty who could teach the MBA and EMBA programmes. The feedback from the students was that they were not inspired by the teaching quality because we were considered too theoretical, so we [focused on developing] the faculty. Most of the faculty were from the bachelor’s, master’s, and PhD programmes, so maybe they [did not have] enough industry experience. So, we hired some people from industry to teach the MBA in the beginning. The Business School is not only for teaching, so research was very important for the School. Other
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Our view is global, but we have a response that is local
another global programme called GMSCM with McGill University in Canada. We focused on manufacturing programmes for MBAs. Second, we focused on the private economy and entrepreneurship. Guangdong province and Zhejiang province are very special in the private [sector]. In Zhejiang, more than 8% of the companies are private companies, so we wanted to devote our MBA programme to the local economy, focusing on entrepreneurship. We launched the entrepreneurship programme in our MBA in 2005. At that time, Zhejiang university set the strategic direction of entrepreneurship education. So today, we have expanded our education around entrepreneurship from master’s, bachelor’s, and PhD to all the universities. The third feature is a new model we call ‘business plus’. We focus on business plus AI; business plus digital industry; business plus culture and arts; business plus capital markets; and business plus healthcare. We have several ways to go to the industries and we have seven checks which focus on different aspects of business plus entrepreneurship programme; in future, we will try to design within our new strategy. We hope to have a different education model, a different expenditure and different student fees and we co-operate with organisations, including Alibaba and Volvo to develop the different business plus MBA programmes. [As shown by] the Covid-19 pandemic, the greatest challenge is globalisation, although we emphasise that globalisation is also the strategy. Previously, we sent our students to travel to learn in the US or Europe. But today, it is difficult, so we are waiting for the opportunity for our students to go abroad, to move, to learn, and to share the international experience.
wanted to discuss them. We want to change the infrastructure of some of the classrooms because currently we deliver some of the intelligent [digital] classrooms in our building, so maybe we can [move towards] a hybrid model of teaching – specially for the MBA and EMBA. We want to do some more practice to see what the best way would be, going forward. ZW: Now let me welcome Jiang Wei, from the School of Management at Zhejiang University. Jiang Wei (JW): It is my pleasure to speak about the contribution and the best practices of Zhejiang University’s MBA programmes. Zhejiang University is one of the earliest MBA education programmes in China – launched 27 years ago. MBA programmes, one of the most successful professional programmes in China, have made a great contribution to the economy and industry development since the open policy. Zhejiang is located on the east coast of China, and our MBA programme is a very important contributor to the economy in China. We have had three main features over the past 30 years. We have a programme called the Global Entrepreneurship Programme (GEP) in partnership with William Paterson University (US) and HEC Paris (France). This was the first global MBA programme in China, launched 15 Years ago. At that time, Zhongming Wang was the Dean of the School of Management, and he [oversaw] the first international accreditation. Since then, we’ve changed the design of the MBA to connect and be embedded into the globalisation, developing a connection with the global experience and global best practice. From the middle of 2010’s, we launched
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ZW: I have a question about faculty and the involvement of industry in teaching. What is the level of involvement of industry-based speakers? Are they just visitors that deliver occasional seminars or are they part-time faculty members? JW: In our School, most of the new faculty members are graduate students from the international Business School. They come back to China to work in Business Schools. We have our Triangle Programme, in which young professionals come to our School and
connect with the research team, one business, and the [taught] programme. They must connect with one company or one industry; for example, healthcare. They must carry out research and look into new business models and strategies in this sector. Then, after three years, they can go to the classroom to give lectures and do research. We have a special fund to support young faculty to go into companies and become consultants, to do surveys or investigations. We help young people to go to the industries and companies, to survey and do special research (for example, leadership, entrepreneurship, strategy or the supply chain); to write the research cases and teaching cases. This is an important indicator for our evaluation and for our promotion. ZW: At this challenging time, we are thinking about the next 30 years of the development of Chinese business education. A recent trend in Business Schools is a move towards responsibility/responsible management education and sustainability. We have been talking about sustainable management, sustainable education, and entrepreneurship. I would like to ask the deans joining me about how sustainability and responsibility can be
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At Antai, we think responsible research is practice-based research, addressing real problems, and challenges
FANGRUO CHEN Dean of Antai College of
Economics and Management, Shanghai JiaoTong University
FAN WANG Assistant President and Dean
This is something we should focus on over the next 30 years, or even longer. I think, for Business Schools, there are two things that we do. One is research, the other is teaching. But the core is really the research because this is knowledge creation. Knowledge – once you’re created it – is something that we can teach to our students and hopefully we help them succeed in real life. Research is the most fundamental part in my view. We need to do responsible research now. What is responsible research? I think different Schools can have their own interpretations. At Antai, we think responsible research is practice- based research, addressing real problems, and On one hand, we still want publish in journals, on the other, we need to create a new direction. Even in the short term, we are creating products that might not look like what we have published in academic journals. We should be more open and more inclusive and supportive of new ideas and new forms of knowledge creation so that we can have some kind of breakthrough, have more useful knowledge and teach this knowledge to our classrooms. I think this is the way forward. challenges and even though the result might not be immediately publishable in academic journals.
enhanced in business education, through new models, modules, or research practices and in general in education. FW: Our idea is that responsibility and sustainability are very important, not only for MBA and EMBA programmers, but for all our programmes. [Some Schools] include this issue of sustainability at the very beginning and end of core courses, and offer selective course like the business ethics, but we don’t think it is enough. Maybe a better way would be for Schools to include some of the sustainability teaching content in the curriculum for each of their programmes, so that accounting professionals learn how accounting and finance can use sustainability and the company is healthy for the long term – not only at company level, but for the region and the country level. FC: Going forward, I think the biggest challenge for Business Schools will be to demonstrate our value proposition to society at large. What value we can create for our society and for our students? I think we should be mindful of this because we have lots of competition. Companies have their own universities and their own kinds of institution offering something like the MBA. So, the value proposition is the key.
at the Business School, Sun Yat-sen University
JIANG WEI
Dean of the School of Management at Zhejiang University
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Adaptation, repair, or a new opportunity?
How Covid-19 has changed Business Schools’ priorities
AMBA & BGA was joined by experts from technology company Barco and representatives from the business education community to explore what the future might look like for Business Schools and their students in the post-COVID digital economy. By Edward Jacques and David Woods-Hale
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igitalisation is deemed to be the most important concept in the running of a Business School over the next 10 years, with almost two-thirds of leaders (63%) believing it to be very important, according to AMBA & BGA Education Technology Research, in association with Barco. In fact, a whopping 83% of leaders think it is either ‘very likely’ or ‘fairly likely’ that the fundamentals of the MBA will change in the next 10 years, compared with 76% who were of this opinion in late 2019. The research also found that Business Schools are looking forward to a new era of education technology, having made a success of online learning provision in 2020 – and Business School leaders have shown their Schools to have been both pragmatic and agile in the face of 2020’s disruption. The next steps for Business School leaders across the world is to move from crisis mode to further innovation, in order to develop and finesse their tech strategy as global economies start to move into recovery as vaccines reduce the impact of Covid-19. The 216 Business School leaders who took part in the AMBA & BGA/Barco research at the end of 2020 understandably predict that blended and hybrid models will replace the traditional classroom-based delivery of courses in the next five years – and, as such, this is where their planning time and budget will be allocated in the medium term. But, as we prepare to announce the latest findings of the 2021 survey, AMBA & BGA, in association with Barco, held a focus group with decision
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Our virtual campus is a campus just like the others at the School: it has a library, amphitheatres, and student clubs
enhance the physical and digital learning experience. I believe hybrid working and learning will be the new norm. How do we prepare the students for life outside the university? Business leaders want people who have a certain experience. They want them to learn something but they also want them to be prepared for a future in their companies. Rebecca Loades, Director, Career Accelerator Programs, ESMT Berlin At ESMT, we have separated content creation and content delivery in blended and online learning. This allows us to share and swap content with other Schools more easily. When designing for online, every single minute of the course is thought about in depth. We therefore have to be much more precise in our preparation than when we are offering a course in person. Having that control, and being able to apply that rigour, is the gift of an asynchronous environment. Each of our online courses has a defined manual about how it should be taught. This approach enables us to separate course development and course delivery so that students learn from faculty with superb domain knowledge but may engage with a different faculty member during their learning journey. We have some 550 degree-seeking students and a relatively small faculty body, so we had
in a couple of months and we now know that this is not the case. These Schools had the option to expand because they had technology already in place. Lots of people needed to be educated in understanding the solutions that are out there that can really bring them an immersive and engaging experience. I would that, say since the end of last year, lots of Business Schools have come to understand that platforms such as Zoom or Teams cannot deliver the level of engagement and the learning outcomes that they would expect for their programmes – and specifically executive education. We also are working with the corporate community to deliver learning and development to employees, and we are observing the same trends in this arena. So in light of this, what is the way into the future? What have we learned? I would personally like to go a little bit further, and ask what is the revolution now? What can we do to be more inclusive and reach out to more people [through technology]? How can we make it more engaging? What about belonging? What are the priorities and how can we help Business Schools to be even better despite the pandemic? Schools need to embrace horizontal learning and create connections. Technology must
makers from Business Schools across Europe to find out in more qualitative terms whether Business Schools have changed, updated, or tweaked their models because of the pandemic during the past year; what plans are afoot for the coming 12-18 months; how Schools are identifying new opportunities for the year ahead; and how they are driving digital transformation and skills development. AMBA & BGA was joined by experts from technology company Barco – as well During a lively discussion, panellists took stock of what had changed over the past 18 months, what they have learned, and what the future might look like for Business Schools and their students in the digital economy. Here are some highlights from the conversation. as representatives from the business education community – to explore the challenges.
Simone Hammer, Global Head of Marketing Teaching and Training, Barco
We worked with a couple of early-adopting Business Schools that tried out our virtual classroom when the pandemic started, and they were happy and deployed more and expanded what they had in place. Many [Business Schools] have used conferencing systems to get through the pandemic – but we all thought it would be over
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social experience. We have to accommodate all these needs in the classroom and that is a challenge because it requires technology. We learned how to integrate students from abroad into the hybrid learning setting, but this was quite a journey because students need to understand everybody in the room, so you require the technology to make this possible. This demand has grown extremely quickly during the past 15 months. Before [the pandemic] we were able to say ‘no’ to such demands. This is now our offering, and I don’t think [saying ‘no’] will be possible in the future so this [hybrid] flexibility will be required by all institutions moving forward. Mindsets [in Business Schools] need to change to draw on possibilities and flexibilities, but students themselves need to be flexible as this is the new normal. Hybrid extends to other areas. No one thought hybrid meetings and learning [would replace] physical meetings, but this format will be around in the future. Céline Davesne, Associate Dean, NEOMA Business School We are currently working on hybrid and online learning with new pedagogy and a task force – including students, faculty, and other stakeholders. We are looking at ways we can manage networking experiences, and social aspects for students. We do feel, at NEOMA, that our virtual campus will be able to answer all these elements. Our virtual campus is a campus just like the others at the School: it has a library, amphitheatres, and student clubs. Everything is there, so students just use their avatars within that campus. We strongly believe in it and the high satisfaction rate from students means we are able to meet [their expectations]. The students were able to discuss things together, play football together, they could attend concerts together, and so on. We managed to recreate a social environment via virtual reality. This is something we want to keep and even to extend and I want to apply all these innovations to our executive MBA cohorts in Iran or China, for example. The virtual campus will be the place where our
to make sure that we are using them in a way that equips us to serve our population base now, and also creates a platform for the future. In the global online MBA, the advantage for students is that they’re going to be learning in – and from – a programme that has virtual collaboration at its heart. This means students are using technology for learning, and are learning from technology. The first module in the Global Online MBA focuses on managing in a connected world. It provides students with hands-on insights around how to work with, and within, virtual teams. At our Business School, we have invested approximately €500,000 to upgrade our auditoriums. We have microphones at every seat and cameras that focus on who is speaking. This helps us to create an engaging environment. We also assign what we call a ‘co-pilot’ to each of our faculty members. In pure online, the co-pilot manages the chat and the technology; in hybrid scenarios, the co-pilot is the bridge between the online and in-person attendees. By having someone focused specifically on students who are not physically present, we ensure their voices are heard. We want to remove any sense of physical separation, so that virtual participants are equal contributors to the classroom. In a hybrid session, all students are required to connect via Zoom, including those who are physically present. It has contributed to a richer classroom experience as students share observations, insights, and related resources through the chat function. This not only helps students who are shy or don’t have English as their first language, but also nudges students to share things they may not think are worth interrupting faculty for, and yet which will support learning.
MODERATOR David Woods-Hale, Director of Marketing and Communications, AMBA & BGA PANELLISTS Céline Davesne, Associate Dean, NEOMA Business School Gunther Friedl, Dean, TUM School of Management Antonio Giangreco, Director of Graduate Programmes, IESEG Simone Hammer, Global Head of Marketing Teaching and Training, Barco Rebecca Loades, Director, Career Accelerator Programs, ESMT Berlin Preben Schack, VP of Sales, Learning Experience Division, Barco Terri Simpkin, Director, Executive MBA, Nottingham University Business School
Gunther Friedl, Dean, TUM School of Management
We are still offering a classroom experience. If students have time, then they can come here; if they don’t, they basically tell us they cannot travel. Some students would like remote access [to learning] and others say they want to have the
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