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
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