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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Issue 44 JUNE 2021
Sparking social change How MBA alumni are impacting our world
SOCIAL MEDIA: Is your School missing out on the personal side of social media engagement? Why it’s not a good idea to put off your involvement
CLIMATE CHANGE: Thinking outside the bubble and addressing the challenges for business education – insights from across the AMBA network
LINKING PASSION AND IMPACT: Nyenrode’s Désirée van Gorp on a new platform for engaging in social impact activities
AMBA & BGA ACCREDITATION FORUM 2021
VIRTUAL 15-18 November 2021
AMBA & BGA‘s Accreditation Forum 2021 is specifically designed to help prepare accreditation professionals at Business Schools that are applying for AMBA and/or BGA accreditation or re-accreditation. AMBA & BGA is committed to ensuring that our content is still available to all our audiences, in spite of social distancing, so this year’s event will be hosted completely online. All the sessions will be live streamed in interactive webinars, and recordings of all the event components will be shared with all our delegates. The content will be led by a team of expert accreditors and guest speakers who will share their knowledge and insights over the course of the forum, and will cover the following: the structure of the accreditation process what it takes to make an accreditation submission successful best practices of successful Schools typical challenges Business Schools face – and proposed solutions marketing and communicating your accreditation to key audiences
A draft programme of the session topics, timings and descriptions, as well as details about our complimentary pre-conference workshop, will be available shortly, but for now please save the date. www.associationofmbas.com/amba-bga-accreditation-forum-2021
Issue 44 | JUNE 2021
STRATEGY
NEWS & INS IGHT
18 | CL IMATE CHANGE AMBA & BGA in conversation – Schools from across the network discuss the challenges associated with tackling
climate change in business education
08 | NETWORK NEWS Ambition’ s latest selection of AMBA network news and research brings updates from Business Schools in Italy, Egypt, France, South Africa, Australia and the UK
24 | US ING SOCIAL MEDIA EFFECTIVELY Why a Business School’s leaders, as well as its students, need to understand the social age and engage with people on these powerful platforms
12 | IMPACT ECOSYSTEM
A new platform for connecting with social impact projects hopes to facilitate students’ continuing commitment to making a positive contribution in the world
We have extremely powerful levers in Business Schools to educate students for good
Shaping the future of online education
Join some of the world’s leading business schools who have already adopted the insendi learning experience platform .
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The monthly magazine of the Association of MBAs (AMBA) BE IN BRILLIANT COMPANY Ambiti n
Issue 43 MAY 2021
AMBA’s Ambition magazine
offers thought leadership, insight, advice and analysis of key trends in business, and is tailored exclusively for Business School leaders.
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
Issue 44 | JUNE 2021
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36 | MBA ENTREPRENEUR OF THE YEAR Lagos Business School alumnus, Oluwatobi
INTERVIEWS
Ajayi, is making inroads into Nigeria’s automobile industry with his company’s vision of widening access to new cars
30 | MBA STUDENT OF THE YEAR University of Leicester School of Business alumna, Mital Thanki, on how the MBA reignited her love for lifelong learning and brought out her inner confidence
REGULARS
06 | EDITOR’S LETTER Getting social – the role of Business Schools in developing leaders that have a social conscience and who are social media savvy 42 | HUB HIGHLIGHTS Catch up on the latest highlights from AMBITION’ s online coverage of analysis and thought leadership on trending business topics – aimed at Business School leaders as well as MBA students and graduates
OPINION
44 | GUEST COLUMN Even the best tools in the world cannot innovate by themselves – you need the right people and organisational design 46 | CEO’S COLUMN The opportunity for Schools to address the issues we’re facing, collectively
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OPINION
Socially responsible and SOCIALLY SAVVY
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 CORPORATE Head of Commercial Relations Max Braithwaite m.braithwaite@associationofmbas.com Commercial Partnerships Manager Emily Wall e.wall@associationofmbas.com
‘AMBA’s passion for responsible business’
egular readers of Ambition will know how much I enjoy a tenuous link or two when outlining the features of the magazine and showing how they fit together into a perfectly curated thread of content. This month, I’m delighted to say things are no different and I’m about to attempt to frame June’s theme as being the role of Business Schools in developing leaders with a social conscience as well as leaders who are social media savvy. We’re getting social. Regular readers will be just as familiar with AMBA’s passion for responsible business and the role of business graduates in making a difference in the world. This edition introduces you to three projects that are doing just that. First, we learn of a group of graduates from Nyenrode Business University who have set themselves the goal of creating a digital ecosystem where professionals, students, academics, entrepreneurs, and NGOs can build a network with like-minded individuals and work together towards solving social impact issues that they care about (page 12). We then introduce you to two winners from the AMBA & BGA Excellence Awards 2021 – MBA Student of the Year and MBA Entrepreneur of the Year. Our MBA Student of the Year, Mital Thanki (interviewed on page 34), tells Ellen Buchan about her aim to enhance the lives of at least one million children in her lifetime, inspired by her own story of resilience and self-preservation; while MBA Entrepreneur of the Year, Oluwatobi Ajayi (page 40), explains how he is working towards improving the image of Nigeria and the African continent in the world, through his automobile enterprise. Connecting the dots, in our strategy section (page 28), we ask what Business School leaders are doing to improve students’ social media literacy and – more broadly – arm their graduates for the social media age, to help them become ‘social leaders’ and share their transparent, authentic and trustworthy messaging with the
Conference Producer Paul Thurston
Events Manager Abigail Burke
Marketing and Communications Executive Edward Holmes
Membership Manager Tariro Masukume
world, and create a viral force for good. David Woods-Hale , Editor, Ambition
Head of IT and Data Management Jack Villanueva HR and Employer Relations Manager Aarti Bhasin Finance and Commercial Director Catherine Walker
THE AMBITION PODCAST
Olympian, diplomat, speaker, coach, consultant and – most recently – author, Cath Bishop, has experienced success in numerous areas. But what does success mean to her now? Bishop shares her take on how organisations can redefine their definitions of winning and success, to achieve better outcomes. The podcast is available on Amazon Music, Spotify, Stitcher, Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud, TuneIn, Google Podcasts, and Deezer. Just choose the platform you prefer, subscribe to the podcast, and never miss an episode. www.associationofmbas.com/podcast
Themes over the past month on The AMBITION Podcast have focused on success in uncertainty. As we have become comfortably uncomfortable with the amount of change in the world and, as we move into a volatile, uncertain and ambiguous ‘new normal’, the only thing that seems certain is change itself. Neil Usher joined The AMBITION Podcast to talk about living with uncertainty and how leaders can deal with change, to achieve the best outcomes for the future. Considering our definitions of ‘best outcomes’, does the winner really take it all or does our ‘eye on the prize’ culture nurture harmful mentalities?
Chief Executive Officer Andrew Main Wilson
Executive Assistant to the CEO Amy Youngs a.youngs@associationofmbas.com ACCREDITATION ENQUIRIES accreditation@associationofmbas.com
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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NEWS & INSIGHT
NEWS & RESEARCH
from across AMBA’s Global Network
Football, wine, chess… and bees. This isn’t the recipe for an anarchic night in under continuing social restrictions, but rather a selection of this edition’s updates from across the AMBA network. Compiled by Ellen Buchan and Tim Banerjee Dhoul
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STRENGTHENING THE VOICE OF INDIGENOUS LEADERSHIP COUNTRY: Australia SCHOOL: Monash Business School
ANOTHER GLASS?
WINE NOT? COUNTRY: UK
SCHOOL: The University of Sussex Business School
If and when pandemic restrictions are eased or lifted in your part of the world, restaurants that have sat empty for months will once again be able to welcome back their customers. Moreover, after a long period in which dating seemed very unsafe, single people might once again be looking to meet someone new. For many this is a prospect filled with excitement but dating also comes with its own unique set of challenges and unspoken social rules. One of which is the wine list. It is said that many people opt for the second-cheapest option on a wine list to avoid the embarrassment of going for the cheapest. While this might, for some, be a woeful attempt to appear more affluent in front of a date, for those in the know, the second-cheapest wine on the menu is often said to be the worst value – the thought behind this line of thinking is that restaurants often take advantage of their clients’ ‘embarrassment’ and put the highest markup on this bottle. Does this notion hold in practice and how can you pick the best bottle to impress a date? Economists at the London School of Economics (LSE) and the University of Sussex Business School reviewed 470 wine menus used by 249 London restaurants (and featuring a total of 6,335 wines) to examine the markup on each bottle. They found that the second-cheapest bottle of wine had, on average, a lower markup than the next four bottles found at the middle of the list. ‘Having the highest percentage markups on the middle wines can be logically explained. It would be reasonable to assume that at the low end of the wine list, margins are kept down to encourage consumption. At the high end, low margins induce customers’ upgrading to the more expensive wines on the list,’ reasoned Vikram Pathania, Reader in Economics at the University of Sussex Business School. This important research ensures that we can re-enter the dating/restaurant world with a greater understanding of the social expectations and psychology behind our choice of wine, as well as an insight into how we can get the best wine for our money. / Ellen Buchan (EB)
With a Welcome to Country ceremony acknowledging those recognised as the traditional owners of the land, accompanied by a spirit-cleansing smoking ceremony and a telling of the story of the giant scar tree, Monash Business School launched a new master’s programme in Indigenous business leadership in the presence of its inaugural cohort of students. ‘Creating the Master of Indigenous Business Leadership is about building a new future with a programme exclusively designed for Indigenous Australians to strengthen our country’s Indigenous leadership in public, private and community sectors,’ said Jacinta Elston, Pro-Vice Chancellor (Indigenous) at Monash University and Head of the William Cooper Institute - Monash University’s hub for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander research, learning and engagement. Addressing the first cohort, Elston added: ‘Together, we can create positive change for the future of our community.’ The programme, put together by Monash Business School and the William Cooper Institute, will take a cross-disciplinary approach that includes elements of law, public health and public policy and is formed of two overarching parts, ‘indigenous business leadership essentials’ and ‘indigenous business leadership advanced theory and practice’. The essentials segment includes a unit on the unique set of challenges facing Australian Indigenous leaders that seek to engage communities and organisations that represent multiple, and often conflicting, worldviews. Aimed solely at Indigenous Australians, the new master’s degree targets those looking to focus their careers on making Indigenous contributions in the workplace as well as employers that are keen to develop a leadership pipeline of high-potential Indigenous Australians, especially those seeking to integrate their organisations to work better with Indigenous communities. / Tim Banerjee Dhoul (TBD)
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NEWS & INSIGHT
TV SHOW FUELS PEDAGOGICAL INNOVATION COUNTRY: Italy SCHOOL: MIP Politecnico di Milano
HIGH HOPES FOR HUB FOLLOWING NEW SIGNING COUNTRY: Egypt SCHOOL: American University in Cairo (AUC) School of Business Africa’s most successful soccer (football) club and the American University in Cairo (AUC) School of Business are teaming up to create a sports management hub for Egypt and the surrounding region. The memorandum of understanding signed between Al Ahly Sporting Club (Al Ahly) and AUC School of Business aims to address a current shortfall in the market and a growing need for management skills not just in Egypt, but also across Africa. Although Al Ahly is world-renowned for its football team, programmes will be generalist and designed to suit any sport, role and function in the field of sports management – from finance, branding and event management to sports psychology, ethics and law. In addition, access to Al Ahly’s facilities will allow programmes to offer firsthand experiential insights into the operations of a successful club – a sporting giant in the region with a record of 42 national league titles in Egypt and a record nine CAF (Confederation of African Football) Champions League titles. ‘Our partnership with Al Ahly Sporting Club will ensure the development and delivery of a sports management programme of the highest calibre, as well as secure the maximum exposure for the programme,’ said Mohamed Abdelsalam, Executive Director of the AUC School of Business Executive Education. Football is currently the most popular sport across the whole of Africa, but others are looking to make inroads into the continent’s growing and lucrative market. Notable among these is basketball, with the announcement of the launch of the Basketball African League (BAL) in 2019 by the US’s National Basketball Association (NBA). NBA Commissioner, Adam Silver, has described the BAL as being ‘committed to using basketball as an economic engine to create new opportunities in sports, media and technology across Africa’, according to a 2020 article for the Africa Report . The collaboration between AUC School of Business and Al Ahly, meanwhile, is set to kick off with a virtual programme in September 2021. / TBD
Drugs, sex appeal, deception, international spies, fashion, alcoholism and scandal are not words that usually associated with chess. Not until Netflix released its popular series, The Queen’s Gambit . The influence of the show is hard to dispute. The Guardian recently reported that sales of chess sets and accessories on eBay has risen by 215% in the US since the release of the hit series. In addition, online chess playing site, Chess.com, saw its number of new members in the US soar from 6,000 a day to 30,000 a day in the space of just one month following the series’ release. However, it isn’t just how we spend our spare time which is set to be influenced by the show, education is also jumping on this masterful trend. MIP Politecnico di Milano has announced a new short course entitled, ‘Chess and Corporate Strategy’. The course, which is due to start in June 2021, will be taught over four modules, online and in English. The programme is on offer from the MIP Management Academy, which aims to provide short relevant courses to experienced managers who either want to upskill in a specific area or who want to keep up to date with the latest business trends. The academy welcomes mangers from all fields and industries and emphasises flexibility in offering multiple ways to engage in programmes. The ‘Chess and Corporate Strategy’ programme will draw parallels from the game of chess to teach problem solving, strategic thinking and decision- making, while also incorporating AI and game theory. It’s aim is to teach managers to think through complex situations strategically, using an in-depth analysis of different scenarios – just as a chess player might weigh up different moves – helping them forecast potential outcomes and assess the psychology of other stakeholders. With the new course, MIP Politecnico di Milano is making moves in exploring innovative teaching methods. Perhaps the business leaders of tomorrow will be casting their eyes to the ceiling, mapping out their next move and calling checkmate as they strategise for success. / EB
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THE BEES’ KNEES IN CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY? COUNTRY: France SCHOOL: Rennes School of Business Rennes School of Business has created quite a buzz around campus with its latest cohort. These keen ‘bzzzz-ness’ students might look slightly different to those that normally attend the School. They might also struggle to fit into their graduation caps, but they are no less important than the responsibly minded business graduates the School seeks to produce. Two thousand bees were introduced to Rennes Business School to aid biodiversity and further its commitment to sustainable development and corporate social responsibility. The School has installed two beehives – named ‘Openness’ and ‘Freedom’ in homage to two of the School’s core values – on top of one of its campus buildings for the bees to make their home. Why exactly are bees so important? The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) of the United Nations has warned that their declining numbers worldwide, together with those of other pollinators, could ultimately lead to the disappearance of key foods, such as coffee, apples, almonds, tomatoes and cocoa. The FAO estimate that two-thirds of the crops that the human population rely on to eat depend on pollinators such as bees. ‘It’s a small gesture, but concrete and easy to put in place. It also sends a message about the importance of biodiversity to our students, staff, and other stakeholders,’ said Chief Sustainability Officer at Rennes Business School, Don Minday. By mid-August, the hives are expected to produce honey which will then be sold as part of the initiative. This is just one of the activities which Rennes Business School has taken to make its campus more responsible and environmentally friendly. Other activities include a new recycling policy, the sale of organic food baskets, and the creation of its Chief Sustainability Officer post in 2019. / EB
ACADEMIA MEETS PHILANTHROPY IN NEW
PROGRAMME COUNTRY: South Africa SCHOOL: Wits Business School
Wits Business School, University of the Witwatersrand, has moved to help professionalise the field of philanthropy with the launch of a specialised postgraduate diploma in management. ‘A marriage between philanthropy and academia,’ is how Bhekinkosi Moyo, Professor at Wits Business School, described the new Postgraduate Diploma in Management in the field of Philanthropy and Resource Mobilisation, before adding: ‘We cannot wait to see our alumni use the skills and knowledge acquired in this diploma to make changes that ripple across Africa.’ The one-year, full-time programme is to be offered through Wit Business School’s Centre on African Philanthropy and Social Investment (CAPSI), of which Moyo is the Director. It will cover the complex world of grants, both from the perspective of those seeking them and those responsible for allocating them, and aim to further participants’ understanding of the thinking that shapes resource mobilisation and donor decision-making. The programme’s structure consists of six core courses – among which is a unit on ‘working with communities and ethical leadership’ – and a choice of three electives – including the option of a deep dive into ‘philanthropy and fundraising in African educational institutions’. The diploma programme has been developed in collaboration with Inyathelo, a non-profit focused on the development of philanthropy in South Africa. Inyathelo has received support from the Kresge Foundation, a US- based philanthropic foundation, on two multi-year projects that support institutionalising advancement at universities, showcasing community and individual philanthropy, and philanthropic research through workshops, research reports and networking events for university leaders. In 2019, Kresge President and CEO, Rip Rapson, described its partnership with Inyathelo as something that has ‘helped eight universities and one teaching hospital double, triple, and in some cases, quadruple private fundraising between 2006 and 2018.’ Coming in at a cost of R84,000 ZAR (c. $6,000 USD), the first cohort of the new diploma at Wits Business School will start classes in June 2021. / 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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passion with projects impactful Connecting
Nyenrode’s Désirée van Gorp talks to David Woods-Hale about enabling students and graduates to pursue their desire to make a positive contribution in the world through a new digital ecosystem
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your School work to prepare students and alumni to survive and thrive? We focus on preparing students to work in agile teams that are able to adapt to new developments swiftly, moving away from hierarchy and control to positively influencing different stakeholders in their ecosystem. To do this, we may sometimes have to give up on short-term gains in order to contribute to the long-term goals of the wider ecosystem, realising that the ecosystem can only grow if all members are also willing to give up on short-termism. Can you outline the background to the launch of Young & Bold? What was the impetus for this and was it driven by the School or the students and alumni? During all Nyenrode programmes, we have a lot of young people working on projects aiming to make the world a better place and deal with our scarce resources in a more sustainable way. Unfortunately, by the time the MBA, or master’s, has finished these projects have often disappeared. The projects had no follow up and this was my reason for inviting students and alumni to initiate Young & Bold in order to combine forces and to continue working on these projects. The aim is also to open things up for a larger community of people to join us in making a positive impact on society with concrete projects. The business arena has a need for combining the strengths of young people and professionals to bring their ideas alive and have others join them in making their dreams of contributing to making the world a better place come true.
t’s official. Meaningful work that helps others is of more value to a growing and vocal proportion of workforce than the salaries they earn. According to the UN’s 2020 World Youth Report : ‘Youth are increasingly demanding greater inclusion and meaningful engagement and are taking action to address development challenges themselves, including through social entrepreneurship.’ In response to these findings – and based on her own experience of working with people on projects aiming to positively impact society – Désirée van Gorp hopes to create a trailblazing global movement with the engagement of a group of MBA students from Nyenrode Business University. She has set up an organisation enabling people of all ages to come together and work on projects to make their community and society a better place. The organisation, Young & Bold, has set itself the ultimate goal of creating a digital ecosystem where professionals, students, academics, entrepreneurs, NGOs, and others can build a network with like- minded individuals and work together towards solving social impact issues that they care about: creating a positive bubble. Through this network, it plans to run programmes, campaigns, and events that help people build leadership skills and establish a network of allies through which they can make a lifelong impact. Ambition spoke to van Gorp to find out more about the initiative and to get her thoughts on how she and her students plan to take the platform to the next level. What are the biggest challenges facing international Business Schools and their graduates? Where does social impact fit into this? Social impact is increasingly important, and companies need to define their relevance for the future in a purpose-driven way. In other words, what is their positive impact on society? Business Schools should educate their students in such a way that they take the responsibility and are enabled to lead in making a positive impact on society, while making money and being successful at the same time. In a climate defined by increasing volumes of uncertainty and disruption, how does
What are the values and goals of the movement?
The mission is simply uniting the young and bold for a better world. We want to enable people to achieve their ambition to be a factor of change for good, and feel confident with the competence and skills necessary to provide their assistance and support to companies in need of their talent. As a non-profit organisation, Young & Bold aspires to be the platform that ambitious professionals (students and entrepreneurs) will
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We are finetuning the role Nyenrode can play in delivering and certifying educational programmes that aim to give people in refugee camps an education
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with initiatives led by parties such as IBM and Harvard because it believes in the value of involving universities and Business Schools in its humanitarian efforts. Through these partnerships, MOTG aims to give people in the camps an education and leave the campus with a set of new skills that helps them to feel more confident and prepared for life challenges. Different teams have worked on various projects for MOTG and we are proud of those results and the fruitful cooperation between Young & Bold and MOTG. One project that we are taking to a next level is educating refugees to help them prepare for the labour market. Together with several Nyenrode MBA students, the Young & Bold Foundation network is helping to shape the curriculum of the Movement Academy – an MOTG initiative helping people to prepare for integration into European job markets. Could you explain a bit more about your partnership with MOTG? We are finetuning the role Nyenrode can play in delivering and certifying educational programmes that aim to give people in refugee camps an education, in line with MOTG’s aims. What have been your learning points since launch? What are you planning to change and adapt going forward? We had to reinvent ourselves in the space of a year, as we were founded just before the Covid-19 pandemic hit Europe. Our first event – a hackathon for which 150 young people had signed up for different projects, including those of MOTG – was scheduled to take place on the Nyenrode campus in April 2020 and had to be cancelled. Since then, we have found other ways to work on the MOTG projects and launch the Bold Brigade to include a larger community in these and other projects. We learned that people have so much energy, resilience and passion as well as a commitment to join forces in making a positive impact on society despite the difficult situation that the pandemic has imposed on them.
use to support socially impactful initiatives with their energy, knowledge and innovative ideas. The platform will also enable connection with private parties (such as companies, investors and academia) that can act as coaches, sponsors or initiative initiators. The movement is described as a ‘digital ecosystem’. How does this look and operate? Young & Bold’s platform supports students and professionals in engaging with projects that have a positive impact on society and offers easy access to our network. We mostly operate digitally through our platform and social media channels. In order to share more of our stories with our community, we recently launched a new programme: The Bold Brigade – a call to everyone that wants to join forces in doing good. This programme allows direct access to our projects, our community network as well as the opportunity to co-create and identify new ideas for good.
Can you outline how long the initiative has been running and some of its key achievements?
In the past year, we have focused on projects for refugees and collaborated with an organisation called Movement On The Ground (MOTG). MOTG is a Dutch organisation founded in 2015 that works towards the provision of a human- centred, sustainable, and novel response to the refugee crisis that involves and benefits both refugees and their host community. To do
so, MOTG implements a ‘camp-to- campUs’ philosophy on the islands of Lesvos, Samos and Chios, and in Athens. It has entered into partnerships
What are the next steps for the movement?
We are currently working with the Bold Brigade to match young people to existing and new projects.
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Companies need to define their relevance for the future in a purpose-driven way
DÉSIRÉE VAN GORP is the Founder of Young & Bold and Professor of International Business at
Nyenrode Business University (Nyenrode), where she is also Chairman of the International Advisory Board and of the Full Time MBA. Previously, van Gorp has held the roles of, among others, Associate Dean for Academic Degree Programmes and MBA Programme Director at Nyenrode.
to exchange best practices and support projects across the world. There’s so much power in uniting. If we want to make a positive impact on society, we must work together. How important is it that Business Schools are ahead of the curve in terms of engaging students and alumni with social impact programmes and what more could, and should, they be doing? Business Schools have a responsibility to educate the next generation of leaders who have a responsibility not only to [ensure their business operations do] not harm society but moreover, to proactively contribute in a positive way to society. This is the only way we can respond to the major challenges we are facing on a worldwide scale effectively – including poverty, climate change and the scarcity of resources. Through this network, you believe simple ideas can become powerful initiatives. Can you expand on this a little? The power of small acts of kindness should not be underestimated. Many small acts of kindness can make a world of difference and result in a movement that infects others in a positive way. We have seen that with the MOTG projects. They served as a magnet for people wanting to contribute in a positive way to society. We shouldn’t just wait for others to initiate change. Let’s be that change and inspire others to join.
An important focus over the next few months will be on educating refugees to help them prepare for the labour market. We see Young & Bold as a proxy that can bring communities together to make a real difference. This means there’s room for everyone who wants to help and there’s room for all companies that want to show their support. As long as we’re able to reach those who want to get involved and who are aligned to our mission to do good, then we can help them expedite their understanding of our values and involve them in projects aiming to have a positive impact on society. The first component is to educate others in the same values that we have and then bring them into our growing community. We have a growing digital community on our Instagram page where – during the pandemic – we organised weekly sessions with experts on topics such as ‘how to stay bold and resilient in times of crisis’ and the future of work. Soon, we will launch a series of blogs and interviews on YouTube and much more that we can share with our community, either on our website or through our social media channels, to inspire young people to take that first step and to contribute to whatever they think is worthwhile and make a real positive impact. We want to grow and we think social media will allow us to do that. We believe that strong collaboration between commercial, social organisations and academia can make a big difference in the way we tackle societal challenges – and together, we can achieve great things. All Business Schools are welcome to join us in our pursuit for good, and
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AMBA & BGA in conversation: CLIMATE CHANGE
Business School representatives from across AMBA’s global network discuss challenges associated with tackling climate change in business education, reaching student audiences, and how institutions can use their position in society effectively. By David Woods-Hale and Ellen Buchan
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he climate emergency is never far from news headlines, and the pressure is mounting on the business community to take fast, decisive and effective action. But, what are Business Schools doing to help alleviate climate change – and what more could still be done? In the March 2021 edition of Ambition , we revealed the findings of the AMBA & BGA International Climate Change Report , in association with Jyväskylä University School of Business and Economics.
the need for significant improvements at their institutions.
The report provides a snapshot into the views and beliefs of senior members of the Business School professional community worldwide, on the topic of climate change. Eager to expand on its findings and further explore some of its key themes, AMBA & BGA gathered together a group of nine experts in the field of sustainability in business education. Over the following pages, Ambition presents highlights from the conversation, which detail some of hurdles currently being faced and insights into potential solutions that have been found. Jennifer Goodman, Associate Professor, Audencia Business School ‘When I work with my students on sustainability, they always ask me if I am optimistic that we can deal with climate change. I still haven’t figured out the best way to answer that. ‘We have a big responsibility to our students because they need optimism and hope to work on sustainability challenges, but at the same time we have to sit with this uncomfortable reality that it’s going to be difficult, and I think they are very aware of that. Students are really asking themselves what they are going to do next. I think there is a lot of frustration about what they can actually do when they are faced with this urgency. ‘One of the key roles that Business Schools can play is bringing lots of different stakeholders into the same room. For our Audencia Plastic Forum and Critical Marketing Hackathon, we invited guests from business and NGOs into the same room for a discussion. The students could interact with the panel and put together
In its survey of 597 senior leaders at Business Schools across the world, the report found that 88% believe that their Business School has at least some responsibility to tackle climate change. However, only 3% of this same sample are of the belief that their Business Schools’ current efforts in addressing climate change are ‘excellent’. It is therefore clear that leaders see
One of the key roles that Business Schools can play is bringing lots of different stakeholders into the same room
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a more complete picture of the problem. I feel that we often try to get students to come up with innovative solutions, but they don’t have enough time to get into the problem, and to understand all the complexities. We need to include a wide range of different stakeholders in order to move forward on sustainability challenges. We can’t get where we need to be by working alone. Business Schools have this opportunity to bring people together. Audencia is a Business School, not a university, but we collaborate with an engineering school and an architecture school. In our CityLab project, we look at different challenges that the city of Nantes is facing and then bring the different schools, businesses and local organisations together with the students to come up with solutions. I think that putting all those different people in the same room is something incredibly valuable that Business Schools can do.’ Frank Wijen, Associate Professor of Strategic Management, Rotterdam School of Management ‘We are in a crisis now, so it is almost an unprecedented opportunity to do something for good. Given the enormous amount of money being poured into companies, what if we included some green strings, let’s say climate mitigation measures, to the aid given to distressed companies? That might really make a difference. I used to be very pessimistic, but I am becoming increasingly optimistic. I think we are moving in the right direction – you can see that renewables are taking off now and that coal [consumption] is going down. This was unheard of even five years ago. At the same time, the speed is not enough. ‘Within Business Schools, the people we really need to target are the students. We have extremely powerful levers in Business Schools to educate students for good. These are the managers of tomorrow, or in certain programmes, they are already leaders today. These are the people who can make impactful decisions in terms of the allocation of resources. ‘I believe that sustainability needs to be fully integrated into all courses, if you make it into electives then you are preaching to the converted. You need to reach out to the sceptics and more importantly, you need to make it part of the business decisions at the most fundamental level, so core decisions around investments, finance and
marketing. Unless you duly integrate it into these aspects, then it becomes philanthropy or something good you do around Christmas – but not part of your core activity. It really needs to be part of the curriculum. The question is – how are we going to achieve that? ‘It’s here that I think we are part of an interesting situation, because not all Business School leaders are equally enthusiastic to do it. We need to reach the sceptics.’
KEY FINDINGS from the AMBA & BGA International Climate Change Report , in association with Jyväskylä University School of Business and Economics: 69% of Business School leaders agree that the planet’s climate is changing and think human activity is the main driver of this. 47% say they are ‘not very optimistic’ or ‘not at all optimistic’ about the future of the planet. 65% think their own School’s current performance in working to prevent further climate change is ‘excellent’, ‘very good’, or ‘fairly good’. 56% rated their students as ‘excellent’, ‘very good’ or ‘fairly good’ on the issue. 46% believe they need ‘significant’ funding in order to maximise their Business School’s impact in averting climate change. 87% agree that business is capable of finding the solutions to tackle climate change; with two fifths (40%) in strong agreement that this is the case.
Óscar Eduardo Medina Arango, MBA Director, Universidad EAFIT
‘If I look at our university, we have banned first- use plastic, included sustainability courses, and are getting more students enrolled onto these, meaning we have started to have to offer more courses. Another element within the Business School is that we have Urbam, which works on the sustainability of cities, and how they can become more resilient. ‘We can see that students are really taking sustainability into account as part of their thinking and responsibilities in terms of actions. We are not only stating sustainability, but we are also actively pursuing it.’ Hanna-Leena Pesonen, Dean, Jyväskylä University School of Business and Economics ‘It’s 25 years since we first had the [master’s] programme in corporate environmental management. At the start, it was something totally new – a curiosity within Business Schools – and wherever I talked about the programme, people thought it would be a very marginal issue. The number of applicants to that programme has been increasing all the time, and we have very high levels of quality in the applicants – it’s an international programme so we do get applicants from all over the world. ‘I have seen the change within this quarter of a century, from being something very much in the margin, it’s not mainstream yet but still, it is something which is much more widely respected and understood in society.’ Louis Hébert, Director of MBA and EMBA programmes, HEC Montréal ‘The space occupied by social issues is becoming increasingly crowded, in that when we talk about social good, we can talk about a variety of different
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STRATEGY
MODERATOR David Woods-Hale, Director of Marketing and Communications, AMBA & BGA PANELLISTS Patti Brown, Director, Full-Time Post-Experience Programmes and Executive Education, ESSEC Business School, France Jennifer Goodman, Associate Professor, Audencia Business School, France Louis Hébert, Director of MBA and EMBA programmes, HEC Montréal, Canada Óscar Eduardo Medina Arango, MBA Director, Universidad EAFIT, Colombia Hanna-Leena Pesonen, Dean, Jyväskylä University School of Business and Economics, Finland Jonatan Pinkse, Professor
issues within it. From our point of view, you have the issues of CSR, EDI [equality, diversity and inclusion] green strategy, sustainable development and then we add in climate change on top of that. ‘It is funny because recently we had a presentation from the students’ association, and it was all on EDI, not a word on climate change. There is such a broad range of issues that there is a danger of spreading yourself very thin over these and achieving nothing on all of them. ‘I think it’s a challenge of what the School can do and then what can be included in our programmes. If we do something on the climate emergency, are we doing it at the cost of EDI or the cost of something else? Patti Brown, Director, Full-Time Post-Experience Programmes and Executive Education, ESSEC Business School ‘You can talk about sustainability goals, but unless people can see how that can happen in the everyday, it’s pointless. At the School level, we have a new programme called ‘Together’ but we still find things like plastic cups on campus, or single-use plastic. ‘You can talk about it but how many people are actually doing it? Until they see how it affects their little world or their little life, then unfortunately most of the age groups just don’t care. That’s my biggest challenge and my thought on this – that everyone will begin to care about things when it affects their daily lives.’ Jonatan Pinkse, Professor of Strategy, Innovation and Entrepreneurship and Executive Director of the Manchester Institute of Innovation Research, Alliance Manchester Business School ‘For me, I think a lot is about how you frame it – with companies, for example, the business case has been very successful in selling sustainability. You need to do a similar thing with students, so if they don’t really know what sustainability or climate change is, the moment you connect it to something they do know and are interested in, then it works much better. ‘For example, entrepreneurship is sexy, and they all love it. You can easily do social and sustainable entrepreneurship. In my mainstream entrepreneurship class, I used to have at least 10%
who were truly interested in social entrepreneurship and would always pick their own projects on that topic, then they would get the fun of it and they would understand the power of it. ‘If it becomes a little bit like what we had with ethics courses a couple of years ago, where you had to do it or you were an immoral person, by definition, people don’t like it. Therefore, for me, it’s really about the packaging. It’s amazing how little information students use to make their choices – they sometimes just go for the title of the course. You have to make sure that it sounds like something they want to do. I used to teach a class called ‘Creativity, design and entrepreneurship’ – how can that not be fun? ‘As a Business School, we are a business ourselves because we work in a market and this means that there has to be demand. We have a lot of sustainability courses, but they don’t always get enough students, so our leadership asks why we would make them bigger when there is no sufficient demand. That’s partly missing the point because companies could say the same thing, i.e.,: “We have green products, but no one is buying them.” ‘There needs to be regulation that forces sustainability in companies. Likewise, at Business Schools, we need to argue that these topics need to be there because we consider that to be the responsible choice. But I don’t see that happening, and when I make such claims, people start smiling because they say I am just preaching for my own topic. It is very difficult to make that claim in a neutral way. Of course, a lot of us are in our bubble and we think that everyone thinks about this all the time but guess what – they don’t. Many people don’t really care.’ ‘Sustainability must be everywhere in the School but if we need to focus, then we should start with the curriculum. Because sustainability is, by definition, long term, and it’s in the curriculum where we have the long-lasting effects, as our business is training future leaders. ‘Should sustainability be embedded in all courses (for example, one introductory course at the David Veredas, Professor of Financial Markets, Vlerick Business School beginning of the year and then embed sustainability in all courses), or, instead, have specific courses on sustainability? I believe that sustainability should be embedded in all courses.
of Strategy, Innovation and Entrepreneurship
and Executive Director of the Manchester Institute of Innovation Research, Alliance Manchester Business School, University of Manchester, UK Stephanie Villemagne, Associate Dean, IE Business School, Spain David Veredas, Professor of Financial Markets, Vlerick Business School, Belgium Frank Wijen, Associate Professor of Strategic Management, Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University, Netherlands
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‘The main challenge I find is that people do not understand what sustainability is, because it is not easy. It permeates everything. ‘Some colleagues talk about sustainability, others about ESG, others about SDGs, others about CSR, others about DEI [diversity, equity and inclusion] others about climate change. Alignment and a common framework are a must for consistent implementation of sustainability in a Business School.’ ‘Aligning the conversation around climate change, which is part of a more sustainable approach in business and questioning how it can be ingrained into education is a tough challenge. ‘Talking with faculty, they ask: “What do you mean and how do we bring it into our courses?”’ They think it’s great but how do they teach sustainability in accounting for example? There are obvious areas, for example, in strategy. We know how to go about this, but then you think about data analytics – what is sustainable about data? Well, you could bring it into technology and how much that consumes in terms of energy, and so on. ‘I think that Covid-19 has brought a new way of thinking because we have more reflection time, we found ourselves inside and there is a lot in the media about how numbers were improving, not because we were taking the right measures but, because we were all at home, not using our cars and producing less overall, certain metrics improved Stephanie Villemagne, Associate Dean, IE Business School
dramatically. I think that people started reflecting and thinking they could be optimistic about this but the longer-term perspective to me is very difficult to think through. ‘I have started an introduction to sustainability in business course to talk about all these elements and relate them back to the core courses students will study throughout their master’s. I do see the differences year on year, in terms of awareness. ‘When I ask who has heard of the SDGs or who is aware of the consequences of climate change, for example, there are more people raising their hands. But, I would say, out of 50 students, I still have at least 20 people who don’t raise their hands when I ask about the SDGs. These people have no idea – and that’s a bit scary. I don’t know how optimistic I am about the future.’
A lot of us are in our bubble and we think that everyone thinks about this all the time but guess what – they don’t
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