BGA | BUSINESS IMPACT
and for our students? I think we should be mindful of this because we have lots of competition. Companies have their own universities, or their own kinds of institution, offering something similar to an MBA. So, the value proposition is the key. 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 and the other is teaching. However, 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 challenges and even though the result might not be immediately publishable in academic journals. On one hand, we still want publish in journals. On the other hand, 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, inclusive and supportive of new ideas and new forms of knowledge creation so that we can have some kind of breakthrough, generate more useful knowledge and teach this knowledge to the students in our classrooms. I think this is the way forward.
Fangruo Chen is Dean of Antai College of Economics and Management, Shanghai JiaoTong University
Fan Wang is Assistant President and Dean at the Business School, Sun Yat-sen University
Jiang Wei is Dean of the School of Management, Zhejiang University
37
‘At Antai, we think responsible research is practice-based research, addressing real problems, and challenges’
Made with FlippingBook - Share PDF online