Ambition is AMBA’s thought leadership magazine, offering regular insights into the challenges and trends that matter most in global management education
Ambiti n The monthly magazine of the Association of MBAs (AMBA) BE IN BRILLIANT COMPANY
Issue 67 OCTOBER 2023
Leaning into lifelong
learning Practical pointers for adult education
THE LEADERSHIP CHALLENGE Hult’s unique approach to teaching
SOUTH AFRICAN SCHOOLS Learning from the past for a positive future
AMBA’S LEADING LADY Meet new chair Professor Wendy Loretto
ACCREDITATION FORUM 2023 QUEEN’S UNIVERSITY BELFAST NORTHERN IRELAND | 30-31 OCTOBER 2023 Forum themes and content Expert accreditors and guest speakers will share their experience on: • The accreditation process structure • 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 • AMBA accreditation in the context of the 300 schools limit • AMBA & BGA joint accreditation • BGA accreditation and BGA validation • Update on AMBA’s revised MBA accreditation criteria
Hosted by:
associationofmbas.com/af23
Issue 67 | OCTOBER 2023
NEWS & INS IGHT
REGULARS
EDI TOR’ S LET TER
Faced with perplexing political and pedagogical issues, business schools all over the world are coming up with impressively creative solutions SPOTLIGHT ON SCHOOLS An introduction to the recently accredited Faculty of Economics and Business Administration at Sofia University in Bulgaria
FROM THE CEO
The outlook on AMBA & BGA’s Latin America conference and the desire to develop new partnerships
BUS INESS BRI EF ING The latest selection of news and research from across AMBA’s global network features business schools in the Netherlands, Chile, Portugal and the UK THE RIGHT TOOLS FOR THE JOB AMBA & BGA’s recent roundtable event discussed ways in which schools can equip alumni with the appropriate skills and experience for a rapidly changing world of work and leadership
OPINION
LEADERSHIP How global humanitarian response efforts highlight the need for leaders to act quickly and decisively
Ambition OCTOBER 2023 | 3
SPONSORED BY:
BGA UK Capacity Building Workshop
31 OCTOBER 2023
LIVERPOOL, UK
AMBA & BGA invites you to attend BGA’s first
UK Capacity Building Workshop on the untapped lifelong learning opportunity for business schools The workshop will showcase and debate
microcredential initiatives, successes and failures. It will also feature groupwork designed to help institutions build financially viable options Attendance is free. Scan the QR code to learn more and register
Issue 67 | OCTOBER 2023
FEATURES
THE EVOLUTION OF EDUCATION South Africa’s business schools offer a model of how management education might have to reinvent itself to deal with the challenges of a complex future, as three deans explain
LEARNING OVER A LIFETIME Essca’s Vincent Calvez and Stéphane Justeau present a method for teaching adult learners through real-life cases and experimentation
RISING TO THE CHALLENGE Hult International Business School
president Matt Lilley makes the case for using challenge-based learning to simulate business and enhance students’ leadership capabilities
NATURAL SELECTION AMBA & BGA’s incoming chair and University of Edinburgh Business School dean Wendy Loretto on cultivating the next generation of business school leaders
Ambition OCTOBER 2023 | 5
Excellenc Award
EDITOR’S LETTER
Universal APPEAL
EDITORIAL Head of editorial Colette Doyle c.doyle@amba-bga.com Content editor Tim Banerjee Dhoul t.dhoul@amba-bga.com
iven that the business school sector operates in such a global environment, it is no wonder that the various individual marketplaces give rise to many regional challenges. In the UK, for instance, while quality assurance is at a very high standard, there can be over-regulation. In fact, one of the current difficulties facing UK-based As business schools around the world face a myriad of challenges, a creative approach to pedagogy is essential deans is the political pressure to restrict student visas – particularly the spousal visa. To this end, incoming AMBA & BGA chair Professor Wendy Loretto is working with the association’s CEO, Andrew Main Wilson on lobbying the government on the issue, a topic she elaborates on in our interview with her in this issue. In South Africa, meanwhile, schools are still dealing with the legacy of its troubled past, as our feature reveals. Business schools there have been forced to adapt global insights to the complex realities of the local environment. They developed that knowledge into complex stakeholder relationships and led searching conversations about ethical leadership. During apartheid, companies often led the way toward social change. This trend was reflected at many of the country’s schools, several of which integrated their classrooms long before apartheid ended and began searching considerations of the role business can play in a changing society. Some things, however, are universal, such as the ingenious pedagogy methods outlined by Essca in its treatise on dealing with adult learners and the article by Matt Lilly from Hult International Business School on challenge-based learning. In the former, the authors note that the path of adult learners needs to be signposted, but must also allow for a degree of organisational autonomy. Lilley’s submission, meanwhile, contends that challenge-based learning can help an individual become a better leader. The school’s management education cohort is constantly challenged on the way it approaches the various case study problems presented. Enjoy the issue, we’ll be back next month with an interview featuring award-winning Toulouse- based school TBS, plus features on a leadership equation for the challenges facing 21st-century managers and research into the concept of skills-first HR. G
Art editor Sam Price Sub-editor Heather Ford
Insight, content and PR manager Ellen Buchan e.buchan@amba-bga.com CORPORATE Commercial relations director Max Braithwaite m.braithwaite@amba-bga.com
Head of marketing and communications Leonora Clement
Senior marketing executive Edward Holmes
Head of IT and data management Jack Villanueva
Head of events Carolyn Armsby
HR and employer relations manager Aarti Bhasin Finance and commercial Director Catherine Walker
Colette Doyle , Editor, Ambition
THIS MONTH’S CONTRIBUTORS
Chief executive o cer Andrew Main Wilson
Executive assistant to the CEO Amy Youngs a.youngs@amba-bga.com ACCREDITATION ENQUIRIES accreditation@amba-bga.com
PETER BAINES
VINCENT CALVEZ
CATHERINE DUGGAN DUGGAN GEORGIEV ATANAS GEORGIEV
STÉPHANE JUSTEAU
MATT LILLEY
WENDY LORETTO
MORRIS MTHOMBENI
MARK SMITH
Copyright 2023 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.
Ambiti n
Ambition OCTOBER 2023 | 7
BUSINESS BRIEFING
All the latest updates from across AMBA’s global network
Ambition ’s latest selection of news and research tackles the topics of robots sidelining humans in the workplace, whether materialism might lead to burnout, spreading the word about responsible business and how consumer aspirations are changing. Compiled by Tim Banerjee Dhoul and Ellen Buchan
UNCERTAINTY UPENDS NOTIONS OF CONSUMER SECURITY
SCHOOL: Bayes Business School, City University COUNTRY: UK
systematic risks, such as those who make up the ‘middle class’ segments of society. Bayes Business School assistant professor in marketing Aleksandrina Atanasova said of the research: “Our study shows that in times of crisis, previous sources and markers of stability and security begin to feel like an anchor pulling one down as they require resources which consumers can no longer rely on having. In contrast, agility and flexibility (ie liquidity) are what allow one to pivot and change course when needed and adapt more quickly to an unpredictable environment.” The study, entitled Liquid Consumer Security , was co-authored with researchers at King’s Business School and has been published in the Journal of Consumer Research . It is based on a four-year ethnography and netnography of digital nomadism, including interviews, social media and observations. It also draws on data from three digital nomad hubs – namely, Bansko, Bulgaria, Valencia, Spain and Crete, Greece. EB
Global uncertainty is leading members of the middle classes to reject traditional aspirations and lifestyles, according to new research led by Bayes Business School. In the research, consumers were found to no longer be looking for traditional notions of security, such as being married, having a family or owning a house, because they believe anything tying you down could end up costing you dearly. Instead, they have been turning towards lifestyles that would previously have been viewed as unstable, for example, being a digital nomad. These non- traditional ways of life are said to offer a different type of security. Remote workers can, for instance, diversify their income by working on several different projects at once, offering them flexibility and control. The attraction of remote, digital working has also been enhanced by government amendments to related visa and tax regulations. While insecurity is by no means new, the feeling is that it is now impacting people who have been previously sheltered from such
8 | Ambition | OCTOBER 2023
NEWS & INSIGHT
MATERIALISM COMES BEFORE A FALL IN NEW STUDY
SCHOOL: Faculty of Administration and Economics, Universidad Diego Portales COUNTRY: Chile
Materialism is a key forerunner of job burnout, according to a new study led by Valentina Reyes, a professor at Universidad Diego Portales’ (UDP) Faculty of Administration and Economics. “The objectives that we pursue at work for ourselves can increase our risk of burnout,” Reyes explained. In the study, materialism is defined as the relative importance given to extrinsic goals, such as fame, money and status, as opposed to intrinsic goals, such as self-development, relationships and altruism. “When materialistic goals become our primary reason for going to work, basic psychological needs at work, such as autonomy, relationships and competence, are more likely to be thwarted, leading to a higher risk of job exhaustion. This, in turn, brings with it greater barriers to basic psychological needs, generating a vicious circle for the health of workers,” Reyes continued.
The key takeway is that organisations should be careful how they reward employees and incentivise their performance. “Avoiding the promotion of materialistic values in organisational practices, such as payment systems and performance ratings, and promoting contexts that help satisfy the basic psychological needs of employees would help reduce the risk of worker burnout and, in turn, increase organisational productivity,” argued the UDP professor, who is attached to the faculty’s School of Commercial Engineering. Funded by the Chilean Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation and Fondef (the Fund for the Promotion of Scientific and Technological Development) the study, drawn from a sample of almost 2,000 Chilean workers using self-determination theory, was co-authored with researchers at Adolfo Ibáñez University, Sussex University and Katholieke Universiteit Leuven and has been published in the journal, Work & Stress . TBD
Ambition | OCTOBER | 9
NEWSLETTER CELEBRATES MILESTONE ANNIVERSARY
SCHOOL: Católica Lisbon School of Business & Economics COUNTRY: Portugal
Have a Great and Impactful Week is the name of a weekly digital newsletter at Católica Lisbon School of Business & Economics that recently celebrated its 200th edition. With the aim of inspiring responsible business and leadership, the school’s email campaign delivers concise information and insights on current a airs, corporate responsibility and sustainability. Over the past four years, its audience of students and executives has grown to around 3,000 and has become a key channel for the work of the school’s Centre for Responsible Business and Leadership. “We believe that the daunting challenges facing our society, particularly in the areas of sustainability of the planet and inclusion of people as drivers and beneficiaries of progress, can only be faced with an active and responsible role of established corporations and entrepreneurs,” wrote Católica Lisbon School of Business
& Economics dean Filipe Santos and the executive director of the Centre for Responsible Business and Leadership, Nuno Moreira da Cruz, in the newsletter’s 200th edition. Recent editions have covered themes that include climate change denial, energy transition, sustainability as a competitive advantage and biodiversity. Subscriptions to the newsletter are open to all. The Centre for Responsible Business and Leadership, meanwhile, is one of seven knowledge centres at Católica Lisbon. It has published research notes on a wide range of topics, including the impact of Covid-19 on the sustainable development agenda and the concept of purpose-driven consumption. It is also responsible for the delivery of elective courses on responsible business at both undergraduate and master’s level, as well as a four-week intensive online course on building a purpose-driven business. TBD
10 | Ambition OCTOBER 2023
NEWS & INSIGHT
HOW ROBOTS AND HUMANS WORKING TOGETHER COULD BE DETRIMENTAL TO WELLBEING
SCHOOL: School of Business and Economics, Maastricht University COUNTRY: Netherlands
While we might be familiar with the fear that robots will take over our jobs, the potential impact of humans and robots working in tandem is far less talked about, especially in the context of human wellbeing. A new research paper involving researchers at the School of Business and Economics at Maastricht University aims to fill this gap. The Robotic-Human Service Trilemma , published in the Journal of Service Management , sets out a framework that revolves around three challenges for managers to be wary of. When a customer and frontline employee meet, there is an expected level of interaction that simply does not take place whenever a service robot does a job instead of the human employee. Known as the ‘intrusion challenge’, the study suggests that limiting customer interaction in this way can negatively impact an employee’s job fulfilment. When a robot takes on the job of a frontline worker, this can also result in the employee feeling devalued and experiencing greater job insecurity. In addition, they stand to receive fewer tips. This is known as the ‘sideline challenge’.
Lastly, the study argues that as robots begin to do jobs traditionally assigned to humans, customers are more likely to grow detached and become indifferent to human staff members – a phenomenon the study equates to the ‘indifference challenge’. So, just because we can work with robots, does it mean we should? Despite the caveats presented, the researchers believe we should still implement robots into the service sector. However, they say managers must be mindful of the three points outlined above and ensure human welfare is at that forefront of considerations whenever companies make plans to implement robots into working environments. The study draws on a review of robotic service literature research and was conducted by researchers from Queensland University of Technology and Hanken School of Economics, as well as those at Maastricht University. EB
SHARE YOUR NEWS AND RESEARCH UPDATES by emailing AMBA & BGA’s content editor Tim Banerjee Dhoul at t.dhoul@amba-bga.com
Ambition | OCTOBER 2023 | 11
Transitioning from teaching young students to adult learners can be tough for faculty. Here, Vincent Calvez and Stéphane Justeau from Essca School of Management explain the unique characteristics displayed by adult learners and propose a method for teaching them based on real-life cases and experimentation Learning over a lifetime
I t can be painful when a teacher transitions from teaching young students to adult learners, especially if they use the same methods or assume that the audiences are identical. The pain will also be felt by adults who don’t understand why they are being treated as younger students. Although they are learners, they may have been employees, or perhaps still are, just as they may have set up a company or taken over their family’s business. As a result, they have a lot to say, share and explain. Malcolm Knowles and the adult learner Since the 1970s, pedagogical literature has shown that a 20-year-old learner is not the same as a 45-year-old one. Malcolm Knowles, author of The Adult Learner: A Neglected Species , published in 1973, laid the foundations for the theory of andragogy (the art of helping adults to learn) by emphasising the specific characteristics of the adult learner. Throughout his career, Knowles devoted himself to adult education and sought to promote teaching and learning methods adapted to the specific needs of adults. He emphasised the autonomy of the adult learner and the meaning given to learning, as well as the integration and sharing of life experiences in the learning process. The Adult Learner: The Definitive Classic in Adult Education and Human Resource Development , published post-mortem in 1998, remains the definitive reference work on this subject. It has helped many teachers to design relevant and appropriate teaching activities. When we train teachers to teach adults we often hear: “Adults know what they have to learn and that’s enough”. But because learning is a highly strategic cost-benefit analysis that is often di cult to carry out, adults need to find meaning in what they are doing and in the tasks in which we ask them to participate.
12 | Ambition OCTOBER 2023
PEDAGOGY
Ambition OCTOBER 2023 | 13
Crisis management In this course, the audience was made up of practising and trainee managers from a large public electricity production and distribution company. Before the course, they were asked to write about a crisis situation they had experienced, either as an active participant or as a bystander. During the seminar, the trainees presented their experiences one by one and shared their feelings about the various problems they had encountered. When a case was described with the solution provided, the vast majority of participants were surprised by the choice made by one of them and a lively discussion ensued. The trainer acted as a moderator, prompting debate with questions for further clarification and then returning to the theoretical reading grid to try to clarify some points. Leadership course In this course, the teacher used real cases as much as possible to stimulate discussion. Carefully selected for their potential impact, these cases can get people talking and provoke testimonials that will be remembered throughout their careers. One such case prompted a trainee team manager to talk about the day she saved the life of a member of her team. She had a premonition and dispatched some firemen to the sta member’s home. They found that she had tried to kill herself; fortunately, they resuscitated her. The class listened attentively and much debate ensued on fundamental notions that went beyond the scope of the course, including responsibility, guilt and sensitivity. In recent years, adult students on the leadership course have been asked to write their end-of-semester work in the form of a case study, always based on a real-life situation. The testimonies are exceptionally rich and the precision of the details and experiences go hand-in-hand with the originality and even extreme harshness of the situations, hence the term ‘unspeakable’. The reaction of one trainee was particularly memorable: “It hurt (to recount it) but in the end it did me good.” It’s almost as if writing has a kind of curative dimension: a cure, not just through words, but also through the distancing it can provide. This is especially true when the initial situation was experienced with di culty, or even as a trauma that was rarely shared. The non-judgmental nature of the exercise enables adult trainees to reveal situations that may have overwhelmed them in the past, but also to come back to them by analysing them and weighing up the experiential knowledge now acquired. The testimonials and analyses might include the following kind of statement: “I was fooled”. In this way, we ask the learners to relate their experience to the frameworks, concepts or notions that are supposed to shed light on the situation. The experiential learning described in David Kolb’s work, Experiential learning: Experience as the Source of Learning and Development , is underway. Among the situations dealt with by trainees in recent years was the case of an extremely authoritarian manager who made his teams su er and broke the bonds of solidarity built up over many years. Another involved the arrival of a director who generated sales
In addition to the course content, which must serve clearly defined learning objectives, there has to be a rigorous explanation of the meaning given to the entire set-up: Why this method? Why this exercise? Why do it now? Prior learner experience Throughout their lives, adults have developed self-confidence, self-esteem and their personal identity. Sometimes, however, they may have lost it, or it will have been sorely tested. As a result, adults in training need to feel responsible for their own learning, but they also need to assert that identity, in one way or another. Their path must therefore be signposted, but must also allow for a degree of organisational autonomy. Classroom discussion must be free and respectful, to allow open and frank expression of each individual’s pathway. By their very nature, adults in training bring a wealth of experience and knowledge accumulated throughout their lives. This must be integrated into the course. Better still, it should be an integral part of the course. Allowing them to express themselves and to share things with the group will not only feed the course content with concrete elements, but will also allow learners to a rm who they are and to recall what they have experienced. In short, they will become part of the course. Readiness to learn Adults engage in the act of learning if it’s the right time for them to do so and if the challenge is within their grasp. If they are in the classroom, it’s because the calculated benefits outweigh the costs. They will only take risks in safe, well-marked territory, supervised by activities designed specifically for them and full of meaning. While young learners are often focused on content, adults are more interested in developing their skills, solving problems, dealing with real-life situations and achieving practical results that can be applied in their working lives. The theory of motivation at work developed by psychologists Edward Deci and Richard Ryan applies perfectly to learning. While young learners are sensitive to extrinsic motivation in the context of their studies (social and family constraints, etc), their elders are driven more by internal factors, known as “intrinsic motivation”. This motivation to learn stems from the reasons that led them to return to their studies, sometimes to the detriment of their free time or family life. It’s a perfectly e ective motivation for learning because it leads learners to work for themselves rather than for others, to develop their skills rather than focusing on the grade. Trialling a new method By integrating these dimensions, we have developed a new method for faculty to teach adults – particularly in the field of human sciences or management. It can be summarised thus: “Writing the unspeakable and the misunderstood to learn and understand better”. Here are the key elements of the method and how adult learners have responded to them in crisis management and leadership courses over a 10-year period.
14 | Ambition OCTOBER 2023
PEDAGOGY
BIOGRAPHIES
growth and built up friendships with colleagues, but turned out to be a manipulator and something of a con man. In a third case, a woman was o ered an advantageous career move, provided she joined a team where the manager had a reputation for harassment. She accepted and had to fight to defend her integrity. Practical tips for teachers For those who want to adopt this method of teaching, here are some practical pointers. Ask students for examples of situations in their professional life (successes, di culties, failures, projects, bankruptcies, product launches, innovations and so on) that they have personally experienced or witnessed first-hand. Tell them not to censor themselves and provide as many details as possible about the personalities of the various people involved, the type of organisational context, how long the company has been in business, or how long those members of sta have been with the organisation, its history, culture, practices, products and services. The more the situation has challenged them, the more it has, at times, put them to the test, the more important it will now be to reinterpret and analyse it. Clearly, this situation should illustrate the need to develop or strengthen their managerial skills, as well as their ability to question, understand and act. After describing the situation as neutrally as possible in the first part, they will analyse it in the second part. The need to carry out this analysis in the light of what they have already learned on the course, providing between two and four lines of theoretical questioning (based on concepts, notions and reading grids that may or may not have been covered on the course) will help them to better understand the situation they have experienced. Get them to elaborate on the questions this situation has raised and how they have subsequently dealt with them. Both in the debates generated by the case studies and in the reading and use in class of the work of adults in training, the teacher is advised to adopt a non-judgmental, even benevolent, neutral stance, so as to value the students’ backgrounds. They also need to be active listeners to lead the debate, while sometimes discovering with them the incredible stories that populate our organisations. In one example, an adult learner once confided in their teacher about the mission of some hard-hitting consultants who had arrived at his company, a world leader in its sector. “They asked me if I was on the executive committee and when I replied that I was not, they said, ‘That means you’re not a real man’”. At this point, a general burst of laughter shook the class at the rudeness of the consultants, reinforcing the desire to continue sharing experiences. What seems to emerge from this experimentation is first and foremost the interest shown by the adults in this form of work, which enhances their experience far more than a simple theoretical examination. The teacher’s interest is also stimulated, as he or she discovers rich situations that can, on occasion, strongly encourage reflection and feed into the lessons. This exercise can also give rise to writing partnerships in which teacher and student then publish teaching material together for use in subsequent years.
Vincent Calvez holds a PhD from the Ecole Polytechnique and an MSc from HEC-Montreal, where he began teaching in 1993. At Essca, he is in charge of management courses and heads the Family Business Institute. His research interests include crisis management, the critical incident and case method, as well as conflicts within family businesses. He has published three books and some 40 case studies Stéphane Justeau has a PhD in economics and has been teaching since 2000. He was trained at the University of Lausanne and at the Open University, where he was awarded a Postgraduate Certificate in Academic Practice. Justeau is in charge of Essca’s Institute of Advanced Pedagogy where he trains faculty members of Essca School of Management, as well as faculty from other universities and schools both in France and abroad. Previously dean of faculty, he is now associate dean for pedagogy
Ambition OCTOBER 2023 | 15
Natural
Selection
Wendy Loretto is professor of organisational behaviour and dean at the University of Edinburgh Business School; she has also just become the next chair of management education accreditation specialist AMBA & BGA. Ambition editor Colette Doyle spoke to her about cultivating the next generation
of deans, harnessing new technology in the interests of interdisciplinary research and tapping into the global peer community
16 | Ambition OCTOBER 2023
As a female manager of a certain age, I find myself enthralled by Professor Wendy Loretto’s research specialism at Edinburgh Business School. Her work revolves around age and employment, with a particular focus on the intersection between gender and age, as well as the changes seen in both employees’ and employers’ attitudes towards extending the working lives of the over-50s. Loretto’s research interests at Edinburgh spring from her avowed passion for diversity; “one of the big aspects of diversity within business schools has been gender diversity at management level”, she notes, “something I’m strongly and publicly committed to and very keen to promote. Of course, there are other issues related to diversity, not just gender, but I think one of the things that I’ve witnessed, since I became dean, is an increase in women in these positions, which has been amazing to experience.” Her commitment to gender diversity within academia is no idle boast: Edinburgh Business School previously obtained bronze accreditation from the highly respected Athena Swan equality charter and more recently achieved silver. A
INTERVIEW
Earlier this month, Loretto took up the position of chair at AMBA & BGA, following a six-year stint by German-born marketing guru Bodo Schlegelmilch (see Ambition September 2023 ). Despite the position being likely to involve a considerable amount of additional work, she declares herself “absolutely delighted” to have been asked to put in a nomination, having served on the board since November 2019. She describes the process of compiling her nomination document. “I always think: ‘How easy will this application be?’ and when I was putting together my nomination statement for AMBA & BGA it came really naturally to me, so I see that as an excellent indicator of the role being a really good fit.” The value of continuous improvement She is fulsome in her praise of the association: “It’s an organisation to be proud of. I have seen both AMBA and BGA become much more dynamic and relevant, with BGA in particular striving to promote sustainability and responsible management within the continuous improvement agenda. I admire how the organisation goes about accreditation; all the big agencies base accreditations on peer review, but I see that aspect very strongly at AMBA & BGA. “That peer factor is evident not just in the accreditations, but in how things are done, such as conferences and workshops; there’s a real emphasis on community and everybody in that community having a part to play and a contribution to make.” Talking about the importance of the accreditation process, she remarks that it is “incredibly vital because it is all about continuous improvement. We’re teaching our students about how things could be done di erently, or better, so it makes complete sense that we’re operating in that same environment. That, for me, is the real power of accreditation.” It’s also very much, in her opinion, about being able to count on help from business school counterparts around the world. “Part of the support comes back to that peer community and having access to those networks; you can say for example, ‘I’m struggling to increase diversity among faculty sta and I know that dean so-and-so has done some great work, I’d like to reach out to them for advice’. There’s the immediate value of the accreditation, but then there’s being part of that network and what that enables.” Dealing with unexpected challenges Looking back on her distinguished career to date, she references her experience at Edinburgh as being of great assistance when it comes to taking on the mantle of AMBA & BGA chair and “continuing the dynamic”, as she phrases it. Her induction as dean
Ambition OCTOBER 2023 | 17
was something of a baptism of fire: “I’ve been dean at Edinburgh Business School since 24 June 2016. The reason I remember the date so vividly is that I was appointed interim dean the day after the Brexit vote; sta and students were absolutely desolate. That turned into a period of huge political and economic uncertainty – it was a very challenging time”. But what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger as they say and, after a competitive recruitment process, she was appointed dean in February 2017. Then, after the hullaballoo of Brexit had died down slightly, she had to deal with the Covid-19 pandemic. To her credit, she remains resolutely upbeat: “One of the lovely things about being a business school dean is having the chance to visit lots of schools, discovering their ways of operating, sharing good practice and being part of that peer community. Hopefully, I bring all of that to the role of chair.” Her tenure at the organisation will also see her play an active part in campaigning for political change within the sector. “Every part of the world has its own issues, but one thing in the UK [that we have to contend with] is over-regulation. On the one hand, we have a good quality assurance system, but one of the di culties we’re facing is the political pressure to restrict student visas – particularly the spousal visa.” To this end, Loretto is working with AMBA & BGA CEO Andrew Main Wilson on lobbying the government. “I think it’s a real concern at present for UK deans within the business and management education sphere”, she declares emphatically. Identifying added value Discussing what she hopes to achieve during her time as chair, it’s clear that Loretto has identified some key priorities. “Within the whole triple crown scenario [when schools are awarded accreditation by AMBA and/or BGA, EQUIS and AACSB] it’s important to distinguish what AMBA’s added value proposition is. I think – as board members and employees – we have a kind of gut feeling, but it would be helpful to articulate it and promote it more explicitly; let’s define what flavour AMBA brings to the mix.” She is also focused on actively encouraging the next generation of deans to step up to management roles. “It’s vital to have succession planning in place, whether we do that individually as institutions, or whether we think about it more globally, as part of the deans’ network at AMBA & BGA. It’s something that I’m extremely keen to promote.” Asked how she plans to deal with the often- contentious topic of generative artificial intelligence in academia, she’s initially modest – “Maybe I don’t
know enough about it to understand what I should be afraid of” – and then she turns to the crux of the matter. “The main issue is student integrity and passing o other people’s work as their own.” But she’s quick to play down any fears: “Universities have faced that since the dawn of time; I’ve always found a way to get around whatever systems are in place, so that’s not my big worry”. What concerns her more is that “students could end up less critically engaged as they can get answers easily. It’s not that they’re trying to pass the answers o as their own, but more that their focus will be getting answers from a large language model (LLM), rather than thinking for themselves. We need to harness AI to encourage critical thinking.” She also highlights the positive aspect that some have eschewed in favour of scaremongering rhetoric. “I’ve been amazed and gratified to see colleagues
“It’s vital to have succession planning in place, whether individually as institutions or as part of the deans’ network”
18 | Ambition OCTOBER 2023
INTERVIEW
people and the e ect of drugs and alcohol on their mental and physical health. “The SHAW project looks at how we might better support the 20 per cent of 50-plus employees who feel that they have to leave work due to health issues. It’s about people who would like to stay on at work, or who need to do so for financial reasons, but have to leave due to poor health. One of the outputs we’re creating is an app to better help sta collect and understand their own health, circumstances and needs. “We’re collecting information using AI, which will not just process the data about a person’s sleep pattern, for instance, it’ll ask how they feel, how it has a ected their work and if they have sought help. AI enables us to have a more dynamic way of working – rather than just circulating a questionnaire – and supporting employees’ health. It’s a business and management-led piece of research, but involves both design and medical informatics. I see these LLMs o ering us a real chance to undertake more interdisciplinary work of this kind in future.” Coming together to share best practice Warming to her theme, Loretto comments on how – even though academia is generally renowned as an industry that tends to be fairly collaborative – she believes business schools have a greater propensity to work together than in other areas of education. “Some of these ‘grand challenges’, as they’re often called, are global and no one school is going to be able to solve them on their own. One of the great things about business schools is the links that we forge with each other. “In a sense, I believe business schools have just woken up to the power we have to integrate other disciplines – it’s something we need to capitalise on. There are all these burgeoning technological developments, for instance, but how do you organise, structure and resource to get the best out of them? That’s where business schools come in.” Her zest for her new role is palpable; she refers to “the genuine enthusiasm, passion and warmth [of the association’s sta ]. I see that in the way people carry out their activities, whether that’s how the board operates, interacting with other colleagues, or attending professional events, such as the global conference. I think it’s something that really shines when you’re talking about personal values.” She describes the AMBA & BGA chairship as “a definite highlight” of her career. “It’s an honour and a privilege – I’m really looking forward to being able to use that platform to make a di erence.”
BIOGRAPHY
Prior to becoming dean at the University of Edinburgh Business School, Professor Wendy Loretto previously held several leadership roles there, including director of research and director of undergraduate programmes. Her main research field is age and employment and she is especially interested in the ways in which gender, age and health interact to affect work and retirement experiences amongst older men and women across Europe. Loretto’s work has received funding from research councils, industry partners, government and EU and is published widely in leading academic journals. She is currently leading a major three-year project investigation on how best to support healthy ageing at work. She was a member of the UKRI Equality, Diversity and Inclusion external advisory group and is on the boards of Abrdn Financial Fairness Trust and the Society for the Advancement of Management Studies
start to incorporate ChatGPT and other similar technologies into their teaching. That might involve getting the students to go away and do a piece of work, to engage with it or discuss real life queries in the classroom. Either way, it’s prompted innovative behaviours in pedagogy and it’s also opening up lots of avenues for our research.” Opportunities for collaboration Loretto elaborates on possible interdisciplinary collaboration. “Sometimes there is a perception that business management skills are separate from other academic disciplines. I think interdisciplinarity through AI technology is becoming more of a reality.” She provides an example based on her research: “My current project is called Supporting Healthy Ageing at Work (SHAW). I’ve had a strong interest in wellbeing since I did my PhD on young
Ambition OCTOBER 2023 | 19
right The tools job for the
Business schools need to equip their alumni with the appropriate skills and experience for a rapidly changing world of work and leadership. AMBA & BGA’s recent panel debate discussed the best ways to make this happen. Tim Banerjee Dhoul reports
20 | Ambition | OCTOBER 2023
ROUNDTABLE REVIEW
I n 2023, more unknown scenarios than ever demand the attention of business leaders, adding to the challenges of a changing world of work. Technological advances, coupled with a fragile geopolitical climate, mean that nobody can be sure of the precise nature of jobs five or ten years from now. However, reports of employers’ dissatisfaction with the quality of skills shown by university graduates continue. Students, meanwhile, are becoming more and more preoccupied with how their subjects of choice will impact on their starting salary and career prospects, post-graduation. In this context, how can business schools best prepare their students and continue to support their graduates to be ready for a future evolving at a relentless pace? AMBA & BGA facilitated a roundtable session on this topic in association with critical thinking solutions provider Macat ahead of the AMBA & BGA Business School Professionals Conference 2023 in Edinburgh. Panellists explored the various ways in which business schools are trying to adapt and offered their views on how schools can simultaneously address skills gaps identified by the recruiters they work with and meet the needs of wider society. What initiatives or changes are you implementing to adapt your school to the evolving needs of the business world? Rodrigo Cintra “We realised that we’re no longer able to make a programme that can anticipate all the paths a student might want to take. If we tried, it would be out of date by the time it was implemented. So, we’re trying to have a more open system where students choose where they want to go from start to finish. One way we do this is through nanodegrees. At our school, we call it ‘Dynamic ESPM’ and it’s a bunch of small courses from which students can choose whatever they want. They can then put these nanodegrees together with some traditional courses. “Our challenge now is how we keep it updated, in terms of business. We are inviting more industry representatives to let us know what they are using right now. This impacts on our faculty structure because practitioner teachers will, by nature, be less research-oriented than academic ones. We also need to make sure we don’t lose the value of research. One solution we are working on is to encourage more applied and less theoretical research.” Rebecca Casey “We’ve established a digital education strategy and this has given us a mandate to invest in digital infrastructure, including simulations and databases, for example. We also have a continued licence with LinkedIn learning, which is extremely popular with our MBA students and we embed some of that into the curriculum. “In addition, we’re one of the first universities to develop a set of principles around using AI in teaching and learning. Plus, we have an innovation fund that is designed to help upskill and train staff, so that they can take advantage of using new digital technologies in their teaching.”
Ambition | OCTOBER 2023 | 21
How is your business school working to anticipate the skills that graduates will need in five years’ time? Julie Rosborough “A lot of tasks will be taken over by AI, but softer skills and that human element will become more important. That’s where a personalised approach focused on leadership will be more e ective. I see it all the time with my MBA students; they come on the course thinking they need to know about finance or marketing, but they leave realising that the behavioural elements are what makes the di erence in leadership. “We’ve also learned a great deal from the UK’s senior leader apprenticeship approach and its framework of knowledge, skills and behaviours. We ask our students to score themselves against this framework and then do induction leadership diagnostics with them. We find this to be an e ective way of personalisation.” Tom Vinaimont “As the director of a finance programme, we are very much aware that the financial industry is changing rapidly. For example, we are cooperating with Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business to give our students a course on fintech and decentralised finance (DeFi). These financial developments could, in essence, wipe out the entire industry as we know it and replace it with a di erent one. “There are some skills [from our old methods of teaching finance] that are transferable to this new reality – and even within DeFi there are concepts that will still hold – but the application of these skills will need to be transferred from one model to another.” Deneise Dadd “One thing Coventry has done, not only for its MBA cohort, but also for the entire university, is to introduce graduate attributes. We’re trying to help ensure that our graduates leave with certain key attributes, such as critical thinking and adaptability, so that when they leave they can cope in the changing world. “These attributes also promote lifelong learning because by seeing challenges as they evolve, preparing for them ourselves and preparing our students for them, we also encourage students to come back when they need to upskill. It’s a process of constant transformation and we have to keep on our toes.” Rodrigo Cintra “We’ve been thinking about soft skills and how we can prepare our students when they are all unique, come from di erent backgrounds and are experiencing di erent challenges. “What we came up with was a programme with no course at all. The idea is that students come to us with a real project in a company and we help identify the courses we think they’re going to need and, through mentorship, help them get the level of skills required. Everything depends on the project’s goals – we are no longer deciding what you’re going to study or the skills you’re going to have by the end. You are going to decide and we’re going to help you through the process.
Elaine Limond “Our sta are supported to go back into industry for at least a few days a year. Someone in my hospitality tourism department might go and look at AI within the aviation industry and then bring that back to the team, so that we’re really informed by industry.” Julie Rosborough “We’re very fortunate that our part-time MBAs are in industry and the peer-to-peer learning in our classes is critical. It’s not just us dictating to students, it’s also us learning from the people in practice that are in the room with us. We’ve handpicked a few people to become associate lecturers as they exit from their MBA programme and that’s proven to be very useful.” Salah Khalil “The real challenge will be the 2030 skills gap and crisis because most of the current skills used by graduates will be redundant by then and AI plays a critical role in this. A recent study by Harvard University shows that about 85 or 90 per cent of the jobs in the future are unknown. If you were previously focused on education for enlightenment, whereby you’re trying to create a well-rounded student and you are under pressure to shift to education for employment, it’s worth remembering that industry doesn’t know either what’s going to happen in the future. “This is a good segue into a skills-based education that will be transferable across a number of sectors and geographies. If you can build skills that are not going to decay with time because of AI and that will help graduates use the technology, I think it would be a really good investment. “We’ve got seven years and a huge role lies on the shoulders of business schools because in my opinion they are the ones that are closest to business in a university setting.”
22 | Ambition OCTOBER 2023
ROUNDTABLE REVIEW
Eno Amasi Maycock , executive director of MBA programmes, Coventry Business School, Coventry University Rebecca Casey , MBA programme director, Newcastle University Business School Rodrigo Cintra , chief innovation and internationalisation o cer ESPM Aku Clemmet , MBA programme manager, University of Exeter Business School Deneise Dadd , deputy head of school, Coventry Business School Coventry University Ellie Fowler , executive MBA programme director, Lancaster University Management School Geetha Karunanayake , Global MBA programme director Hull University Business School Salah Khalil , founding executive chairman and CEO, Macat International Elaine Limond , vice-dean University College Birmingham Business School Julie Rosborough , MBA portfolio lead, Nottingham Business School, Nottingham Trent University Tom Vinaimont , academic director Nazarbayev University Graduate School of Business PANEL PARTICIPANTS CHAIR Andrew Main Wilson , CEO, AMBA & BGA DELEGATES
“The challenge is how we can sell a programme that has no defined course structure and no fixed content. Our programme has been there for three years and so far, we have managed to attract many more students through companies than individually because the companies can better understand this approach.” Linda Whicker “We look at three key areas: leading responsibly, understanding adaptability and embracing disruption and complexity. Through this, we cover leadership behaviours and psychology. We also focus on the student individually to the point where we’re providing one-to- one coaching sessions as part of the fee structure.” Geetha Karunanayake “The stages in our programme are designed to help leaders develop and think about the future. We start with a compulsory module, where students think about who they are, where they are and their career progression. We then bring in the leadership behaviour and psychology elements to help them develop their understanding of other people and soft skills, such as negotiation, change management and decision-making skills. The next stage is the springboard, where leaders think more directly about the future.” Aku Clemmet “We’ve started to implement one-to-one executive coaching sessions with our students because there’s so much value in these for learning about themselves, with takeways that they can then apply directly in the real world.” Deneise Dadd “We have students from across the world that represent lots of cultures and that individual focus is simply not the culture everywhere in the world. This can make it hard to do that reflective piece, especially one where you’re not just thinking about you, but also about how your decisions a ect others and the wider society.” What role does critical thinking and creativity play in your business school’s curricula and how do you support students in developing these skills? Ellie Fowler “We have a lot of di erent types of people from a range of organisations coming to our programmes, so in our action learning sets we really try and mix up this diversity to get that creativity in thinking. Lots of students say this is one of the things that they enjoyed the most, or rather they don’t always enjoy it to start o with, it’s something that they have to learn how to do, but once they get it they go away and bring this mindset back into their organisations and that makes a big di erence.” Rebecca Casey “Having an appreciation of diversity of perspective is really important and creativity is good for that.”
Linda Whicker , executive MBA programme director Hull University Business School
Ambition OCTOBER 2023 | 23
Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 Page 4 Page 5 Page 6 Page 7 Page 8 Page 9 Page 10 Page 11 Page 12 Page 13 Page 14 Page 15 Page 16 Page 17 Page 18 Page 19 Page 20 Page 21 Page 22 Page 23 Page 24 Page 25 Page 26 Page 27 Page 28 Page 29 Page 30 Page 31 Page 32 Page 33 Page 34 Page 35 Page 36 Page 37 Page 38 Page 39 Page 40Made with FlippingBook - Share PDF online