think we’ve signed a deal with 16 over the past two years – so it’s fairly intensive. There is a variety of applications, such as being involved in course delivery, having access to students for internship and recruitment, as well as participating in our summer schools. “We have a strong demand from our students for [practical, hands-on] experience. We also have about 40 student clubs – they are extremely dynamic and entrepreneurial – and several of their initiatives involve corporate partners. I remember one business leader saying that he had learned as much outside the classroom as he had inside; this is what we must strive to attain – having a learning experience outside the classroom that is also extremely valuable and enriching.” How do cultural differences affect the importance and application of certain soft skills and how can business schools best address this in their curricula? Munish Thakur: “I’d like to start by commenting on why soft skills are so hard to acquire. First off, they take time to develop, whereas students are only with us for a maximum of two years and they’re also non-linear. Such skills are holistic, or tacit in nature too, so it’s very difficult to quantify and figure out how they are developing. [Then you have to factor in] that the MBA is cognitive, whereas soft skills are behavioural. Plus, business schools are extremely competitive, they are focused on grades. There is a certain amount of conflict, therefore, between the MBA programme and soft skill development. “Soft skills are cultural and contextual; for example, in India, which is more of a collectivistic society, deference for authority is very important and there is a perceived difference between wisdom and knowledge. People who have gone to university might be more Western in their approach, but there’s a whole lot of India which is still very Eastern in this regard. When you’re born in a community you acquire certain values – and they become part of you. These cultural nuances are very difficult to change, but a manager must know how to handle them.” Tom Lindholm: “We have been integrating soft skills, including communication, people management, personal leadership and development, very heavily into both our MBA and executive MBA programmes, not as separate modules, but as [an integral] part of the work that we are doing. “As well as our activity in Finland, we have a big partner programme going on with South Korea, with more than 5,000 alumni. What is interesting to note when talking about the cultural differences between countries is that a lot of the same things are on the agenda both in Europe and East Asia.” Federica Pazzaglia: “We’re based in Dublin, but we are very much a global business school, with around 60 different nationalities. Culture is a filter in the way you perceive and practise soft skills. We have placed considerable emphasis in our programmes on communication, interaction, networking and group work. We have
Tessa Melkonian: “We are trying to jointly create new approaches with organisations in the sense of developing a research-oriented type of project around the kind of challenges they face – and which soft skills would help most in this context. To my mind, what really matters is to elaborate partnerships where professors try to anticipate what could be potential solutions to business problems in terms of the lack of associated soft skills.” Federica Pazzaglia: “There’s a group of corporate partners who repeatedly engage with us – and that is through our alumni who are now placed within these organisations. “We hear a lot in academia about the importance of soft skills, but I think in the minds of our students there is still that notion of how essential hard and technical skills are too. We need to remind them that technical skills are important, but you will be called on more often than not to act as a mediator between differing points of view, or communicate difficult issues, or drive change. “So that part is something you need to start practising while you’re in the MBA programme – and I think that is very much where a partnership with industry can help.” Bruno van Pottelsberghe: “We have drastically accelerated the number of partnerships with industry and corporate partners – I
18 Ambition • ISSUE 2 • 2025
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