ROUNDTABLE REVIEW
Ajit Parulekar: “At our school, responsible leadership is an integral part of what we do; it’s possibly one of the most important things that we do. I think it’s important in today’s world to make sure that students are able to navigate difficult conversations because there’s so much complexity around every issue and so much information is available. It’s easy to be able to find data that conforms to viewpoints you already hold. “Although data is easily available, understanding it to be able to make meaningful conversations is more complex. We need training, therefore, for students to be able to view that data from multiple perspectives [so they can extract richer insights]. “I think we can break it down into two parts: understanding how to navigate difficult conversations and secondly having the courage and conviction to be able to look at multi-stakeholder perspectives. The challenge really is the polarisation of thoughts – [it feels like] moderates no longer live in this world. I think that’s a challenge that cannot be taught, it has to be lived, in the sense of being built into the curriculum through different kinds of scenarios.” What other emerging trends besides AI should business schools be actively researching and incorporating into their long-term strategic planning to future-proof their cohorts’ skills? Barbara Majoor: “What we have seen, due to the polarisation [of opinions], is a loss of dialogue and that’s problematic because dialogue is essential when it comes to solving problems. I think that we should do research on how to stimulate that dialogue, as well as how to encourage people to work together to find solutions. That is the main aim of our research – to avoid polarisation and get a good conversation going between different factions – but we also need to bring it into our education. “We need to look at how we can foster dialogue between different perspectives because each stakeholder has [their own] views on a specific problem. This is especially important given that nowadays we communicate much more online and we have fewer conversations in person; I think we have to do more research [in this area].” Kieran Fernandes: “I feel we need to understand the root causes of these trends. One concept [that business schools need to be more aware of] is the global market: it’s about disruptive innovation, then there’s workforce transformation and climate policy. I think if you look at most of the conversations that are taking place, be it around green innovation, digital technology, or supply chain transformation, you will see that the root causes are one of those things. “Business schools also need to understand what sustainability looks like as a strategy. Then there’s AI – the platforms, the technology and the role of humans in this conversation, how do you develop human-centric platforms for instance? There’s also a huge conversation around distributed growth between local and global and how we can do both. [Our sector has] a major role to
case because numbers are going to be analysed by AI, so how are managers going to be able to see when the numbers don’t make sense or when they are not consistent? I think this is where our role becomes even more important. “Responsible leadership is about making students understand these topics, but also teaching them how to face dilemmas. In many cases, it’s a lot about trade-offs and dilemmas, so at NEOMA we train students to face difficult situations, to analyse what’s at stake and how to make the best decisions [in times of] uncertainty.” José Esteves: “Responsible leadership is not only about ethics, although it’s a very important aspect, it’s about corporate social responsibility and the way leaders interact with society and their own stakeholders. The latest trend [in this regard] involves decision-making; sometimes we spend too much time in class doing the analytics, the process, getting the results and less time on discussing the results. We are changing that: we are encouraging students to use AI to plan scenarios and then they will have time to come to class and have a big, in-person discussion [on the topic]. “Decision-making is a critical aspect; some decisions may not be unethical, but they have an impact – we cannot delegate these choices to machines. In terms of future careers, that is going to be a key trend: decision-making with [the application of] responsible behaviour.” Barbara Majoor: “I think that we have to take decisions that are valuable for the future. These definitely need to be taken by humans, together with AI. The quality of our degrees is so important because as the role of knowledge becomes less, [we need to focus on] the development of our moral compass, to take the right decisions and to navigate the challenges facing our world today. Business schools need to equip their students with the skills required to take up their role in society – that’s what we have to concentrate on.” Kieran Fernandes: “I agree, but I would say that the idea of a moral compass is contextual. For instance, one of the things we are putting a lot of emphasis on at Durham and within the UK education system currently is the concept of decolonising the curriculum. It’s about looking at a problem through a different lens. “I’m involved with innovation management and we’ve taught the same innovation paradigm for as many years as I can remember. But if you look at the subject, there’s a classic book that my colleague wrote about jugaad innovation [a flexible approach to problem-solving that emphasises ‘doing more with less’] that this whole paradigm is about. There are other forms of innovation that are as successful as the paradigms we teach from our perspective. The same rules apply when we talk about ‘moral compass’; we need to be open to that concept, but question what it means in different settings.”
Ambition • ISSUE 6 • 2025 17
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