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A NEW MBA, FOR A NEW GENERATION COUNTRY: Italy SCHOOL: Graduate School of Management, MIP Politecnico di Milano Today’s managers face a range of big challenges that differ to what we’ve seen in the past: Covid-19, climate change, and uncertain international relations, for example, are behind many of them. As the challenges associated with these global problems evolve constantly, it stands to reason that managers must tackle the new iterations of these problems with evolved thinking. With this in mind, the Graduate School of Management, MIP Politecnico di Milano, has redesigned its full-time MBA, which will now be called the ‘New Generation’ MBA. The School – which worked on the redesign with consultancy company Mind at Work – hopes the programme will be more relevant to the current realities and problems experienced by managers. While the course will still teach students all the essential ‘hard’ skills that would be expected of an MBA graduate, the programme will now combine this learning with a more pronounced emphasis on soft skills. In particular, the course will cover meaningfulness, motivation and effectiveness, with the aim of improving students’ ability to engage with people on an emotional level and work with others effectively during high-stress situations. Federico Frattini, Dean of MIP Politecnico di Milano, said: ‘Business Schools have been criticised recently for their inability to contribute to training a new generation of leaders who are able to combine shareholder value with making a positive impact on society. This programme is a response to this criticism and has the potential to pave the way for a new approach to management education that is suited to the challenges that our society is confronted with.’ The MBA relaunch is designed to allow students to gain a deeper understanding of themselves and the people they work with. Participants will be taught the tools needed to understand business’ purpose in society and how to make an impact in a positive and sustainable way. ‘This is genuine personal and professional growth, a personal journey of discovery — not just so that you can make a difference, but so that you can become the difference,’ Frattini added. / EB
GET YOU EATING BUGS? COUNTRY: Norway SCHOOL: BI Norwegian Business School
If you watch I’m a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here! (a reality-TV franchise where celebrities spend weeks living in the jungle and are set challenges), you might be used to seeing famous people eating insects. But does seeing your heroes eating bugs motivate you to do the same? Insects, a proven source of protein, have been held up as a potential solution to food shortages. However, although it is estimated that two billion people already consume insects regularly as part of their diets, it still seems that, for most of the world, there is still a squeamishness factor acting as a ‘deterr–ant’. BI Norway Associate Professor, Carlos Velasco, alongside researchers from the University of Oxford, Miyagi University and Chuo University, wanted to assess whether a celebrity endorsement would make people more likely to eat insects over non-endorsement advertising. The study, carried out for an article entitled Celebrity insects: Exploring the effect of celebrity endorsement on willingness to eat insect-based foods , used 66 fictitious ads for foods with insects in them, featuring 36 different celebrities – including actors, Angelina Jolie and Dwayne Johnson (The Rock) – to see which celebrities motivated consumers to eat insects. The results showed that a celebrity’s perceived trustworthiness, knowledge and relevance to insect-based food were all important factors in increasing people’s willingness to try the insect-based food in question. The research also found that participants’ gender had an impact on the ads’ effectiveness. Adverts with actors or athletes were the most influential for male participants, while women were most influenced by actors. Musicians were found to be the least effective form of celebrity endorsement for insect-based food. The perceived attractiveness of a celebrity was found not to be a factor in whether people were more or less likely to eat the insect-based food. Overall, the study concluded that celebrity endorsement could be a valuable way to encourage people to eat insect-based food, as long as the right type of celebrity was chosen. / Ellen Buchan (EB)
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AMBITION | Be in Brilliant Company
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