The Management school of the future is committed to ongoing research as an important contribution to keep the school vibrant, exciting and relevant. The 50+20 stakeholder survey[1] shows that business and management research need to transform into future-oriented search that is designed and conducted with and written for stakeholders.
Research is re-oriented to become an enabler for many long-term societal targets (such as the Millennium Development Goals which set eradication of poverty targets or the climate change 2050 targets). The management school conducts research that is multi-disciplinary, serves all stakeholders concerned with the resolution of an issue, and is designed and conducted in collaboration with these stakeholders.
Research involves a broad stakeholder base beyond managers and entrepreneurs to include societal stakeholders such as politicians and NGOs. The significant problems of our time can only be approached through applied research conducted by multi-disciplinary teams[2]. As an example, developing solutions to climate change requires the whole of community response, new technology, government action and significant behavioral change. The ability to focus on the social and environmental impact of proposed approaches requires researchers with backgrounds across science, social science and health science disciplines. This will be imperative to develop effective solutions to global challenges. Our researchers become active players in business and society, collaborating with relevant stakeholders in the process of formulating and disseminating research questions.
[2] Adams C, A (2010) ‘Sustainability research in need of a multi-disciplinary approach and a practice and policy focus?’ Sustainability Accounting, Management and Policy Journal, 1, 1.
A truly inspiring video worth sharing – Ken Robinson: How to escape education’s death valley. An important message for us all.
Ken Robinson outlines 3 principles crucial for the human mind to flourish — and how current education culture works against them. In a funny, stirring talk he tells us how to get out of the educational “death valley” we now face, and how to nurture our youngest generations with a climate of possibility.
While business remains a key focus of future management education, we must embrace leaders in any other organization as well. Borders between for-profit and not-for-profit organizations are blurring, the emergence of “social entrepreneurship” is a good example of this. Government and non-government organizations are challenged to become a lot more professional in their strategies and operational implementation.
More to the point, enabling managers and leaders to understand and embrace the idea of serving the Common Good requires an inclusive approach to education, involving stakeholders beyond business to allow dialogues that have not yet taken place. Developing such leaders is a high order and requires a fundamental paradigm shift in the goal of management education: from assuring that graduates know about leadership to ensure that they are being leaders. Awakening and developing the human being in the leader and the leader in the human being becomes the central purpose and starting point of management education.
The agreement will see two of the most influential global voices in management education working closely with us going forward. The formal announcement notes that AACSB and EFMD will partner with our GRLI network of forward thinking companies and business schools to focus on an important message: that business and business schools need to work collectively to devote greater attention to developing responsible companies and leaders in the future.
This is exciting news for both our agenda and for us as a global partnership. Over the past nine years we have learnt a great deal about catalysing change in the complex interface between management education, business and society. This move creates a platform on which we can transform success into significance as we work to scale our impact in partnership with EFMD and AACSB International.
Commenting on the agreement, Eric Cornuel, Director General and CEO of EFMD said “The GRLI, which we co-founded with the United Nations Global Compact (UNGC) in 2004, plays an important role already in providing direction, support, and visibility to what business schools are doing to foster responsibility and sustainability. However while there has been some initial success, much more remains to be accomplished. GRLI will become the armed wing of our shared ambitions at EFMD and AACSB to accelerate change.â€
AACSB International President and CEO John Fernandes said: “In recent years, the role of business as a sustainable and socially responsible enterprise has risen consistent with the world’s demand for accountability. Through our accreditations and services, AACSB and EFMD are important stakeholders in addressing society’s objectives of sustainability, social responsibility and ethical leadership. This move increases the intensity of our focus in this area, and will enable both organisations to serve our members more fully as they seek to address the challenges of 21st century management education.â€
To reinforce our intent to make this partnership operate at the highest level, EFMD and AACSB will join GRLI’s current Board of Directors, by each appointing two representatives that will participate in governing decisions. The two organizations will also provide financial support to bolster our capacity to achieve our mission.
Detailed discussions will take place amongst the three organisations over the coming months to turn the agreement into a practical programme. This will include making knowledge and expertise developed by the GRLI accessible to EFMD and AACSB members, as well as participation in GRLI’s pipeline of projects and its various international events.
This is an exciting time for the GRLI and confirms our role as an influential catalyst for deep transformation at the interface between business, management education and society.
50+20 visits the People’s Summit in Flamengo Park during the RIO+20 United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development in Rio de Janeiro to host a collaboratory.
Stakeholder research[1] indicates that organizational leaders and business managers cannot be developed without a solid foundation of work experience. In the prevailing North American educational system, it is typical for high school graduates to launch directly into undergraduate education, which is often directly followed with graduate education. Europe and North America differ in the definition of post graduate education, and in particular in the entry requirements of MBA candidates. While in the U.S. work experience is often optional and desirable only, the traditional two-year North American MBA program provides graduates with a very limited first-hand exposure to business and management combined with a significant theoretical experience of business problems. In Europe, the majority of MBA programs are for executives with significant work experience including management experience. They are able to reflect what they learn in the program with their real-life experience at work. The level of discussion and the learning mechanisms are dramatically different with the teacher being much more of a facilitator than a lecturer and with highly innovative program elements that immerse participants into hands on field work across the world, often in developing countries and often as consulting projects for entrepreneurial ventures.
The importance of field work is grounded in the very well established Germanic apprenticeship model. Switzerland, which is highly appreciated for its highly skilled workforce, is still very much relying on this model with more than 75% of its young generation of today choosing to pursue an apprenticeship rather than entering university for studies.
The future management school integrates work experience through reflected field work into its curriculum. Most importantly it foresees creating an experiential year in the second year of undergraduate education, following the historic German model of the “Wanderjahr” (the year of wandering around that forms an integral part of the traditional trade apprenticeship. Chapter 5 provides a detailed example of how undergraduate business and management education could look like at the management school of the future.
[1] The 50+20 project undertook a stakeholder survey in August 2011 (add reference)
