Vol.10 Issue 01 – ’16 Archives

It’s the Technology, Stupid!

Business studies could help solve global challenges by tackling specific problems at the technology interface, says Gunther Friedl. In 2001, I heard about curious plans by the Technical University of Munich (TUM). A handful of economists teaching and researching there wanted to establish a business school dedicated to management studies interfacing with technology. Like many…

Benefitting from Balance

Alison Lloyd describes the success of a multidiscipline approach to nurturing entrepreneurial capabilities benefitting from balance. In an increasingly knowledge-driven economy, encouraging entrepreneurship in higher education is regarded as fundamental to fostering innovation and nurturing the life-long learning process. Traditionally, entrepreneurship has been a subject taught by business schools. However, the suitability of placing it…

Responsible Innovation: the Entrepreneurial Imperative

Philippe de Woot argues that we need to transform our creativity into real progress for humankind, and shows how social innovation can open the door for new methods and practices. Innovation and creativity are essential to the dynamism of an economy. Faced with the growth of emerging countries, the competitiveness of developed countries mainly depends…

Success & the City

Ivan Bofarull looks at the role of cities in attracting and developing scarce human talent In a world where connectivity and complexity are the rule, the definition of risk is turning global – a financial downturn or issues concerning health or global terrorism are just a few among a number of examples. One of the…

Equipping Managers to Help the World

Alexandra Santos and Mathabo le Roux explain how a UN initiative is encouraging business schools to prepare students for tackling poverty and other development challenges equipping managers to help the world. The United Nations recently announced sustainable development goals (SDGs) intended to galvanise worldwide action on poverty reduction, food security, human health and education, and…

Economics’ Seven Deadly Sins

Are we teaching students the things they need to know? Not according to Eve Poole. Before he died Sumantra Ghoshal wrote a piece called “Bad Management Theories Are Destroying Good Management Practices”. It was published posthumously in the Journal of the Academy of Management Learning & Education. That was in 2005, post-Enron but pre-Credit Crunch.…

Crossing the New Frontiers

EFMD GN Deans Across Frontiers (EDAF) was launched in 2011 to assist promising business schools to develop further through a mentoring programme. Jaona Ranaivoson and Jean-François Fiorina describe the experience of one such school in Madagascar. Madagascar is one of the poorest and most challenging countries in the world, with high population growth and low…

Making the Case for Cases

Is there an irreconcilable separation between faculty who do research and those who concentrate on teaching? Mark Jenkins argues that world-class academics and thought leaders do both making the case for cases. It is a common perception that in many higher education institutions there are faculty mainly engaged in research and those whose main brief…

Designed to Connect

Michael Page and Roy Wiggins describe an innovative MBA programme aimed at answering the criticisms that have been made of the degree. In their book Rethinking the MBA: Business Education at a Crossroads the authors argue that the MBA required to develop the leaders and entrepreneurs our societies need, involves a far stronger focus on…

Tradition & Transformation

Nehme Azoury explains how an historic Lebanese university has opted for a modern impact programme for its business school. In 1736, at a time when the idea of a young woman pursuing her studies was inconceivable, a Lebanese Christian community known as Maronites declared the adoption of a policy of free and compulsory education for…

The Six Principles

Business schools and business itself are both facing a challenging future. But, suggests Dil Sidhu, there is much that business schools can learn from the business world in how to respond. While business schools provide output for the business sector both in terms of graduates and research-based insights, much of the interactions between them is…

Growing the impact of management education and scholarship

Management is not only taught in business schools. For more than 100 years it has also been taught by a special type of university that is ‘more than a business school’. An international group of university leaders trace the emergence, role and future contributions of ‘universities for business and management’.

Keeping the Connection

Get the student experience right and you will probably have engaged alumni. Fail to do so and they may be lost for ever say Andrew Crisp and Sarah Seedsman. The fourth Alumni Matters study run by CarringtonCrisp and supported by EFMD surveyed more than 6,000 alumni worldwide. The study found that dissatisfaction with the student…

Building World-class Universities in India: Institution Building for Nation Building

India has all the potential to create world-class universities, says C Raj Kumar, Founding Vice Chancellor of OP Jindal Global University (JGU). But it still has many obstacles to overcome. The debate on the state of affairs of higher education in India ought to be a serious one. It cannot be based upon our reluctance…