Z General - Business Schools Archives – Page 22 of 32

April 24, 2020February 21, 2023

The business master’s degree: global application and enrolment outlook

Trends in application and enrolment figures for MBM programmes around the world as well as insight into the role of technology and India’s high demand. Will Dawes and Tim Banerjee Dhoul report

The biggest enrolment and cohort numbers for master’s in business management programmes (commonly known as MBMs, or MiMs) were found among Business Schools in Europe (excluding the UK) and India, according to data compiled for AMBA & BGA’s Application and Enrolment Report 2019. The data, which relates to the calendar year of 2018, also shows that India was a clear leader for application volume and competition for places when it comes to MBM programmes.

Applications to MBM programmes

India generated by far the largest number of applications for its MBM programmes (889,730) among the 55 AMBA-accredited Business Schools included in this new analysis for Business Impact. Together, these Schools offered a total of 174 MBM programmes in 2018.

In India, the overall application volume equated to 98,859 applications per Business School and 42,368 applications per programme, and represented 83% of all applications to MBMs measured worldwide. The next highest proportion of applications was in Europe (excluding the UK). Applications to the region totalled 14% of the global figure, with findings equating to 7,419 applications per School and 2,248 applications per programme. The remaining MBM programmes made up just 3% of the overall application total.

MBM enrolment in 2018

The majority of the 25,020 enrolments onto AMBA-accredited MBM programmes were in Europe (excluding the UK). There were 16,519 enrolments in the region, equating to 66% of the global total. India enrolled the second-highest number of students (3,945, or 16% of the global share). Meanwhile, Schools in the UK enrolled 2,759 students (11% of the global market of AMBA-accredited MBM programmes). There were much smaller shares of MBM enrolments in Latin America (4%), China (including Hong Kong, China) (1%) and Africa (1%). The regions of North America and the Caribbean, and Oceania, each comprised less than 1% of the global share of MBM enrolments (124 and 225, respectively).

Programmes in Europe (excluding the UK) and India had the largest average cohort sizes (250 and 188 enrolees, respectively). Other regions had substantially smaller average programme sizes, the largest of which were in Oceania (75) and the UK (67). In descending order, the remaining regional average enrolees per programme were Latin America (50), Africa (43), China (including Hong Kong, China) (32) and North America and the Caribbean (12).

MBM programme delivery

MBM programmes offered by AMBA-accredited Schools in 2018 were typically delivered in a physical classroom setting (89% of all programmes), while 10% were conducted in a blended format and 1% were offered fully online. It should be noted that not all Schools in our sample provided data on the format of study, meaning that these statistics should be treated with a degree of caution. Nevertheless, the findings offer an indication that blended MBM programmes were more common among those on offer in North America and the Caribbean (70%) and in Europe (excluding the UK) (15%). In the remaining regions, all programmes were delivered exclusively in the classroom, other than in the UK, in which the equivalent figure was 98%.

Gender diversity on MBM programmes

Overall, almost two fifths of applicants to MBM programmes in AMBA & BGA’s sample were women (37%), while more than three fifths were men (63%). Although there is some variation throughout the world, the global proportion of women who applied to an MBM programme was substantially skewed by the large number of Indian applicants overall. Women applying to programmes in India made up a third (34%) of all applicants in the country and had a large impact on the overall proportion of female applicants worldwide. Indeed, when India is excluded from the global figure, the average proportions of male and female applicants were equal (50% each).

Looking at individual regions, India’s proportion of female applicants was the world’s lowest, and only Latin America (38%), Africa (47%) and Europe (excluding the UK) (49%) had a minority of female applicants for MBM programmes among AMBA-accredited Schools in 2018. There were more female than male applicants in the UK (53% of applicants were women), North America and the Caribbean (64%), China (including Hong Kong, China) (67%) and Oceania (69%).

Globally, there was a slightly more equal split when looking at the gender balance of those who enrolled on MBM programmes in 2018 – 54% of those enrolling worldwide were men, and 46% were women. The proportion of women enrolling increases slightly, to 48%, when India is excluded from the global analysis. MBM programmes in India were again below the global average, with women making up 31% of those enrolling. In some other regions, female enrolees were in the majority. This included North America and the Caribbean (55%), Africa (58%) and China (including Hong Kong, China) (66%).

International and domestic
applications and enrolments

Applications from individuals based in the country in which an MBM programme was offered made up 95% of global MBM applications. However, this figure falls to 70% when excluding results from programmes in India, to which all applications came from domestic candidates. In addition to India, regions with large proportions of domestic applicants included Latin America (94%), North America and the Caribbean (88%), China (including Hong Kong, China) (88%), Europe (excluding the UK) (81%) and Africa (62%). In contrast, applications from overseas comprised the great majority in the UK (97%) and Oceania (86%).

Seven in 10 (71%) enrolments were domestically based, a figure which drops to 67% when excluding India, in which all enrolments were from within the country. The balance between domestic and international enrolments followed a similar pattern to applications, albeit with some
small variances. China (including Hong Kong, China) and Africa had higher domestic enrolments than applications (88% and 62% of enrolments, respectively, were domestic). Meanwhile, Oceania and Europe (excluding the UK) had a slightly higher proportion of international enrolments than applications (91% and 25%, respectively).

A UK Business School leader who wished to remain anonymous commented that the influence of students from China is a significant factor in the overall demand for MBMs, and most notably in terms of the demand among international students. ‘There is certainly increased demand from China, which is probably due to the number of individuals wanting to get an overseas qualification.’

Survey sample and background to MBM analysis

AMBA & BGA’s recently released Application and Enrolment Report 2019 outlines the current status of the AMBA-accredited MBA market. The report describes the growth in both MBA applications and enrolments at AMBA-accredited Business Schools, much of which was driven by increased demand in China (including Hong Kong, China). The study highlighted that, despite the geopolitical and economic pressures in the global economy, AMBA-accredited Business Schools are performing strongly.

As part of the data compiled for the report, 55 AMBA-accredited Business Schools also provided data on a range of master’s in business management programmes (commonly known as MBMs, or MiMs). These generalist, post-graduate, and predominantly pre-experience, degrees are most often designed to provide a thorough grounding in the theoretical fundamentals of management, accompanied by substantial practical input. As such, it typically provides a foundation for individuals starting a career in management and has been identified as a particular area of interest for members of the Business Graduates Association (BGA), which aims to ensure graduates of all levels of business education commence their careers with a firm understanding and appreciation of the principles of responsible management, positive impact and lifelong learning.

MBM programmes analysed in this report were delivered at Schools in the following locations: Europe (excluding the UK) (36%); the UK (25%); India (16%); China (including Hong Kong, China) (7%); North America and the Caribbean (5%); Latin America (4%); Oceania (4%); and Africa (2%). This is the first year in which AMBA & BGA has conducted a separate analysis of MBM programmes offered by AMBA-accredited Business Schools responding to its annual Application and Enrolment Report. In the future, we would like to track trends in this dataset over time and, where possible, incorporate the admissions experiences of BGA Schools.

To learn more about AMBA & BGA’s research projects and to access recent reports, including the Application and Enrolment Report 2019, please visit: www.businessgraduatesassociation.com/about-us/research

April 17, 2020July 21, 2021

Understanding the drivers and challenges of sustainable business

Sustainability in business has become a vital selling point, but companies remain value-maximising entities, writes Audencia Business School’s Iordanis Kalaitzoglou

In response to spiralling scientific evidence for climate change, increasing numbers of countries are introducing environmental legislation. Global political will in this area appears higher than ever, as evidenced by the 2015 UN Climate Change Conference (COP21), 2016’s Article 173 of the French Energy Transition Law, and the European Commission’s action plan on sustainable finance. There has also been 2019’s election of Ursula von der Leyen, who put environmental action high on her agenda as President of the European Commission and successor to Jean-Claude Juncker.

However, empirical evidence suggests that much environmental legislation is either overly ambitious or inadequate, meaning that the vast majority of countries do not meet their environmental targets. The usual explanation for this is that environmental action is not cost effective. Yet this is inconsistent with the fact that, over the long term, energy generation from renewable sources will become stable and economically viable. For example, around 75% of coal production in the US is now more costly in generating energy than solar panels and wind turbines, according to a study for Energy Innovation, a San Francisco-based firm that analyses clean energy and climate policies.

Wish lists rather than concrete plans

Unfortunately, the political will to disengage from fossil fuels does not seem to be strong in the US, while other countries, such as Brazil and Turkey, prioritise economic objectives over environmental goals.

This leaves global energy summits seeming more like an exercise in creating wish lists than opportunities to formulate concrete action plans. In fact, evidence shows that very few countries address their environmental impact adequately, with the result that global greenhouse gas emissions are reaching ever-increasing heights. Several reports stress that we are the last generation that can act on preventing climate change. They also suggest that unless significant action is taken now, the ensuing crisis will lead to worldwide social, political and financial turmoil on a level not seen since the Second World War. Even so, the setting of high targets while carrying on with ‘business as usual’ seems to be rooted in some strong macroeconomic trends.

Environmental corporate incentives

The warning signs are already here. July 2019 was the hottest month ever recorded on Earth. Even if we put this fact aside and look at the issue from a simple business standpoint, the growing sense of urgency around climate change is creating a strong demand for more ethical entrepreneurship and for products that address environmental concerns. In other words, sustainability has become a selling point as well as being necessary for human survival. Companies therefore have a strong incentive to show that they are in line with their stakeholders’ environmental concerns.

A significant number of companies are beginning to cater more overtly to the ever-increasing demands of their stakeholders, to present a greener profile to their customers and suppliers, and to society in general. This shift in public demand means environmentally friendly activities have become commercially valuable. An environmentally friendly social profile has become so popular that there are now agencies that evaluate firms’ environmental performance and financial entities that focus exclusively on green firms.

But if environmental friendliness is so high on so many companies’ agendas, why are so many companies, and countries as a whole, still not aligned with officially recommended environmental targets? Are these companies’ actions simply inefficient, or are there other factors holding things back?

Most likely, it is both.

Financial corporate incentives

Companies are value-maximising entities. The primary objective of management is to increase the wealth of shareholders because they are hired by, and answerable, to them. Over the past few decades, it has become generally understood that value maximisation is an holistic approach that doesn’t just include financial objectives, but encompasses anything that can affect the profile of a company. In that spirit, companies are inclined to offer what their stakeholders request in the best possible way. If an environmental profile is in demand, it is advantageous for a company to adopt it.

Yet, sacrificing consumption power in favour of the environment does not resonate unconditionally with consumers. As the ‘gilets jaunes’ protests in France, or US coal and oil protectionism measures designed to save jobs, have shown, this tends to influence government actions.

A sharp shift towards a zero-carbon economy would require a drastic shift in consumption habits. For example, energy generation from renewable sources, although abundant at times, is not stable and might result in periods of low energy generation. This might require electricity consumption (industrial and retail) to be adjusted, but current demand for electricity is completely inflexible at a global level.

Similarly, green products might require higher production costs, which would make them more expensive. Energy-intensive industries and price-sensitive consumers are then more likely to prioritise financial needs over environmental ones.

Companies therefore often face a trade-off between being environmentally friendly and price competitive. These two things are not necessarily aligned, so companies choose to optimise, rather than specialise. The criterion they optimise is their value-maximisation objective. This is somewhat sensible from an economic point of view, since it is more realistic to adopt new measures gradually, rather than to induce a shock. It is also the spirit of EU policies, in which promoted incentives focus on becoming smarter rather than better. This equates to a period of transition, during which individual firms and national economies are expected to move gradually towards a zero-carbon state.

Companies’ incremental adjustments are looking to find the right balance between environmental friendliness and value maximisation. This is why their current actions might seem inefficient: the macroeconomic trends driving these actions do not yet support a full environmental engagement.

Window dressing vs. lobbying

The economics of energy transition create both financial and environmental incentives, so different firms should be expected to pursue different strategies, according to their energy profiles.

For example, it would be much more difficult for an energy-intensive firm, or a fossil fuel company, to change its business model drastically in order to be more environmentally friendly, because this would involve significant investment and cost.

However, since a company’s profile is often improved if it makes this change, or at least gives the impression that it is doing so, businesses might take less conventional actions to preserve or increase their value in this way. There are two types of corporate activity that are observed frequently in this arena: ‘window dressing’ and lobbying.

The private sector is well known for trying to bend political will towards its financial incentives by lobbying decision makers. But, when it comes to environmentally sensitive issues, these actions are often met with firm public opposition. The consumer base, especially in mature economies, is becoming more environmentally sensitive and lobbying activities that are perceived to have a negative environmental impact can also have a negative impact on the companies involved.

Companies have been very active in trying to improve their public profile with respect to their environmental impact, but most continue to lobby at the same rate.

In some cases, as in the examples of the big five fossil fuel companies (BP, Shell, ExxonMobil, Chevron and Total), PR campaigns are designed to show that attempts to reduce environmental impact are being made, while spending continues out of the public eye on current – and not so environmentally friendly – activities and/or lobbying.

Again, a drastic shift in stakeholders’ consumer behaviour would help reduce the impact of lobbying, either by supplying a financial objective for these firms, or through changes to the political agenda and reforms to the relevant legislation.

Is it all that bad?

Greater environmental awareness and a demand for more sustainable products create the foundations for a potential shift in corporate actions.

Although the demand for environmental friendliness among stakeholders may be best described as ‘lukewarm’, with an electoral base that leads governments to pursue a very slow shift of resources and priorities towards environmental policies, there is significant progress that partially mitigates the impact of the rigid demand for energy.

The most encouraging progress has perhaps come with the realisation, among stakeholders, that to promote more environmentally responsible policies, they must mobilise the aggregated demand towards more responsible consumption. This can be done by quantifying their arguments so that people can understand and compare the relative costs – while also making use of social media platforms to nudge people to amend their spending habits.

Shifts in aggregated demand would force companies to innovate and offer
more environmentally friendly products, with the support of governments. While current levels of change are insufficient, there have been notable developments. In the finance industry, for example, terms such as ‘climate change risk’, ‘social cost of carbon’, and ‘carbon price’ have entered the vocabulary, and green financial products have emerged. As little as 10 years ago, this would have sounded far-fetched.

The public and private sectors both serve a social purpose and are supposed to meet the needs of their stakeholders in the best possible way. Consequently, if the social groups they serve amend their attitudes at an aggregated level, it is in the best interests of both the public and private sectors to follow. In other words, if everyone played the same game, everyone would win. However, considering the demographic composition of the electoral basis, this should not be expected to happen any time soon.

Iordanis Kalaitzoglou is a Finance Professor at Audencia Business School, France.

April 3, 2020July 12, 2022

Leveraging Latin America’s uniqueness

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March 27, 2020July 21, 2021

Designing a tech MBA

In an age of technology, many students are seeking a specialised MBA for the tech sector or tech-centric companies, argues IE Business School’s José Esteves

Technology has emerged as one of the most relevant economic sectors in recent years, with technological innovation driving growth and labour productivity across all areas of the economy. The adoption of emerging information technologies is influencing employment and remuneration, requiring fresh skills, creating new jobs, and not only changing the nature of tasks in which workers are engaged but also the workplace environment.

At IE Business School, we believe the best way to meet these challenges is by designing a specialised MBA for the tech sector and/or for tech-centric organisations.

Why a tech MBA?

We identified four key business realities that a tech MBA can address: the rise of technology ecosystems; digital transformation; constantly evolving technology; and technology shortfalls.

1 Technology’s contribution to economic growth and labour productivity

In a 2017 report, Huawei and Oxford Economics estimated that ‘the digital economy is worth $11.5 trillion USD globally, equivalent to 15.5% of global GDP and has grown two and a half times faster than global GDP over the past 15 years’. An analysis of the top US companies by market capitalisation shows that tech companies are the highest valued, among them Microsoft, Apple, Amazon and Google. In the past two years, some of these companies have reached capitalisation of $1 trillion USD.

2 Digital transformation

The vast majority of companies are engaging in transformation initiatives as part of a rethink of their global strategies, business models, and organisational approaches.

3 Evolution of technology

While the accelerated adoption of technologies, such as cloud computing, robotic automation, AI, machine learning, the internet of things (IoT), and 5G technologies is promising for the tech industry, it also demands continuous updating of skills and knowledge.

New jobs will undoubtedly be created in this scenario, and the demand for data sciences, coding, digital ecosystems, and e-commerce will continue to grow.

However, it will be difficult for workers to develop the skills needed in these areas. The mismatch between the skills required and workers’ capabilities will necessitate the expansion of retraining programmes.

4 The global tech talent shortage

Technology is creating more jobs than any other, but by 2030, it is estimated that the technology, media and telecommunications sectors will have a shortfall of 4.3 million workers worldwide, according to a 2018 report by Korn Ferry.

Shortages in these industries are expected to cost $449.7 billion USD in unrealised revenue, while fintech and BFIS (banking, finance, insurance, and security) will have a shortfall of 10.7 million workers by 2030, resulting in $1.3 trillion USD in lost revenue.

The situation when focusing in on specific countries and regions is similar: the European Commission, for example, has forecasted that 100,000 data-related jobs will be created across Europe by 2020. Since 2010, the number of tech-related jobs in the US has increased by approximately 200,000 every year, and the US economy is increasingly reliant on tech labour for its survival. Based on data from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics on projected employment in the year 2026, service-providing industries are expected to account for the majority of 11.5 million newly created jobs.

Diving deeper into technology

IE Business School decided to create a tech MBA after listening to recruiters and students. Students are increasingly interested in working in the tech sector, or for tech-centric companies, or in tech-demand roles. In response, two years ago, as part of the International MBA programme, we launched the TechLab.

However, we noticed that some of our students were looking for more. They wanted to dive deeper into technology – not only learning about the latest trends, but also being able to understand and leverage these emerging technologies and tech ecosystems fully. At the same time, our corporate partners were increasingly looking for graduates with a clear understanding of technology and business analytics as well as business acumen.

The ingredients of a tech MBA

IE Business School’s Tech MBA is a tech-centred programme that blends three modules – ‘business mastery’, ‘technology immersion’, and ‘transformational leadership’. Each of the three modules is outlined in more
detail below:

1 Business mastery

At the heart of any MBA programme, whether general or specialised, lies a curriculum in business management, strategy, and economics.

In the case of our specialised Tech MBA, this part of the curriculum is designed to ensure students are equipped with the knowledge and lasting growth strategies that every tech-centric business needs to succeed in the current landscape. From the very beginning it applies case studies and examples taken from the tech context.

2 Technology immersion

This module provides a deep understanding of the tech ecosystem, exploring the processes and challenges that underpin technological innovation, and endowing students with the skills needed to manage within firms that are focused on the areas of tech and innovation.

3 Transformational leadership

The leadership module prepares students to be leaders who can design, drive and manage change by expanding their mindsets, skills and tools in a volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous (VUCA) world of work.

This is the glue that holds the programme together and differentiates our students. It is the vital element that will equip them to lead the future.

We cover core courses in all three modules, which are fully integrated. The programme runs for one year, across four periods, and the first two periods include tech-related industry forums which take an experiential learning approach and provide a practical perspective with workshops on fintech, insure-tech, edutech and so on, all featuring leading experts.

The tech MBA learning journey

The learning journey ensures that students acquire technology, management and transformational leadership competencies, using an integrative approach made up of three phases: ‘exploration’, ‘action’, and ‘immersion’.

During the ‘exploration’ phase, students discover tech and business through specialised courses. In the ‘action’ phase, they undertake a specific technology experiential learning approach, and in the ‘immersion’ phase, they choose from electives to sharpen their business and tech knowledge.

During the programme’s core modules, the focus is 55% on tech and 45% on business. However, electives mean students can customise their tech MBA to their specific needs. If all the electives chosen by a student are tech-related, the percentage of tech courses covered by the end of the MBA would be more than 75% of the total studied.

‘Tech career treks’ take place regularly throughout all four periods. Students spend two to three hours visiting a global tech company with the objective of learning about its company culture and priorities, and also learn more about career opportunities where applicable. Treks typically happen within Madrid or Barcelona.

The School’s Tech MBA will be run separately from its International MBA. We will also create a specific portfolio of electives for the Tech MBA. However, we will allow the students of both MBA programmes to share the portfolio of electives. Plus, students will be able to network across the two programmes during extracurricular activities and events (for example, the School’s TechIE annual conference or IE Global Innovation Challenge).

The classroom experience

Students who feel they would benefit from one-to-one time with professors, or who prefer working in groups, should consider on-campus MBAs as these allow for greater face-to-face interaction with classmates and instructors, not just academically, but also socially.

The social events that materialise from being on campus also provide valuable, yet unofficial, networking opportunities. Students should never underestimate the opportunities that a coffee break can generate, and will want to take advantage of facilities and resources on campus, including extracurricular activities, lectures, libraries, and athletic facilities.

In addition, attending a full-time MBA provides easy access to advice, career counselling, and other on-campus student services and activities, all of which help students build a robust professional network.

José Esteves is Associate Dean for the International MBA and Tech MBA programmes at IE Business School, Spain.

March 25, 2020July 21, 2021

How to manage an organisation’s response to COVID-19

Anton Korinek offers advice to organisations and Business Schools on responding to the emerging international situation resulting from Coronavirus or COVID-19

Organisations around the world are working through how to respond to the novel coronavirus, posing one of the greatest challenges to leaders in a long time. Do they restrict travel? Doing so would have substantial financial implication, make months of preparation worthless and lower the morale of many stakeholders who enjoy travel. However, travel is what brought the coronavirus to the country in the first place — and what continues to spread it to new communities within the country.

What about instituting remote work procedures? In-person meetings and events may be a critical part of an organisation’s activities and an important part of the value it offers. Perhaps there are no known cases of the virus in a given community. However, once it does gain a foothold, social distancing is the only way to slow the spread. Carriers of the virus may unwittingly spread it for days before symptoms manifest themselves.

Above all, one of the greatest challenges is to balance an organisation’s economic concerns with the question of what is ethically the best course of action.

How we got there

The novel coronavirus was first identified in Wuhan, China, in December 2019. It jumped from bats via an intermediate host (most likely pangolins) that was traded in live animal markets to humans. The virus has officially been named SARS-CoV-2, and the disease that it causes has been named “coronavirus disease 2019” (abbreviated COVID-19). It spreads among humans via respiratory droplets from coughing as well as by touching infected surfaces. In an uncontrolled outbreak, the disease burden grows exponentially, with cases doubling approximately every six days. The incubation period, i.e. the time between when one is exposed to the virus and when one develops symptoms of disease, is from two to 14 days, with an average of five days.

Those infected usually present with a fever, a dry cough and general fatigue, frequently involving a mild form of pneumonia. About 15–20% of cases develop more severe pneumonia that requires hospitalisation, intensive care, and in many cases, mechanical ventilation. The latest World Health Organisation estimate of the fatality rate is 3.4%.

Why should organisations take action?

Some may argue that it’s up to individuals how much risk they’re willing to take. But becoming infected affects not only yourself but also endangers others, as infected individuals can spread the disease and expose their community to the substantial risks involved, up to and including premature death. There is thus a crucial ethical component to the public health precautions that individuals and organisations take. Economists call this public health aspect of infectious diseases an externality – in other words an effect on others that an individual or organisation that only cares about their own well-being is tempted to ignore. (A typical example of another type of externality is pollution – when an individual pollutes, society as a whole suffers.)

When an individual spreads the disease it does not impose any cost on them, but costs the newly infected dearly. In fact, the externalities of infectious diseases come in two forms: healthy people not taking sufficient precaution to avoid becoming infected (because they do not internalise the risks this will create for others) and exposed people not taking sufficient precaution to avoid spreading the disease.

Others may challenge the idea of whether to try to contain the virus at all. The disease seems unstoppable — it has spread around the world in a matter of weeks. Why go to such extreme lengths and incur enormous economic costs to try to prevent the unpreventable? Aren’t we all just caught up in a bad case of mass hysteria that is even more infectious — and pernicious — than the coronavirus itself? However, that argument neglects all the lives at risk and the extent to which an uncontrolled outbreak risks overwhelming medical resources and exacerbating the ultimate death toll.

Disproportionate impact

What adds to the challenge on how to respond is the highly disproportionate impact of the disease on different people. The elderly and those with pre-existing conditions are at much greater risk of death from COVID-19 than others. For example, taking into account all the risk factors, a male in his 70s with a heart condition who contracts the virus has a risk of death that is significantly higher – perhaps in excess of 25%. (Useful information on mortality rate by demographics can be found on world statistics site Worldometer.)

Lessons from China and Italy

The experience of regions that have dealt with large outbreaks of COVID-19 in recent weeks, chiefly Wuhan and northern Italy, suggest two lessons.

First, there is no place for fatalism in epidemiology. The fraction of the population that is ultimately infected by an epidemic is actually quite responsive to mitigation efforts. Wuhan has been able to get the virus under control by imposing tight quarantine measures on its citizens. Italy followed suit recently, with the outcome yet to be determined.
Second, due to the exponential nature of the spread, an uncontrolled outbreak risks overwhelming a country’s health care infrastructure. About 15–20% of identified cases require hospital care. Even in the US, an uncontrolled outbreak would quickly exhaust the capacity of existing ICUs. If this were to happen, the fatality rate of the virus would be bound to rise significantly because sick patients could no longer be adequately treated. This suggests that it is critical to try to slow down the spread to keep the number of patients at any given time more manageable.

What we should be asking and answering

Organisations need to determine how to answer the following questions:

What restrictions do you impose on your organisation’s inward and outward travel and why?
At what point will you restrict in-person meetings and events at your organisation?
Should you prepare your stakeholders for these potential changes now?
What can you do to make the members of your organisation aware of the externalities that they impose on others, both if they are still healthy and in case they have become exposed to the disease?

The epidemiological realities of the disease have stark implications for organisations. Decisions made now will determine the way that stakeholders will work, travel and interact with each other in coming weeks and months, and it will determine the economic losses companies will experience. And as much as the virus will affect organisations, those organisations’ reaction to it will have a crucial effect on how fast and how widely COVID-19 will spread in their communities, and how many lives will be lost to the disease. This adds a crucial ethical component to the trade-off. Balancing the economic fall-out with this ethical dimension is the most significant leadership challenge of our time.

Anton Korinek is Associate Professor of Business Administration, Darden Business School

March 20, 2020July 12, 2022

Globalising the value proposition of Business Schools in Latin America

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March 5, 2020May 22, 2023

Preparing tomorrow’s leadership for climate change

Schools must help tomorrow’s leaders take decisions together, with those from several areas of expertise, while understanding how these decisions will affect different groups in different ways across the world, say the University of Gothenburg’s Thomas Sterner and Åsa Löfgren.

Global changes are so significant that geoscientists speak of Earth entering a new geological era, the ‘Anthropocene’, during which many crucial variables for the planet are controlled by man, and our activities and consumption patterns risk exceeding the planetary boundaries. This leads to a changed climate, acidification of the oceans, loss of biodiversity and many other global environmental problems. These problems are global, long term and uncertain. They are also interconnected and must be analysed together in order to find solutions that provide synergies and avoid those that solve one problem but worsen others.

For example, it is not sustainable to aggravate problems related to a loss of biodiversity, or vital water/nutrient cycles, when you are trying to solve the climate problem through a poorly conceived forest policy.

Biologists, physicists and other natural scientists document and analyse many of the changes mentioned above, and are usually the ones who write about planetary boundaries and the Anthropocene. Social scientists, meanwhile, are experts on how society and the economy work. Both of these areas of expertise are indispensable when analysing social causes and proposing solutions that are effective and politically feasible. Therefore, collaboration between economists, social scientists and natural scientists is urgently needed to discuss solutions.

An interdisciplinary approach

Business schools have the important task of preparing students to become tomorrow’s leaders in business and other organisations. It is vital that these aspiring leaders are given tools to understand our current and future predicament since it will be decisive for future success and, indeed, survival. One of the prerequisites for a sound future education is an interdisciplinary approach to problems where this is necessary. When it comes to sustainability, we need expertise that understands both natural and social sciences.

When training tomorrow’s leaders, standards must be high in all areas. We need interdisciplinary understanding of environmental challenges and opportunities, high ethical standards, and a capability to
work with leaders from other countries, cultures and disciplines.

The School of Business, Economics and Law at the University of Gothenburg (the School) has taken on this challenge in several ways. Most importantly, it is a strategic mission of the school to integrate sustainability into all education: ‘To develop knowledge, educate and foster independent thinking for the advancement of organisations, policy and a sustainable world’.

Over the the past decade, the school has turned its mission into practice by integrating sustainability-related learning outcomes for all undergraduate programmes and strengthening the progression of sustainability concepts between courses. This allows programme coordinators and lecturers to develop curricula in the knowledge that these learning goals must be met.

Sustainability days

Another important activity is the school’s compulsory sustainability days. The concept was introduced in 2013 and was implemented fully in all undergraduate programmes in 2016. It consists of three full days of focus on sustainability from various perspectives. The overall aim is to complement the sustainability content of courses by raising awareness and providing knowledge around three themes: challenges, responsibility, and solutions. During this time, students from different programmes meet and learn to work with, and respect, those from a variety of backgrounds.

At an international level, and in collaboration with Gothenburg’s Chalmers University of Technology, there is the school’s Environment for Development unit. With support from the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency, the Environment for Development has trained PhDs from emerging markets in environmental economics for decades and helped build centres in more than 12 countries in the
Global South.

In the future, the unit’s plan is to co-teach master’s courses with students in several countries simultaneously. In a pilot course run at Chalmers this year, students in Asia, Africa and the US solved problems related to fairness in climate negotiations simultaneously. In a second step, students held discussions with real climate negotiators to develop their negotiating and leadership skills. A capability to work with leaders from other countries,
and understand the positions of other groups or countries, is key to addressing global environmental problems such as
climate change.

More specifically, while it is important to find effective solutions, it is also important to educate students about the income distributional effects of policy measures and their perceived fairness. These effects are vital determinants of political feasibility and aspects that must be considered carefully when policy instruments are selected and designed. The task is complex since policies need not only be feasible in Europe or the US, but globally.

There are ways that global environmental problems can be addressed. But the solution relies on there being leaders who are responsible, knowledgeable and understand the importance of, and are open to, collaboration with those who possess skills from other disciplines. business schools have a responsibility and an important role to play in the education of such leaders.

Thomas Sterner is Professor of Environmental Economics and Åsa Löfgren is an Associate Professor in the Department of Economics, part of the School of Business, Economics and Law at the University of Gothenburg.

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February 20, 2020July 21, 2021

Future-proofing the MBA

From immersive experiences in Māori business culture to plans for performance metrics to ensure community impact, hopes are high for the revamped MBA at the University of Canterbury (UC) Business School in Christchurch, New Zealand – the South Island’s largest city. AMBA & BGA’s Tim Banerjee Dhoul caught up with MBA Director and Associate Professor, Chris Vas, to learn more.

Can you tell us a bit about UC’s current MBA programme?

The UC MBA programme has served the Canterbury, New Zealand and global business communities since 1983. Today, a typical MBA student at UC is 35 years old with more than 10 years of professional experience, studying part time. The cohort is well balanced when it comes to gender diversity, but more can be done to improve the programme’s 15% international footprint.

What are the principal motivations behind the School’s plans to launch a revamped MBA in 2020?

One of the principal motivations was AMBA’s reaccreditation panel visit in 2017. The School also recognised the changing needs of business in the region, particularly in relation to the impact of ‘digital’ on organisations and leadership practices over the next decade; the need to drive intrapreneurship and entrepreneurship; connectivity across geographies and, most importantly, instilling a sense of purpose and impact – beyond economic drivers – in organisations, and in those who lead them.

Which single feature of the revamped MBA are you most excited about?

To be honest, the radical changes that we are putting in place across the programme are exciting as a whole. The MBA will be delivered in the same way that a story unfolds: as a narrative and an experience. The programme will commence with a focus on purpose and impact, while honing in on attributes that support innovative thinking. A focus on agile and innovative leadership, meanwhile, will be woven across the entire programme so that leadership is not just a course or subject delivered at a single point in time.

Having said that, let me give you a glimpse into one aspect of what we’re all excited about. At the start of the programme, MBA participants will be immersed in experiences with New Zealand’s indigenous people – the Māori community – where the importance of ‘place-based knowledge’ intertwined with Māori business culture will be experienced. As the wider University of Canterbury strategy outlines, this experience is important for our students to ensure they ‘are aware of their own identity and its influence in engaging with any other person or community’.

Its incorporation is one way in which our MBA participants in New Zealand can learn to value difference by recognising place-based knowledge. In today’s world, in which we see the rise of protectionist attitudes to trade, migration and citizenship, it is vital that we place importance on issues of identity, especially as these can help bind communities together.

Beyond this initial immersion, the programme will incorporate learning experiences in Māori economies, to understand the aspirations of Māori communities better and emphasise the Māori proverb that people are the most important thing in the world (‘he tāngata, he tāngata, he tāngata’). Such focus also ties into the programme’s commitment to the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 11 around the building of sustainable communities and cities.

This commitment is backed up by a new course on ‘societies in smart cities’, which will analyse how organisations strategise and connect their purpose to deliver impact in societies through the lens of smart cities.

MBA participants will be assessed in these courses through their responses to real-life challenges or mini purpose-driven projects that are tied to organisations. In this instance, we are looking to integrate with Christchurch City’s agenda and Ngāi Tahu, a principal iwi [the largest social unit in Māori society which can be translated as ‘nation’] of New Zealand’s southern region, to reimagine growth through sustainable and smart-city initiatives that will create a positive impact on the local community.

Can the new programme help its students pursue purpose-driven and impactful careers?

As a central engine of research, development and innovation in Christchurch, we believe it is imperative to sync with the city’s growth plans and drive a consistent effort in that direction. Consequently, we see the importance of driving entrepreneurial activities in the areas of food, health, tech services and transport. Social entrepreneurship is equally important, and the programme will support MBA participants who are looking to tackle issues of mental health, waste management, education and beyond.

In consultation with the city and members of our advisory board, we will look to set up performance metrics for the MBA programme to ensure our participation as a Business School is active and has an impact. So, hypothetically speaking, during the next three to five years, I would like to see 25% of our MBA cohort start new, scalable ventures in the US, Europe or Australasia.

To this end, the MBA programme will work in tandem with the university’s Centre for Entrepreneurship (UCE) which offers access
to a network of industry advisors and mentors. Given the dominance of working professionals in our programme already, I would also like to see 30-40% of the cohort drive transformative change within their organisations, especially around digital transformation, business model changes, products or services.

It’s no longer acceptable for us as a faculty and industry practitioner team to simply ‘talk the talk’, so we’re setting ourselves a challenge of enabling purpose and driving meaningful impact. For instance, thanks to one of our student projects, we are now in discussions with a major health service provider to operationalise sustainable work practices in the organisation. We will aim to have many such impact stories in the years to come. It’s an interesting experience in which student activity has catalysed opportunity for faculty.

How will the MBA help students identify solutions to emerging technological issues?

As part of the MBA review and redesign process, we recognised that our MBA was likely to be redundant in about five to seven years.

A key reason for this is the pace of technological developments, the impact it has on organisations in terms of strategy, leadership, customer experiences and the whole gamut.

This being the case, in the revamped MBA programme, we’ve chosen to emphasise aspects around digital transformation, technology preparedness and data-driven strategies. Given their profile (mid- to senior-level managers) our students need to be aware and engaged with technological developments rather than become experts in them. They need adequate levels of preparation and knowledge so that they can ask the right questions, understand the limitations of technology, and at the same time be proficient enough to lead teams to deliver on outcomes.

Consequently, courses will have a focus on emerging technologies, such as the internet of things (IoT), big data, AI and blockchain. A deep dive will be in the area of data analytics, working on livebprojects under the guidance of industry experts to demonstrate the value of technology platforms, such as Python and Tableau, in data analysis, visualisation and optimisation – all of which should inform organisational strategy.

How has the programme’s development sought to incorporate employer demands as well as those of students?

As part of the MBA review process, our current students identified issues that were of high importance to their organisation and in which they sought further development. The top three were: innovation (to create new products and services); sustainability (incorporating social and environmental aspects); 3) digital transformation of business models, people and processes.

An added element of need that found its way into responses was the challenge of tackling international markets. Similar issues emerged in my conversations with employers and organisations, though they also voiced the need for further preparation in methodologies such as agile, technological proficiency in addition to development in harnessing an innovative mindset, communication, presentation skills and the ability to problem solve in teams.

The revamped MBA programme will aim to incorporate these aspects in its courses but will also provide several ‘wrap-around services’ outside the programme; for example, workshops on interpersonal skills and media training that help develop well-rounded MBA graduates.

Students will also have the opportunity to be coached formally by industry experts to tackle developmental challenges. Finally, the programme has introduced a ‘creative challenge’ course in which students will focus on themselves as the creative project, pushing their limits (and where failure is an option).

What does your ideal MBA candidate look like, and what makes a cohort ‘right’ for UC’s MBA programme?

One of the key programme changes will be the blended nature of delivery, wherein there will be an almost equal split of real-time online interaction and in-person intensive block weekends. This will enable participation from across Australasia. With the industry links we activate and the end outcomes we are looking to deliver in three to five years, UC’s ideal MBA candidate will embrace risk, enjoy a challenge, and be keen on making a difference as well as willing to lead and drive change.

Our ideal cohort will be gender balanced, diverse – with at least 30% representation from both the international and Māori communities – highly experienced, and representing a cross-section of sectors.

In your opinion, what will be the biggest challenge facing tomorrow’s leaders and what will be the most important skills and attributes required of them?

Relevance. The pace of technological development means that innovation will continue to thrive, creating new products, services and firms, and forcing organisations to prove their ongoing relevance.

This will be the real challenge for leaders over the next decade. Not only will the challenge be for leadership relevance in the context of managing and motivating teams while ensuring a sense of followership in people management, but it will also be for leaders to ensure relevance of their organisations. Uber, Airbnb, Facebook, Tesla and Apple’s iPad are all about 10-15 years old. The next 10-15 years will bring about new innovations. So, for today’s organisations and leadership to remain relevant, maintaining customer experience, organisational purpose, community engagement and societal impact becomes key.

What do you feel is the main challenge facing Business Schools in New Zealand and the surrounding region?

Agility. There’s much captured in this one word. Let me elaborate on two aspects. In many parts of Asia Pacific, there is a lack of trust between Business Schools and industry, or universities and industry in general.

This distrust has resulted in reduced collaboration due to the divergent goals of Business Schools and those of industry, to the extent that we see increasing competition with consultants who have ventured into the areas of research and training.

The second aspect is around the agility of a Business School to alter course and rethink its business model. Most institutions continue to focus on models that delivered success in the past, but these are unlikely to be fit for the future, given technological advancements in the areas of, for example, new forms of AI-driven and customised online learning. Very soon, if not already, the opportunities in this arena could all be up for grabs.

Chris Vas is Associate Professor and MBA Director at the University of Canterbury’s (UC) College of Business and Law, which houses UC Business School. He holds a PhD in public policy from the Australian National University.