The European Foundation for Management Development (EFMD) is the largest international accreditation body for business schools, with more than 950 members across 92 countries, including the world's ...highest-ranked schools. A not-for-profit, mission-led institution, the EFMD plays a central role in shaping a global approach to management education, emphasizing the development of socially responsible leaders. As part of EFMD's fiftieth anniversary celebrations, its President, Professor Eric Cornuel, has edited this volume, featuring contributions from leaders in management education, including the presidents and deans of the top business schools from across the world. Each contribution will address the challenges and dilemmas facing business schools today, with respect to four key themes: the 'higher purpose' of business schools; the social impact of business schools; the internationalization of business schools; and crisis management within business schools, with a special focus on the impact of COVID-19. This volume is also available via Open Access.
Without a doubt, business schools have been a success story in higher education over the last 50 years (the period of EFMD’s existence). Even so, they have come under scrutiny, and attack, over their ...academic legitimacy and value proposition for business and society. In this book, drawn from a special issue of Global Focus, the EFMD has selected around 25 of the best, most thoughtful short papers published in Global Focus to examine the role and purpose of EFMD in the evolution of management education. Each of the chapters interpret current strategic debates about the evolution of business schools and their paradigms and also identify possible strategic options for handling uncertain, volatile futures. These papers can be broadly categorized into four consistent themes: the first theme is concerned with the purpose and value proposition of management education; the second theme focuses on a perceived need for new business models and how to design and build them; the third theme addresses the question of the impact of the business school on business and society given the increasingly academic pursuits of business schools and their often weak links to the business community – the so-called rigour/relevance dilemma; and the fourth theme concerns how to ‘map’ and design business school futures in an increasingly volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous crisis-oriented environment. This impressive collection of insights from business management leaders from across the globe is inspiring reading for higher education leaders, policy makers and business leaders seeking insight into the future of management education.
This second book in the EFMD Management Education series explores business schools’ increasing focus on, and search for, meaningful societal and economic research impact. This involves, in ...particular, co-operation and collaboration in both knowledge creation and implementation of the findings of academic research in practice. Business schools have a critical role to play in ‘rewiring’ our missions for research relevance, impact and reach, and in recognising needs and addressing real issues of society and economy. With cases from a range of international business schools, the book doesn’t simply highlight the need for the dominant research model in business schools to evolve, but illustrates how this can happen in practice. In so doing, it opens the discussion on how the business school can contribute in very real ways to solving global and complex challenges such as climate change, rising inequalities, international isolationism, eroding democratic systems, and the spread of fake news. These are goals that the EFMD has championed since its inception, and this book will be of value and interest to policy makers and business leaders seeking insight into how management education will be shaped to support business and wider society, as well as those working in business schools and higher education leaders. The Open Access version of this book, available at http://www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.
With contributions from some of the leading thinkers in business school education, this book explores the impact and purpose of the business school, and addresses some of the most important questions ...facing management education today. The diverse perspectives brought together by the EFMD in this volume examine a number of common questions, themes and challenges. These include: whether business schools should be viewed as schools of management, given the complexity of the business environment; what is the positive impact of business school research, and the balance of relevant, practical impact and academic rigour; the strategic evolution of business schools and how they may evolve in a more purposeful direction; and why business school leaders compete strongly but are reluctant to collaborate, and how collaboration may encourage greater positive societal impact. With insightful commentary and illustrative case studies, this book serves as a landmark publication on the value and impact of business schools. The book will be of particular interest to those working in business schools, higher education leaders, policy makers and business leaders seeking insight into the value, impact and future of business and management education.
Business schools are critical players in higher education, educating current and future leaders to make a difference in the world. Yet we know surprisingly little about the leaders of business ...schools. Leading a Business School demystifies this complex and dynamic role, offering international insights into deans’ dilemmas in different contexts and situations. It highlights the importance of deans creating challenging and supportive learning cultures to enhance business and management education, organizations and society more broadly. Written by renowned experts on the role of the dean, Julie Davies, Howard Thomas, Eric Cornuel and Rolf D. Cremer, the book traces the historical evolution of the business school deanship, the current challenges and future sources of disruption. The leadership characteristics and styles of business school deans are presented based on an examination of different dimensions of their roles. These include issues of strategic positioning, such as financial viability, prestige, size, mission, age, location and programme portfolios, as well as the influences of rankings, sector accreditations, governance structures, networks and national policies on strategy implementation. Drawing on international case studies and deans’ development programmes globally, the authors explore constraints on deans’ autonomy, university and external relations, and how business school deans add value over the period of their tenures. This candid and well-researched book is essential reading for aspiring business school leaders, those hiring and working with deans, and other higher education leaders. The Open Access version of this book, available at http://www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license. Funded by EFMD Global.
Purpose
– Business schools appear to be slow adopters of responsible management education (RME), though the rhetoric of RME is visible throughout the sector. The purpose of this paper and the ...accompanying ones in this Special Issue is to address this apparent gap between substance and image by analysing the barriers to RME adoption and potential ways of overcoming them. The contributions offer insights from a range of different perspectives that will help encourage an informed debate on how to make RME more of a reality in management education.
Design/methodology/approach
– This paper analyses the problem within the dominant institutional logic of the business school sector, which is shaped by entrepreneurialism, operational for-profit orientation and externally validated reputation creation. It sets the stage for the other contributions to this Special Issue, which use alternative approaches to analyse the limited progress of RME adoption.
Findings
– This paper identifies five potential barriers to RME adoption: students, as “customers”, do not sufficiently value the “R” in RME; the switch from full-time to part-time and online provision precludes the use of pedagogical methods particularly suited for RME; the fragmentation of intellectual production in business schools makes it difficult to implement an institution-wide RME-based learning model; the standardization of educational provision combined with a focus on ranking-related performance indicators moves business schools away from addressing RME-specific learning needs; and entrepreneurialism and business school rankings link RME directly and indirectly to financial impact, which is difficult to determine. In the authors’ view the way forward requires a review of the intellectual underpinning of modern management in combination with the adjustment of organizational routines and more explicit forms of faculty development.
Originality/value
– The existing literature focuses on the differentiating features of RME and how they can help to overcome deficiencies in management education as practiced today. This paper and others in this Special Issue adopt the reverse perspective and analyse the reasons for institutional inertia as a starting point for identifying ways of encouraging more widespread adoption.
The business school has been an important success story in the evolution of the modern university. The concept of how the impact, mission, purpose, and value of a management school should be ...formulated is often delegated to the dean, faculty and advisory committees in most schools. The British Academy has contributed significantly to the emerging debate on the purpose of a business school by both examining the concept of a purposeful business school in business and management education and, more recently, investigating what, and how, business schools should teach, grow and develop. Greater attention has been directed towards developing more balanced and holistic frameworks and models of management education with a higher purpose that nurture social responsibility and reinforce students understanding of ethical and moral managerial issues.
Purpose - Forward-looking schools around the world are beginning to implement changes to their curricula, their marketing strategies, their alliances and partnerships to face the challenges of the ...increasingly competitive business education market of the future. This paper seeks to identify success factors for business schools in their competitive environment, and to provide some recommendations for higher education in the future.Design methodology approach - The paper outlines the current challenges faced by business schools and those posing a threat for their success in the future. Furthermore, the paper proposes tools and strategies for facing these challenges.Findings - The successful business school of the future will offer innovative programmes, backed by the appropriate resources to guarantee an excellent faculty body, an international experience and a multi-cultural environment to its students. At the same time, successful business schools will seek accreditation and quality improvement programmes to prove to the market that they are committed to excellence and innovation.Originality value - The paper encourages business schools to ensure an adequate level of resources to concretize their mission statements and afford qualified faculty, to globalize their faculty and student body but also their curricula, to create links with other schools and companies, and to train students to become globally responsible leaders.
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