A selection of news from around the business campuses
Case for the prosecution
In a magnificent example of circular thinking, Harvard Business School professors are writing a case study examining whether teaching at the school—which, famously, is exclusively via the case-study method—is adequately preparing its alumni to manage risk.
The school, whose alumni include Stan O’Neal and Andrew Hornby, the men who were at the helm of failed banks Merrill Lynch and HBOS, is looking particularly exposed to the gathering criticism over business schools’ role in the current economic turmoil. However, many professors remain perplexed at the flak coming their way, arguing that, by its very nature, the case-study method imbues students with a sense of long-term risk. Most case studies taught in business school classrooms tend to be several years old. While this is often to the chagrin of students—who continuously complain about material being out of date—it does, in theory, discourage short-termism as MBAs get to learn the real-world outcomes to the corporate dilemmas on which they have been deliberating. The case, it appears, remains unproven.
Changing course
Dartmouth College’s Tuck School of Business is launching what it believes is the world’s first MBA elective focusing on climate change. The course, “Business and Climate Change”, is the brainchild of Anant Sundaram, a professor at Tuck and the pioneer of a model which gauges firms’ vulnerability to fossil-fuel prices. Professor Sundaram says that rather than acting as a constraint on companies, a warming planet could be a huge business opportunity: “The implications are enormous. Massive wealth will be created by companies that get in front of this issue and lost by those that do not.”
The trend towards greener MBAs has been evident for much of the last decade. What is new is the driving force behind the change: schools are becoming greener not just because it is seen as socially important, but also because it is seen as a potential competitive advantage for companies. Babson College’s Olin Graduate School of Business, for example, has introduced a “Sustainable Entrepreneurship by Nature” course. Meanwhile, New York’s Stern Business School recently announced it had officially “gone green” after it unveiled a plan to make its campus more environmentally friendly. It is also launching a “Leading Sustainable Enterprises”Oil exploration
Coming at the issue from another angle, Warwick Business School is launching a Global Energy MBA in May. Aimed at those already working within the energy industry, the programme will tackle the dual challenges of how to meet demand for oil and gas and how to bring on alternative, renewable sources of energy to help combat climate change.
According to the programme’s academic director, David Elmes, the MBA will also help students get to grips with a recent shift in responsibility between countries and companies. “Companies who would have accessed funds from banks or markets are now pinning their hopes on government stimulus packages,” he says. “The risk is that the momentum to sustain today’s energy sources and develop alternatives is stalling.” The MBA is delivered over three years, combining week-long seminars and self-study.
Opening for business
Pakistan is to get a new private business school. The Karachi School for Business and Leadership (KSBL) is being set up by the Karachi Education Initiative in partnership with the University of Cambridge’s Judge Business School. It plans to offer executive development programmes from next year, with an MBA following in 2011 and an executive MBA the year after that. It is also being charged with teaching students what it takes to run a for-profit business school in Pakistan.
Pakistan has a dearth of world-class business schools. The most prestigious is probably the Institute of Business Administration in Karachi, which was set up in 1955 by the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business. Nonetheless, it, in common with other Pakistani schools, regularly gets overlooked in the important international rankings. Many students head out of the country to pursue their business education, something that KSBL hopes to address.
Joint Finnish
Finland’s premier business school, the Helsinki School of Economics (HSE), is merging with the University of Art and Design Helsinki and the Helsinki University of Technology. The new institution, to be named Aalto University, after Alvar Aalto, an architect and one of Finland’s iconic figures, will open its doors to students in 2010 and will continue to offer many of the business programmes currently run by HSE—including an MBA and Executive MBA. The university says that the combination of three such prestigious institutions opens up new possibilities for multi-disciplinary education and research. Critics have voiced concern, however, that competition in the Finnish market will be stifled, such will be Aalto’s dominance.
Class in Gulf
Grenoble Graduate School of Business is to offer some of its business programmes in Saudi Arabia. The French school will link up with the College of Business Administration (CBA) in Jeddah to run its Master in International Business and Doctorate in Business Administration. The programmes will be taught solely in English by Grenoble faculty on the CBA campus. The school said it also hoped to offer Saudi versions of its MSc in Innovation and Technology Management, MSc in Construction Management and executive education training in the future.
Grenoble isn’t the only school looking to expand in the region. Britain’s Manchester Business School has announced that it will be launching an MBA in Dubai. The programme, lasting 30-36 months, is to be taught through a mixture of self-study, residential workshops in the Emirates and virtual learning. Meanwhile, Canada’s Queen’s School of Business will be rolling out its three-day operational leadership programme in Oman, adding to programmes it already runs in the UAE.
Latin lessons
The University of Miami School of Business Administration is hoping to further expand into Latin America after it announced plans to offer its Executive MBA programme in Puerto Rico. The proposed programme, which is awaiting approval from the Puerto Rican government, would be taught at the headquarters of El Nuevo Día, a local newspaper and partner of the school.
Unsurprisingly, given its location, the Miami school already has strong links to the region. Its Master of Science in Professional Management and Executive MBA programme, which run on its Florida campus, are taught entirely in Spanish and target executives working in Latin America. It has also established several partnerships with Latin American business schools, including Universidad de San Andres in Argentina, the University of São Paulo in Brazil, and CENTRUM Católica in Peru.
