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From Soapbox »
Managers need a different set of tools
By Jan Muehlfeit
Against a backdrop of corporate failures and mistrust in leadership, are the best and brightest MBA graduates properly equipped to manage a sustainable economy?
Even before the banking collapse and subsequent crisis, it had become clear that new strategic and operational approaches were required to manage a company’s responsibilities in and to society.
From Soapbox »
Finding the balance between teaching and mentoring
By Ellen Miller
A consequence of the current economic environment is the trend of increasing business school applications and a general desire to seek additional commercially viable skills.
In their promotional literature, business schools often sell their offerings to prospective students in a way in which the mere achievement of the degree may overshadow the experience.
From Soapbox »
The gulf between business schools and reality
By Ruben Vardanyan
The world has changed dramatically and continues to change rapidly.
In this new reality, the traditional business school format, based on the western template, no longer provides the level of knowledge and quality of education necessary for students and which employers demand.
From Soapbox »
Vital role of the specialised generalist
By Bruce Schlein
Jack of all trades master of some… from where I sit looking at sustainability issues – environmental and social risks and opportunities – across the company, this is our ideal candidate; one who effectively combines specific expertise needed to develop and execute innovative financial solutions,
From Soapbox »
You're not really any good until your 40.
I liked your article.
Biz schools are good but without experience the education can be applied with out knowledge of the facts on the ground.
When I first started work after college in San Francisco the saying was "don't hire a Standford MBA, they can make a million dollar decision but can't write a memo.....and don't want to write memos.
From Soapbox »
Forget the MBA, give me experience any day
By Luke Johnson
I really should like business schools. Once or twice a year I teach a case study about PizzaExpress (a restaurant chain I used to run) at London Business School. Overall I find these occasions stimulating: the students are bright and motivated and tell me the sessions are worthwhile.
From Soapbox »
Enterprising approach to entrepreneurship
By Davide Sola
The roads of education and enterprise have traditionally met in business schools. This is something the UK government should have considered before targeting teenagers with its National Enterprise Academy initiative.
In a country such as the UK, where enterprise forms the backbone of the economy and is regarded as something of a national institution,
From Soapbox »
It's all the fault of the timetable and the textbook
By Gerard Hanlon
Both the textbook and the academic timetable, lie at the root of a growing crisis in management education, especially at undergraduate level; one that needs addressing if we are to avert any future economic meltdown and retain any semblance of creative learning in universities and business schools.
From Soapbox »
Ignore technology at your peril
By Robert Galliers
Nicholas Carr published an article in the May 2003 edition of the Harvard Business Review, with the title “IT Doesn’t Matter”. The staff of HBR voted it the best article to appear in the magazine that year. A sequel, “The End of Corporate Computing”, appeared in the Spring 2005 issue of the MIT Sloan Management Review.
From Soapbox »
Lessons from golf’s level playing field
By Gio Valiante
Competition is at the centre of my life, and the three competitive domains I spend most time in are academic, business, and sport (professional golf). Parallels connect all three.
The measure of success in graduate school is grades, in business it’s earnings, and in golf it’s score.
From Soapbox »
Managers sense quality is back in fashion
By Estelle Clark
The recognition of management as a discipline in its own right has, by and large, been a welcome development in business over the past 20 years. But it is dangerous for any organisation to rely too heavily on one management style or academic discipline, such as the MBA.
From Soapbox »
Unexpected perils of a tougher visa regime
By Kai Peters
Suffering a terrorist outrage as I go about my daily business is not on my to-do list and you would think I would welcome any measures implemented to prevent terrorism.
However, in one specific area I do not. Instead, I find myself increasingly aggravated by well intentioned but poorly executed initiatives that produce draconian legislation aimed at long-tail risk.
From Soapbox »
Ideas needed for a new management paradigm
By James Fleck
There is a 13ft-high statue of Adam Smith at one of the new universities in China. It illustrates how ideas about western business are treated with respect outside the west.
Management is an area undergoing considerable change and with the right intellectual leadership,
From Soapbox »
The two-year MBA is the trip of a lifetime
By Paul Danos
You know how it is when you visit a place where the culture, the scenery and the individuals there change you forever? That is how I view the two-year, full-time MBA programme.
It is two years of immersion in new concepts taught by experts, living and studying with talented people with varied experiences from around the world.
From Soapbox »
In troubled times HR must act courageously
By Douglas Ready
These are tough times and they call for tough measures. Companies are facing conditions not present for generations and few of today’s managers have had their resolve and decision-making skills tested under equivalent levels of stress and uncertainty.
Today, the human capital function is in the spotlight as never before.
From Soapbox »
Blogs can help schools win the marketing war
By Josep Valor
Blogs have sparked a profound change in the way the outside world perceives business schools. Since 2002, 133m blogs in 81 different languages have been indexed by Technocrati, a blog content index. A recent search of this index showed that about 121,000 blog posts mentioned the term "MBA"
From Soapbox »
Valuable lessons from the muddle of real life
By Judy Rosenblum
As someone who has worked as a professional for my entire career, I have grown increasingly concerned that we have forgotten how professionals actually learn. While all of us remember fondly the senior partner who pushed us, yelled at us and sometimes berated us for the sake of making us better,
From Soapbox »
How to forge a cultural resolution with China
By Devon Nixon
Since arriving in China as a US MBA student and enrolling full-time at the China Europe International Business School, one question has begun nearly every conversation I strike up with a new acquaintance, be they Chinese classmates or other “foreigners” in China. That question is:
From Soapbox »
An illusion of control can have hidden costs
By Spyros Makridakis, Robin Hogarth and Anil Gaba
Among the many benefits of MBA education is the sense of confidence that it instils: the confidence gained from learning about different practical disciplines, the confidence to ask questions that could not have been framed before and the confidence in one's own ability.
From Soapbox »
New chapter of MBAs take oath to do better
By Max Anderson
In 2008 the world lost hundreds of billions of dollars in financial assets, an amount equal to the annual total of worldwide gross domestic product. The losses have been devastating: lost jobs, lost pensions, lost trust in Wall Street. In the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression,
