Chairman’s Corner

The Tragedy of the Commonsense Morality

And What We Can Do About It

Writing about the climate challenge, French economist Jean Tirole frames the problem brilliantly: “The benefits of reducing climate change remain global and distant in time, while the costs of that reduction are local and immediate.” (Economics for the Common Good, p. 199) Why would any country take costly steps to attenuate global warming, when almost all the benefits go to other countries? Many of us see it the same way, as an example of the “Tragedy of Commons” or, more generally, a free rider problem.

If we know what the problem is, we ought to be able to solve it, right? Political scientist, Elinor Ostrom, has demonstrated how different combinations of incentives and sanctions have been used to effectively address the commons problem in small, stable communities. (Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action) Unfortunately, these strategies don’t apply to a planet of 8.2 billion people across nearly 200 countries.

To understand the problem differently, I often turn from economics and go back more than a decade to book written by philosopher turned psychologist, Joshua Greene, who takes a different approach and introduces the “Tragedy of Commonsense Morality.” (See Moral Tribes: Emotion, Reason, and the Gap Between Us and Them)

Greene starts with the tragedy of the commons and argues, not unlike Ostrom does for institutions, that our moral instincts evolved to help us cooperate within small, close-knit groups (tribes). Morality, he wrote, “is a set of psychological adaptations that allow otherwise selfish individuals to reap the benefits of cooperation.” It helps us to address the “Me” vs “Us” problem and helped early humans to survive. Along with a host of other factors (such as our tendency to maintain local ties even within a larger society), our moral instincts made it possible for societies to expand.

The point, according to Greene, is that (like biological traits) our moral beliefs adapt over time—shaped by the environment or context. What works/evolves to promote cooperation in one community does not necessarily work/evolve in another. The tragedy of the commonsense morality occurs here, in the larger setting within which different solutions intersect. “Me” vs “Us” problems become “Us” vs “Them” problems. Once we have locked into tightly reasoned moralities, they become more “automatic,” acquire real moral weight, and begin to resemble “rights.” That is one reason why we are often surprised by the intensity with which individuals know others are wrong.

Why does any of this matter? Going back to where we started, humanity faces a growing number of global challenges that cannot be solved by individual nations (or groups within them) acting alone. Climate change, global health, and economic inequality are just a few examples of problems that require cooperation across borders, cultures, and ideologies. Yet, as Greene argues, our moral instincts often prioritize the needs of our immediate group over those of others, especially more distant others. (Frankly, even basic economic opportunities, such as trade based on comparative advantage, also depend on cooperative solutions that elude us at the moment.) Solutions will require us to switch from “automatic” mode to “manual” mode (System 1 and System 2 in Daniel Kahneman’s Thinking, Fast and Slow) and consider a “metamorality,” which I won’t expand on here.

Of course, there are many factors at work which make finding solutions challenging. Take social media platforms, for example. Because we tend to interact longer with content aligned with our beliefs (think confirmation bias) and because advertising income depends on attention, algorithms are built to serve us more information consistent with our pre-existing beliefs—causing the platforms to act as digital echo chambers, where people primarily interact with others who share their views and values.

What can we do about the tragedy of the commonsense morality? Honestly, I don’t know how the solve the problem. Nobody seems to know (there is considerable debate about the philosophical way out outlined by Greene), and that is a source of great stress for many people. For now, however, I want to share a few thoughts about what we can do as individuals, managers, and educators.

Each of us are citizens of a country and world, as well as various communities. Individuals and organizations have responsibilities that go beyond their local or national communities, beyond political parties and other segments, and must begin to think about themselves as part of a broader interconnected world. Of course, doing that is more difficult than it might initially seem, especially since some of the biggest differences and most passionate stances are about questions related to immigration and inclusion. How do we widen the circle of “Us” when the whole point of some people is to limit the size and diversity of their groups?

One straightforward strategy I always recommend is to collect information not only from multiple sources, but also from diverse ones. It is time consuming, but it helps us to gain a fuller picture, reduce bias, and improve objectivity and decision-making. And it enhances empathy and social awareness. In the old days, I made a habit of reading about the same topics in both the Wall Street Journal and New York Times. Nowadays, I often use AI to compare across many different outlets leaning left and right, identify biases and gaps, and summarize divergent content into more holistic narratives.

About climate, for example, I can see a common core emerging, that the scientific consensus is that global warming is occurring and is largely driven by human activity, while contrasting narratives are about interpreting the policy implications, rather than the underlying data. Sure, I have a stance—the urgency to act is critical—but I also understand the economic and practical challenges of transition cannot be ignored, especially considering differences across economies at different stages of development. Indeed, I like to utilize regional and language filters to retrieve more local views on global issues.

Besides working on ourselves, as managers and educators, we can multiply our efforts by also helping others to think more broadly and across groups. We can encourage them to use diverse sources like we do. We can work harder to develop cross-cultural appreciation and agility in our colleagues and students, and not shy away from the complexities of global challenges. We can take on moral disagreements, as well as business and economic ones, in the workplace and classroom. We can encourage colleagues to think beyond individuals, organizations, and markets to consider how the political, economic, and environmental parts of the systems interact.

It is not only about the content but also about the pedagogy. I believe the best way to truly be exposed to and embrace different perspectives is through experience. Put your students into simulations, role-plays, and real-world project teams that force them to confront the most difficult issues and work together across borders, disciplines, and sectors to solve problems. Because diversity matters to innovation and learning, we’re excited at GBSN about our new Global Business Student Changemaker program in partnership with How to Change the World.

The tragedy of commonsense morality is a fundamental challenge in today’s interconnected world in which our (tribal) instincts clash with the need for broader cooperation. The tensions will only get stronger, but we can each do our part as global citizens, managers, and educators. Together our challenge is to bridge the gap between “us” and “them,” as well as “me” and “us.” Management education has a crucial role to play in developing the next generation of leaders who can navigate moral complexities and work toward a more cooperative, sustainable future.

What Does Winning Look Like Today?

When I was an economics professor (which was a long time ago), I often invited students in introductory classes to play a simple game. They were instructed to choose “Heads” or “Tails” and secretly write their choice on a sticky note, while I randomly sorted the class into pairs. If the choices made by any pair of students turn out to be the same (i.e., Heads/Heads or Tails/Tails), according to the rules, I would give them both chocolate bars. Otherwise, they would receive nothing.

What would you choose?

After playing things out and recording the results, I worked with the class to model the game using a simple 2×2 payoff matrix (see below). Then we talked about what happened.

I recall getting a lot of mileage out of this simple exercise. We frequently talked about the inadequacies of our model. For example, it fails to predict the outcome or recommend a particular strategy to players. Both Heads/Heads and Tails/Tails are (pure strategy) equilibria and neither is superior (the payoffs are the same). The point is that Tails/Tails is just as good as Heads/Heads.

Yet, over time, nearly all my students chose Heads. And I gave away a lot of candy! It’s reasonable to ask why economists have a difficult time explaining such a simple and obvious outcome. In advanced classes, we turned to repeated games and refinements to our definition of equilibrium.

For our class, however, the observation most often led to a discussion about the importance of norms, conventions, standards, and rules (e.g., driving on the right side of the road in the U.S.) in generating better results (e.g., not crashing into each other). We talked about the importance of information and communication, and how uninteresting the game would be if choices were made sequentially, with perfect information about the choices already made.

Besides being an easy and fun discussion starter, I was anxious to include the exercise for another reason, which was to show students that in business and life, one person’s gain does not have to mean another’s loss, as so many of our models seem to suggest. I noted that by then, we considered zero-sum games, as well as prisoner’s dilemma type games and more standard models of oligopoly. Look, I would explain, it’s still about winning the game and maximizing your payoff, but the winning strategy and behavior can be very different depending on the rules of the game. Coordination games, like the one we played, gave students a fresh way to think about business.

I have been thinking about the differences a lot lately, especially in a world that seems to be getting more complex and unpredictable. Where it is getting harder to distinguish friends from enemies and to stress long-term needs as well as short-term interests. In recent months it seems politics and economics are colliding to make underlying assumptions less universal. It’s getting harder to tell what winning looks like.

But it is also a world in which “coordination” and generating mutual benefit by aligning strategies is more relevant than ever. The digitalization of the economy, globalization of value chains, and expansion of platform-based business models have created environments where the payoffs for businesses are more interdependent. Success in these markets often depends on aligning actions with others, including competitors and consumers, as well as collaborators. Take technology standards, for example. The adoption of a common protocol benefits all firms that follow it, as it enhances interoperability and customer satisfaction.

The world economy is more interconnected than ever. Businesses, even small ones, no longer operate in isolated markets but as part of vast networks that span across geographies and sectors. Coordination across these networks can lead to collective gains. For instance, multinational corporations need to cooperate with local partners, governments, and other stakeholders to enter new markets and create value—and to increase visibility into their value chains.

A big motivator for me, and the work we do at GBSN, is that coordination, as well as competition, paves the way to more inclusive and sustainable growth. Transformation requires systems-level thinking and platforms that facilitate collaboration across sectors, as well as within industries. My favorite chapter in a book titled Net Positive is called “It Takes Three to Tango.” In it, Paul Polman (former Unilever CEO) describes the need for governments, the private sector, and civil society to “dance a complicated tango.” Businesses, consumers, and society can all benefit over the long term from pre-competitive standards and coordinated action to reduce environmental impact.

Yes, it’s getting more complicated and difficult. As I explained to my students, it’s not only about winning but also the implications of winning for society—the planet and its people. It’s not only about the present, but also about the future. And, as I tried to demonstrate using the simple game, enabling mutually beneficial solutions is not only about strategy and competition, but also about shared mindsets.

Business schools can play an important role. We can transform people and mindsets, convene leaders across sectors and borders, and create new insights that illuminate the path forward. We can continue to build platforms that bring together different people from different places to create shared experiences that enhance future cooperation—and provide learners across generations with the knowledge skills to build industry-wide frameworks and public-private partnerships to establish common goals and frameworks, as well as transform their companies. Most fundamentally, we can each take steps to reduce zero-sum, short-term thinking in favor of win-win-win, long-term thinking in our classrooms.

The Future of Globalization May be Uncertain. The Need for Innovation is Not

Over the past few decades, globalization—the closer integration of countries and peoples—has been a powerful engine of economic growth, improving global health and lifting millions out of poverty, as well as increasing efficiency. Expanding cross-border collaborations and knowledge exchanges have empowered countries to address critical societal issues.

However, globalization has also been blamed for widening income inequality within and between countries, weakening communities, and fueling social and economic discontent. Some people connect environmental degradation and climate change at least partially to the rise of global supply chains and the increasing mobility of people. Dissatisfaction with globalization opened the door to nationalism, trade wars, and geopolitical tensions between major powers, contributing to the fragmentation of global cooperation. Many countries have been reconsidering their roles in the world economy, prioritizing domestic interests over international cooperation. While the world is more connected than ever and globalization remains a powerful force, what will happen next is unclear.

Like other organizations, business schools will be affected in myriad ways by the changing global landscape. The path of globalization shapes what business schools teach and the way they organize to teach it. It impacts the distribution of internationally mobile students, markets for executive education, faculty hiring, research collaborations, financial models, and more. Navigating the uncertainty and changing environment will require schools to be agile, entrepreneurial, and resilient.

Now, while the future of globalization may be uncertain, the need for innovation is not. As technological advancements, climate change, and social inequality continue to shape the global landscape, innovation will be crucial to addressing relevant challenges. In this period of increasing uncertainty, I encourage business schools to continue channeling energy and resources towards innovation.

We know that innovation thrives when ideas and talent flow freely across borders, enabling communities and organizations to leverage diverse perspectives, skills, and resources of people around the world. By capitalizing on globalization, business schools have equipped students with the skills and mindsets needed to collaborate across borders, generated useful research, and strengthened connections between industries and communities. But what happens if international mobility shrinks, and the world economy becomes more fragmented?

What can business schools do to maintain and grow their impact on innovation even while the future of globalization is uncertain, and potentially in retreat? I offer three suggestions, which taken together offer new perspectives on the role organizations like GBSN.

First, business schools are of course engaged locally as well as globally. They catalyze innovation by fostering local entrepreneurship that meets the specific needs of their communities. With international mobility shrinking, business schools can increase their focus on building strong local networks that connect students, faculty, and businesses. Through incubators, accelerator programs, and partnerships with local industries, schools support entrepreneurs in developing innovative solutions tailored to local challenges, such as healthcare, sustainability, and education. By empowering local talent, business schools help build resilient economies that are less dependent on global markets.

Second, even in a fragmented global economy, business schools still play a key role in bridging the gap between private enterprises, governments, and civil society organizations. By creating platforms for collaboration between these sectors, schools can drive innovation in areas that require collective action, such as environmental sustainability, digital transformation, and social equity. Schools can facilitate dialogue, joint research projects, and problem-solving initiatives that bring together diverse stakeholders, encouraging the development of innovative solutions that can address complex, multi-dimensional challenges at the local level.

Third, even as international mobility shrinks, business schools can use digital tools to maintain global collaboration and knowledge exchange. By adopting online learning platforms, virtual exchange programs, and remote research partnerships, business schools can continue to connect with global experts and thought leaders. This approach allows schools to sustain a global perspective, despite geographic constraints, while also enabling students and faculty to access international insights and innovative practices that can be adapted to local contexts. Leveraging digital connectivity ensures that schools remain a catalyst for innovation even in a more fragmented world.

Taken together, the three strategies offer new perspectives on the role of organizations like the Global Business School Network (GBSN). Perhaps counterintuitively, the focus on innovation even as globalization retreats makes our work more important rather than less. Organizations like GBSN build bridges between local entrepreneurship and innovation ecosystems, helping them to share knowledge that can accelerate progress. GBSN cultivates important partnerships across sectors at an international level. For example, collaborations with the International Labor Organization (ILO) and World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) have contributed vital teaching resources for local contexts. Finally, through programs such as the Africa Business Concept Challenge, GoTrade Fellowship Program with DHL, new Global Business Student Changemakers, and a range of faculty impact communities and development activities, GBSN provides the infrastructure and support to virtual connections across schools.

By strengthening their focus on local innovation systems, building multi-sectoral partnerships, and supporting virtual programs, while participating in global networks and maintaining robust international collaborations, business schools can continue to thrive and make a positive impact and a complex, ever-changing world.

Is More Information Better?

It is a good idea to collect data about the outcomes of heart surgeries and make it available to the public. Report cards help patients find the best hospitals and doctors, while the providers have an incentive to improve quality. Makes perfect sense, doesn’t it.

Well, in a paper I read a little more than 20 years ago, the authors found that publicly available cardiac surgery report cards “led to higher levels of resource use and to worse health outcomes, particularly for sicker patients.” They concluded, “at least in the short run, these report cards decreased patient and social welfare.” The report cards motivated providers to select against treating the sickest patients, who are more likely to have poor outcomes. The model is more intricate, but that’s the basic idea.

At the time, my interest in the article, and others like it, was not only because of my continuing curiosity about economics but also because by then I was working at AACSB, initiating efforts to collect and share data for benchmarking. I’ve been thinking about the article and its provocative title “Is More Information Better?” and am writing this short piece to share some notes about metrics and management education.

The report card article first returned to my mind when I started watching a television series called “The Resident” on Netflix. In the show, set in the U.S., a hospital CEO is single-mindedly focused on the bottom line (he previously worked in private equity), while the protagonists, doctors, and nurses on the hospital staff, fight to prioritize patient health. What I like about the show is that it doesn’t gloss over the issues. There are real tradeoffs, and the series puts them front and center. It makes for great television and illustrates just how difficult it is to manage a hospital—and how challenging our job is in business schools.

It’s getting more challenging. How do we prepare students for a more complicated business world in which short-term profitability (rightfully) isn’t the only important objective? Hasn’t it been hard enough under the dominant view that the sole responsibility of business to make as much money as possible (“subject to the basic rules of society”)? We must rethink management education to foster real business model changes that advance the role of business in promoting societal well-being. Increasingly, consumers, investors, and employees expect it.

But we are not there yet. It is fair to say we have a handle on financial metrics and have made some progress on environmental ones, but we need to think more clearly about how to measure our social impact. Researchers at the NYU Stern Center for Business & Human Rights examined 12 socially oriented measurement frameworks and found 1,753 different indicators between them. Only eight percent of the indicators addressed the effects of company practices. The other 92 percent measured “company efforts and activities, such as issuing policies or commitments; conducting audits, risk assessments, or training; participating in membership organizations or other collaborations; or engaging stakeholders,” and are not likely to be helpful to investors or consumers, much less managers, in trying to move the needle on social responsibility. This is where business school research can be especially helpful, but are the incentives aligned?

The cardiac report card study was conducted by economists working in business schools (at Northwestern and Stanford) and was eventually published in Journal of Political Economy which has an impact factor of 6.9, making it one of the top journals in
economics. According to Google Scholar, it has been cited 980 times, making it highly influential in the academic field.

The article also carries a high Altmetric Attention score, in the top 98 percent of articles the same age, indicating a higher probability that it influenced policy and practice. Such broader measurements have been enabled by digitization but are not yet highly valued in academic settings. In line with our report card theme, it would be interesting to consider the kinds of changes that can be motivated by metrics that consider readership and utilization across a wider range of audiences, which could include more interdisciplinary and international collaborations, stronger engagement with practitioners and policymakers, new faculty models, and improved channels for communicating. All good things as far as I’m concerned.

Beyond research, it is important to continuously consider the way we assess and report on business schools and universities. While they are changing, rankings, for example, are still dominated by metrics like graduate salaries, acceptance rates, and publications in top journals. These metrics can motivate schools to prioritize selectivity over access and inclusive education and focus on higher-paying industries rather than cultivate social entrepreneurship, build leaders for non-profits, and address global challenges like inequality and sustainability. To align education to the needs of society moving forward, and to help business schools accelerate the transformation of business, we must develop and embrace broader metrics that reward societal impact and long-term contributions to the development needs of society. This is especially important for the work of GBSN.

There is much more to consider, but we will have to look to future blog posts to fully explore the changing metrics shaping business and business education. I’m especially interested in considering the impact of AI and policies related to confidentiality and privacy of data.

University of Oxford Appoints GBSN Chair Soumitra Dutta as Dean of SaĂŻd Business School

Professor Soumitra Dutta

The University of Oxford SaĂŻd Business School announced the appointment of Professor Soumitra Dutta as its new incoming Dean today. He will take up his new post as Dean of Oxford SaĂŻd on June 1st.

Professor Dutta was appointed as Chair of the GBSN Board of Directors on April 10, 2018. Dutta will continue to serve out his second term as Chair of the GBSN Board. Professor Dutta’s involvement with GBSN dates back ten years. Under his leadership as Dean, the Johnson Graduate School of Management at Cornell University first joined the network as a member in November 2012.

Dutta served as the founding dean of the Cornell SC Johnson College of Business from July 2016 till January 2018. Currently he is a Professor of Management. Previously, he was the Anne and Elmer Lindseth Dean of the Samuel Curtis Johnson Graduate School of Management. Prior to coming to Cornell, he was on the faculty of INSEAD, a leading international business school in France and Singapore. He is also the President and Co-Founder of the Portulans Institute.

As an authority on technology and innovation policy, Dutta is the co-editor and author of the Global Information Technology Report, published by the World Economic Forum and the Global Innovation Index, published by the World Intellectual Property Organization – two influential reports in technology and innovation policy.

Professor Dutta is also a widely published author, with research that includes over 150 published articles and over 60 case studies. His research has also been cited widely in the global media. Dutta serves on the board of Sodexo (a food services and facilities management multinational), Dassault Systems (a leading 3D software firm) and advisory boards of several business schools, including ESADE (Barcelona, Spain), ESCP (Paris, France), Porto Business School (Porto, Portugal) and HEC Montreal (Canada). He also served as Chairman of AACSB International’s Board of Directors, the leading global body for the accreditation of business schools, from July 2017 to January 2018.

GBSN’s core mission has always been to activate and nurture the network of business schools and corporate partners with whom it works. The aim is to strengthen the business education ecosystems in emerging markets, and through them to support economic transformation in their countries.

“Soumitra Dutta brings a wealth of global leadership in business education and industry to Oxford SaĂŻd,” said Dan LeClair CEO of GBSN. “Under his leadership as Dean, Oxford SaĂŻd will continue to break boundaries and advance to higher levels of innovation and impact.”

Professor Dutta is a member of the Davos Circle, an association of long-time participants in the Annual Davos meeting of the World Economic Forum, and has engaged in a number of multi-stakeholder initiatives to shape global, regional and industry agendas. Professor Dutta received a B. Tech. in electrical engineering and computer science from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), New Delhi, a MS in both business administration and computer science, and a PhD in computer science from the University of California at Berkeley. In 2017, he received the Distinguished Alumnus Award from his alma mater IIT Delhi.

Professor Dutta succeeds Professor Peter Tufano, who stepped down in June 2021 after serving as Dean for 10 years. His appointment concludes the global search to find the next Dean to lead Oxford Saïd, a world leading business school within one of the world’s greatest universities.

Under the leadership of Soumitra Dutta, the Board of Directors and CEO Dan LeClair, GBSN will continue to lead the advancement of innovative programs that will bridge connections with business schools and industry around the world to catalyze investment in business education as a tool for economic and social development.

Hybrid by Default: The Future of Education has Changed

Summer is almost over and the fall semester is about to start for most universities. I am reminded of this as I prepare to teach Cornell EMBA students this coming weekend in August. I teach online for now, but the future of how teaching will evolve this academic year is not clear. I fear that I am not alone. Most students, faculty and business school deans that I have spoken with in recent weeks have expressed both considerable uncertainty and concern about how teaching and learning during the semester will evolve.

In over three decades of academic life, I cannot recall a similar moment when such uncertainty and fear has hung over universities across the world. On one hand, the pandemic continues unabated in many parts of the world including in populous countries such as the USA, Brazil and India. There are concerns that while death rates have stabilized or decreased in most areas, clusters of infections are starting to appear in younger populations. This raises the risks of fatality or long term health damage among students. There are also additional concerns about transmission of infections across the key groups of an university ecosystem – students, faculty, staff and the surrounding town population. The situation in the USA is especially complicated both by the soaring infection rates and the specific positions adopted by the current administration. Compounding the situation is a growing anxiety about the implications of the pandemic on the financial health of universities and colleges. Many universities and colleges are suffering from significant budget shortfalls and it is not clear if this financial pain can be sustained beyond this academic year.

I hope that most of you read the Chronicle of Higher Education and subscribe to its many free newsletters. The Chronicle of Higher Education has done a stellar job in collecting and publishing information about the plans of different universities in response to the Covid crisis. In particular the Chronicle of Higher Education has complied information about the Fall plans of over 3000 universities in collaboration with Davidson College. As of 6th August 2020, the Chronicle finds that only 2.5% of universities plan to open fully in person for the fall semester while another 21% plan a fall semester that will be “primarily in person”. At the other end of the spectrum, 4.7% of universities plan to go fully online and 24% plan to be operating “primarily online”. It is noteworthy that a full quarter (26%) of the universities have still not disclosed what they plan to do for the Fall.

Waiting during the summer lull may seem easy to do, but things will only get harder in the coming weeks. Colleges with plans to open for instruction in person are being questioned about their decision as being motivated more by financial reasons as opposed to anything else. Pressure from alumni and parents is building on the leaders of universities to prove that they are taking the health and well being of their communities seriously. Interested readers can view a recent MSNBC interview with President Daniels of Purdue University about his plans to open for the fall in person.

While college leaders plan and hope for the best during the fall, a bigger question remains about how the pandemic has changed future of education. While many aspects will evolve, one important change is that the nature of education and learning will become hybrid by default. Online education has traditionally been treated with skepticism by many faculty. Many research studies have shown that online education does not offer the same quality of learning as face to face classes. In many cases, such as courses with labs and experiments, it is not easy to move the instruction online.

The Covid crisis has forced colleges and universities to move to fully online instruction over the last months. Some may yet continue in a fully online mode for parts of the next academic year. However, looking ahead beyond the pandemic, it is very likely that education will not revert back to the “way it was before the pandemic”.  Education will evolve to become hybrid in nature integrating the best what in-person instruction can offer and the unique aspects of what online education can provide. Some of these changes, such as flipped classrooms were already starting to appear before the Covid pandemic but these trends will accelerate now. While a small minority of faculty were doing flipped classes before, the vast majority of faculty will integrate such approaches and shift to a different mode of learning and class discussion.

We are entering a phase of rapid learning and experimentation in hybrid education. Learning platforms will evolve at a rapid pace as technology providers invest more in this growing domain. As business schools and colleges deal with the uncertainties and challenges of starting a new academic year, academic leaders need to also start evaluating what a hybrid future looks like for their institutions. This will entail a questioning of all aspects of their learning and business models. For one, schools will need to invest much more into building their digital competencies. New technology platforms will have to be built and integrated. Essential digital skills will have to be taught to faculty, staff and students. New partnerships will have to be formulated with technology leaders and startups. Further investments in buildings and other capital projects will have to be questioned and measured against the benefits of new technology investments. The benefits of access and reach provided by technology will have to be leveraged to reach new markets and launch new programs. Lifelong learning can be made into a reality and not just remain a slogan. The changes are many and the ultimate beneficiary should be the student who becomes a lifelong learner.

The future of learning is hybrid. Let’s embrace and create the new future together.


Soumitra Dutta

Soumitra Dutta is a Professor of Management at Cornell University and the Chair of the Board of Directors for GBSN. Previously he was the Founding Dean of the SC Johnson College of Business at Cornell and Chair of AACSB Intl. He is also the President of Portulans Institute and co-chaired the Global Future Council on innovation ecosystems for the World Economic Forum.

Chairman’s Corner: A Time to Shape our Future

 width=We are living in extraordinary times with the global fight against COVID-19. While the extent and speed has varied, governments around the world have imposed stringent controls on businesses and the movement of people. Non-essential businesses are required to close for several weeks and the livelihood of many thousands is at risk. Professionals are being asked to work remotely and universities are being required to rapidly move into large-scale online teaching, posing significant changes for both faculty and students. Borders are being closed and there is the risk of a retreat from globalization. Technology is enabling the utilization of invasive monitoring mechanisms which reduce the spread of COVID-19 today but present the opportunity for some governments to tighten the surveillance of their citizens in the future.

While we struggle to control the spread of COVID-19 and to save lives today, thoughts are also turning to what the world will look like once COVID-19 no longer presents a crisis. While much uncertainty remains about the duration of the current crisis, there is a growing consensus that COVID-19 will have a lasting impact on the world. In more ways than one, our behaviors have probably been changed forever. It is likely that governments, businesses and society will witness significant changes in the coming months and years.

Some questions of interest include the following:

  • As we imagine the world after COVID-19, is 2020 a global turning point?
  • How will governments approach globalization and balance economic and societal goals in the future?
  • Will businesses move away from globalization? How will they balance the interests of different stakeholder groups and manage the wellbeing of their employees?
  • How will we manage the tradeoffs between privacy and surveillance of citizens?
  • How will society balance universal human values with local cultural differences?
  • Will technology and remote working bring us together or make us drift apart?
  • How will learning paradigms and the business models of business schools change?
  • How can global leaders enhance global coordination and enhance trust in governments and business?

At GBSN, we are keen to explore the contours of the world after COVID-19, the world that is emerging as a result of the extraordinary times we are experiencing today. To do so, Dan LeClair, CEO GBSN and I are reaching out to our community to better understand the many ways in which the world after COVID-19 will be different for our key stakeholders including governments, businesses, universities and students. We are interviewing several Deans of GBSN member schools to learn from their perspectives to the question of whether 2020 represents a global turning point. If you are interested in taking part in this study, please do reach out to me (sd599@cornell.edu) or to Dan LeClair (dleclair@gbsn.org).

Nature does present us with significant challenges at times. Now is one such time. We have to use our exceptional talents individually as human beings and collectively as societies to rise to the challenge. It is not just a question of overcoming the COVID-19 crisis and reverting back to the normal. The normal will shift. And our leadership can help us to define the shift. Define the new normal. It is time for us to shape our future.


 width=Soumitra Dutta is a Professor of Management at Cornell University and the Chair of the Board of Directors for GBSN. Previously he was the Founding Dean of the SC Johnson College of Business at Cornell and Chair of AACSB Intl.

Email: sd599@cornell.edu; Twitter: @soumitradutta; LinkedIn: soumitra-dutta; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soumitra_Dutta

Chairman’s Corner: Digital Innovation in Learning Should Become a Priority

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I recall the first wave of eLearning in the 1990s. I was a professor at INSEAD then and was instrumental in creating a unit called INSEAD Online to focus on creating e-learning courses. That effort at INSEAD and similar efforts in other business schools did not take off. The reasons for the failure were many but the experience was quite typical in terms of new technology adoption challenges in many sectors.

Business schools lacked the technical expertise to create e-learning courses and business school faculty were skeptical of the effectiveness of e-learning courses, something quite new then for most of them. Out of necessity, business schools had to partner with external partners who usually had high costs of developing courses and hence the revenue sharing arrangements were biased in favor of the external partners. The high development costs also implied that customers were charged significant amounts for the e-learning modules and customer demand was weak. Technological infrastructure also had limitations and bandwidth was usually not sufficient in most locations for high quality video content. Taken together, the first wave of e-learning in business schools in the early 90s had all the excitement that comes with any new technology introduction and all the disappointment when reality does not meet expectations.

Fast forward two decades. The landscape has changed significantly. For one technology has improved exponentially and what was technically challenging in the early 90’s has become commonplace and easy. Large parts of the world are now connected to the Internet and high bandwidth connectivity has reached even mobile devices in most countries. New private sector MOOC (Massive Open Online Courses) players such as Coursera and Audacity have emerged with the goal to make learning from top notch faculty available for free (or for a small fee) to learners around the world. The technology to produce courses has also changed and costs of production have come down significantly. It is possible now for a faculty member to set up a camera (even a smartphone in some cases) in his/her office and create online content with a tablet (costing a few hundred Dollars) and simple editing software. Most business school programs now have a significant e-learning components and a range of fully online MBA programs are now available on the market. The age of digital innovation in business school education has now started in earnest.

It is time now for business school leaders to start investing significantly in digital innovations. Like any organization, going through the journey of digital transformation requires a focus on integrating digital DNA into the organization. Based on my own research and personal experience, here are some suggestions for business school leaders:

  1. Leadership from the top: Any significant change in the business model of the school such as the introduction of new online programs will have to start with leadership from the top. Leadership from the Dean of the school becomes even more vital as the school contemplates more radical questions from digital disruption. Is the school willing to address a market of millions instead of thousands? And if yes, is the school willing to reduce tuition fees to zero or a very small amount? Is the school willing to create a Uber like model which opens up the universe of instructors to anyone willing to teach? And so onÉ.
  2. Leveraging off the few: Most faculty in business schools are not eager to make radical changes in the way they teach and in the conduct of the classroom. However, in every school there are always a few pioneering faculty who are open to innovate and try out new experiments. These pioneers should be identified and encouraged. Their successes should be celebrated publicly and lessons should be learnt from some of their (inevitable) failures. The pioneers can be used strategically to lead the school into the era of digital learning. It is always interesting to see how others follow once the positive successes of the pioneers have been recognized.
  3. Set up formal structures and processes: While everyone today is digitally capable in one way or the other (after all, they all own mobile phones and PCs), it is necessary to structure and support digital learning efforts within the school. Bottom-up efforts are good only to a certain level. It is fine to get faculty to experiment with e-learning in a bottom-up manner, but a formal structure is needed if a school wants to launch an e-learning program. If virtual classrooms are to be launched, then faculty have to be educated in the process of teaching and managing the new learning process. Introducing a degree of formality also allows for the digital learning effort to be recognized within the institution and appropriate metrics to be put in place. Hence it is not surprising to see many Universities set up their own e-learning units, such as e-Cornell at Cornell University and EdX at Harvard and MIT. These units typically have to work in close collaboration with the rest of the school.
  4. Create a digital mindset of rapid experimentation and learning: Agility is a unique feature of digital startups that could bear positive results for business schools. Agility in the digital world is based on the ability to partner with a broad ecosystem of players and to experiment with ideas from which to learn rapidly. As is often said, fail fast to succeed sooner! This is a desirable cultural change for all business schools. Business schools are often criticized for being too slow and cumbersome to change. Changing the curriculum can take a couple of years and launching a new program can take even longer! This is no longer good enough in the world of digital agility. Practices can be adopted from the digital world Ð such as the practice of scrums. Thus, faculty and students at Cornell Tech get together every two months to have an open non-hierarchical discussion together of what is right and what needs to be done to improve in the program.

It is time to start investing seriously into the digital transformation of learning and the Global Business School Network can provide an effective platform to share lessons and create new partnerships across the member school network.

 


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Soumitra Dutta is a Professor of Management at Cornell University and the Chair of the Board of Directors for GBSN. Previously he was the Founding Dean of the SC Johnson College of Business at Cornell and Chair of AACSB Intl. He also co-chairs the Global Future Council on innovation ecosystems for the World Economic Forum. Email: sd599@cornell.edu; Twitter: @soumitradutta; LinkedIn: soumitra-dutta; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soumitra_Dutta

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