GBSN CEO Archives

EdTech and the GBSN Mission

Posted on May 26, 2022May 26, 2022 by gbsn

There is a scene late in the movie Her where the main character Theodore, played by Joaquin Phoenix, is nervously questioning Samantha, his AI-based operating system voiced by Scarlett Johansson. By then, Theodore had fallen in love with Samantha, who was designed to learn about and serve him, claimed to love him too.

In the scene, Theodore was anxious and concerned, doubtful about their relationship. Was Samantha also having intimate conversations with other people? Was she also in love with them? Theodore had to ask.

Being sensitive to Theodore’s feelings, Samantha was hesitant to answer. Finally, she admits to having similar conversations with other people. How many? 8,316, at that moment. Worse, breaking Theodore’s heart, she admits to being in love with 641 of them. You can watch the minute-and-a-half scene here.

I know, it’s science fiction. But still, it was a meaningful moment for me, and shaped my view of the future of management education. I thought to myself, “If technology can scale empathy and love, then surely education would have no limits.” I could envision management education that’s not only accessible to everyone, but is also individualized, inspirational, and immersive.

Nearly a decade has passed since I first watched Her. Since then, I moved from AACSB to lead the Global Business School Network (GBSN). Conversations about education technology at AACSB often revolved around whether it will disrupt the industry. It was easy to believe that we wouldn’t need as many business schools, or teachers for that matter, in the future.

However, as I moved to GBSN, I was more excited about how advances in education technology can support our mission “to improve access to quality, locally relevant management education for the developing world.” We were built on the belief that access to management education is essential to international development. Technology, I thought, will be the key. I quickly learned about some of the challenges.

Of course, my enthusiasm has been partially curbed by the realities of the digital divide. Access to the Internet, especially broadband, is hardly universal. According to the Internet Communications Union (ITU), “an estimated 37 per cent of the world’s population – or 2.9 billion people – have still never used the Internet” and “of the 2.9 billion still offline, an estimated 96 per cent live in developing countries.”

I also began to realize that my basic ideas about education technology were less relevant to the mission of GBSN. When considering the potential for education technology, it was easy for me to think of education as a product. It is about curating the best content, packaging it, and delivering it to customers. The key is that once a digital product is created, the marginal cost of adding another user is very small or zero. I also understood the basics of network models in which subscriber benefits grew as the number of users increased. Economics was the dominant driver in my edtech thinking.

Our international development work at GBSN caused me to think differently. Sure, our mission is about access to education; educating, empowering, and enabling individuals in emerging economies, but our mission is also about helping their communities grow and thrive. I sometimes say that at GBSN our programs need to prioritize the development of places as much as the people.

The reality is that business and the practice of management and entrepreneurship remain largely contextual. Conditions (e.g., economic, regulatory, cultural, technological) vary enormously across geographies. Of course, a substantial part of the content (i.e., theories, models, techniques, etc.) in business education can be universally or globally beneficial without much adaptation. But the application of that content is fundamentally shaped by the context. As an example, imagine a course on starting a business. Although general concepts, such as the sources of value, might be useful anywhere, the way those concepts play out depend on economic and regulatory factors, access to talent, financing, and security, and numerous other local factors.

I have come to believe that unless we start locally, with the conviction that management education ought to positively impact community development. It will be difficult to realize the full potential of education technology. Education for development is not only about providing access to global content, but also about building the capacity to generate locally relevant ideas, experiences, and developing the tools and skills of local scholars to produce them. That is why we offer faculty development programs, run the Micro-Simulation Development Lab with Capsim, partner with Gnowbe to provide faculty scholarships for their micro-Learning Instructional design certification program, and build collaborative models that enable local institutions to create additional value around globally distributed digital content.

When the overarching objective is to build communities, the focus of education technology also shifts, connecting learners to share ideas and co-create knowledge—and building the social capital that drives innovation and development. That’s why we run the Africa Business Concept Challenge and Humanitarian Logistics Challenge—to bring together a global community to help learners generate local solutions. Another example is the GoTrade Fellowship Program which we created with Deutsche Post DHL to connect selected, post-graduate business students to SME leaders in developing countries.
Don’t misunderstand, I’m still excited about the potential for education technology to increase access, improve quality, and reduce costs. After all, the greatest challenge in education is to do things that work and are accessible. But as we move forward, I believe that the real gains and positive impacts for economic and social development will come from investments in local management education capacity, capabilities, and connections. In the end, EdTech shouldn’t put local schools out of business, it should strengthen them and enable them to make a bigger difference in the communities they serve.

Dan LeClair, CEO

Dan LeClair was named CEO of the Global Business School Network (GBSN) in February of 2019. Prior to GBSN, Dan was an Executive Vice President at AACSB International, an association and accrediting organization that serves some 1,600 business schools in more than 100 countries. His experience at AACSB includes two and half years as Chief Strategy and Innovation Officer, seven years as Chief Operating Officer, and five years as Chief Knowledge Officer. A founding member of the Responsible Research in Business and Management (RRBM) initiative, Dan currently participates on its working board. He also serves in an advisory capacity to several organizations and startups in business and higher education. Before AACSB, Dan was a tenured associate professor and associate dean at The University of Tampa.

Dan played a lead role in creating a think-tank joint venture between the European Foundation for Management Development (EFMD) and AACSB and has been recognized for pioneering efforts in the formation of the UN’s Principles for Responsible Management Education (PRME), where he served on the Steering Committee for many years. Dan has also participated in industry-level task forces for a wide range of organizations, including the Chartered Association of Business Schools, Graduate Management Admission Council, Executive MBA Council, and Aspen Institute’s Business and Society Program.

Widely recognized as a thought leader in management education, Dan is the author of over 80 research reports, articles, and blogs, and has delivered more than 170 presentations in 30 countries. As a lead spokesperson for reform and innovation in management education, Dan has been frequently cited in a wide range of US and international newspapers, magazines, and professional publications, including the Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, New York Times, China Daily, Forbes, Fast Company, and The Economist. Dan earned a PhD from the University of Florida writing on game theory.

What Are Business Schools Built For?

Posted on April 22, 2022April 25, 2022 by gbsn

A very long time ago, I welcomed students to my MBA course with a Peter Senge story. The influential author of The Fifth Discipline, I told the students, would ask participants in his workshops to, “imagine your organization is an ocean liner and that you are the leader.” Then he would ask, “what is your role?”

As Senge explained in the MIT Sloan Management Review, the most common answer was of course “the captain.” But some people would point to the helmsman, who controls the direction; the engineer, who provides the energy; the social director, who is responsible for making sure everyone is engaged; and others.

Rarely, according to Senge, did anyone mention the role of the ship’s designer. Drawing attention to the oversight, he would suggest “what good does it do for the captain to say, ‘turn starboard 30 degrees,’ when the designer has built a rudder that will only turn to port, or which takes six hours to turn to starboard?”

I used the story to introduce my course on managerial economics, which addressed the architecture of organizations as well as structure of markets. Instead of treating the firm as a black box—an efficient profit-maximizing machine—we tried to get inside the organization and understand the systems and processes from an economics point of view. We talked about incentive compensation and decentralizing decision rights, of course, but we also spent time with job design, recruitment, ethics, and leadership. We applied game theory models and insights from behavioral economics, which were already finding their way into other disciplines.

Of course, organizations are not exactly designed by architects and engineers like buildings and ships. Organizations are social structures and shaped over time through the policies and actions of managers. Managers are designers of their future organizations, as in the scary expression, “we are building the airplane while flying it.” Senge’s point (at least one of his points) was that leaders should be more conscious and purposeful about this role.

Corporate leaders have come to appreciate the importance of organizational architecture, especially of aligning it with strategy. One reason is that the shelf life of a strategic plan has diminished considerably as the environment has become more dynamic and volatile. Many experts now say that the role of the strategic leader boils down to identifying and building the organization’s most important capabilities.

Now, what if we were to ask business school leaders the Senge question. What would they say? My hope is that more will offer “the ship’s designer” as a result of reading this blog.

More than ever, we need to be purposeful about building the architecture of business schools. During my time at AACSB, I was the staff point person for the Blue Ribbon Committee (BRC) on Accreditation Quality charged with developing the 2013 Standards. For the first time in AACSB’s long history, the standards were released with a tagline. It consisted of three words: engagement, innovation, and impact. These three words later became the foundation for AACSB’s current mission, which is “to foster engagement, accelerate innovation, and amplify impact in business education.”

Yes, it was duly noted—the word “quality” wasn’t part of the tagline. For an accrediting body, that was a big step. The best business schools were built on well-established conceptions of quality and now aspire to go beyond. How do they transform for engagement, innovation, and impact? Here are a few basic questions to get started.

What jobs does my business school need? Going beyond requires new leadership roles. I have been excited to find more GBSN schools with Chief Innovation Officers and Associate Deans for Research Impact. The Gies College of Business has an Associate Dean for Innovation, who also is the Chief Disruption Officer. Sasin School of Management in Thailand has a Chief Impact Officer who is also Head of Accreditation. Directors of external relations are becoming chief engagement officers and instructional designers are becoming experience makers.

Does my business school have the right systems? Are faculty, for example, evaluated and rewarded for impact? What about for the type of engagement that leads to innovation? How important is fit for culture in faculty recruitment processes? In GBSN’s Impact Communities, I have been impressed by the number of scholars who are more interested in the difference they can make than the article they can publish. Their schools are leading the way in building powerful cultures of impact.

Is my business school measuring the things that matter? The financial models of business schools, especially university-based ones, have never been all that clear and sometimes create outcomes inconsistent with the school’s mission. For example, some schools might over-emphasize foreign students because they generate more income than local ones, even if the mission is largely focused on local jobs and communities. In higher education, we also tend to conflate “quality” with “selectivity” and “salaries.” How does that play out for schools that are Going Beyond.

Of course, this list of questions is not comprehensive or new to many of us in business education. I suggest, however, that we need to be bolder and faster in addressing them. Doing so won’t be easy. It is not difficult to feel powerless to change a system when it has been built over centuries or if it puts my school at a disadvantage relative to others. Change in higher education can also feel extremely complicated. After all, few other organizations have the breadth of stakeholders (students, alumni, donors, faculty, community leaders, recruiters, etc.) with conflicting perspectives. Regardless, it is time to elevate our role as designers in leading business schools, and the business education industry, for the future.

Dan LeClair, CEO

To Change the World, Let’s Change the Way We See It

Posted on March 24, 2022April 25, 2022 by gbsn

“What do the three exhibits in the figure below have in common?” That is one of many interesting questions posed by Daniel Kahneman in Thinking Fast and Slow, which brought together decades of research by the author, Amos Tversky, and many others. I have been recommending the book to practicing managers since it was published about 10 years ago.

Most people will immediately see that the exhibit on the left contains a sequence of letters (A, B, C) and the one on the right contains a sequence of numbers (12, 13, 14). Fewer people will notice initially that the shapes in the middle in both exhibits are identical. We tend to see that shape as a B when it is among letters and as a 13 when it is among numbers.

“As for Ann,” Kahneman writes, “you probably imagined a woman with money on her mind, walking toward a building with tellers and secure vaults.” We only need to pause for a moment to imagine another possibility. Although I haven’t done the research, I suspect it might be less likely for business students to see the non-financial alternative.

What we initially see is shaped by the context and our previous experiences. That can be helpful. We need System 1 thinking, as Kahneman calls it, because it is fast and intuitive, and requires less energy. However, at times, and more often than we realize, it is important and useful to kick into System 2 thinking, which is slower and more deliberate, to avoid common errors in judgment or bias.

“Business schools provide a powerful lens through which to view the world. I believe it is one of the main reasons why business school graduates are hired — to generate innovation and growth in markets. It helps scholars to communicate and generate new insights. It supports a global language of commerce.”

But what does it mean when business schools are trying to emphasize ESG and sustainability? I worry that we don’t leave enough room for different ways of viewing the challenges and opportunities facing business and society. It is great to hear about “the business case” for sustainability and the incredible $12 trillion market opportunity provided by the SDGs. Yet, the market lens doesn’t seem nearly enough to generate the progress we need. If we want to change the world, we must begin to look at it differently.

I was reminded about this last week when I visited the Joan B. Kroc School of Peace Studies at the University of San Diego. In conversations about the connection between business and peace, I was quick to assert that private sector job creation is the answer— perhaps even, a panacea for conflict-prone areas. My hosts convinced me, however, that it is much more complex in most situations, and that it is possible for business and job-creation programs to do more harm than good (e.g., by disrupting an already fragile social structure).

I also gained new insights from how they approach leadership development, learned about critical differences in approaches by peacemakers, humanitarians, and development professionals, and heard from students in the Master of Arts in Social Innovation program. Some said they could not envision developing their ideas and aspirations to make a difference within the business programs they had considered. These were useful insights, and I left San Diego convinced that all of us must work harder to see things differently.

Doing so won’t be easy. Take the typical MBA curriculum, for example. There is little or no room to add new courses, and increasingly learners want programs to be even shorter. Curriculum revision can be a stressful and highly politicized process. But change doesn’t have to require new courses. We can create opportunities for students to see things differently by building more diverse cohorts, using cases studies from different fields (or simply talking about our existing cases differently), and employing simulations and other experiential exercises that call out opportunities to view problems from multiple perspectives.

Sometimes it is just about backing up and taking a bigger, broader view. A long time ago I learned about something called Troxler Fade, which can be demonstrated by staring at a dot in the middle of a circle. If you stare directly at the dot long enough and intently enough, eventually your brain will no longer register the circle. Try it here. Similarly, our narrow focus on organizations and markets can cause us to lose sight of the broader system and miss opportunities for positive change. We want leaders in business (and business schools) who see well beyond their organizations and industries, and address larger systemic issues in ways that strengthen relationships across sectors. As I always say to GBSN member ambassadors, “your job is not just to lead a school, but also to lead an industry.”

At GBSN, our mission, “to improve access to quality, locally relevant management and entrepreneurship education” explicitly recognizes the importance of context and the myriad factors shaping business in any country or region. Our belief is that business education plays an integral role in transforming communities and countries for the common good. To achieve that, we must build programs that enable participants to view business through different lenses and improve the systems in which businesses operate. After all, the form of capitalism is not static. In any country, it is a dynamic ever-changing system.

To see the world differently, we purposefully build events and programs to bring together participants from across disciplines and sectors, as well as across borders. It is also why GBSN believes network strength comes as much from the diversity of its members, as it does from how many members there are and how connected they are with each other.

So, whether it involves building or transforming business education, if our main objective is to foster inclusive and sustainable development, we must do more to embrace different points of view and schools of thought. The market lens may be enough to produce graduates who go to work in the existing system, but it will not be enough to enable and empower graduates who want to change it.

Dan LeClair, CEO

Two New Forces Shaping the Globalization of Management Education

Posted on February 3, 2022February 3, 2022 by gbsn

“Finally, a global business school goes local.” About 15 years ago that was my reply to a reporter when she asked me about a new program by well-known US business school. Funded by an alumnus, the program was to connect MBA student teams to small businesses in the economically distressed neighborhood surrounding school. I tried to explain the subtly of my statement (and that many lesser-known schools had similar programs for many years). Needless to say, I wasn’t quoted in the story.

I’ve thought about that call several times over the last couple of years. Could the covid pandemic cause business schools to pull back from globalization in the long term? After all, internationally mobile students and faculty have always been the lifeblood of globalization in higher education, and both dropped precipitously during the pandemic. At the same time, I’ve seen first-hand how much business schools have been doing for local businesses throughout the pandemic, not only to survive but also to #buildbackbetter.

I don’t think we are seeing the end of globalization. Not at all. In business, I believe the process of globalization will continue marching forward despite the setbacks of recent years. Simply put, there still is too much untapped value. That said, I believe the underlying sources of value have been changing and impacting the way businesses—and business schools—think about globalization. I want to call attention to two such changes that have been particularly important to our work at the Global Business School Network.

Like many other things today, the first change has been driven by advances in technology. In business, globalization has long centered on large multinational companies and their global supply chains. Scale and efficiency were key drivers and technology played an important role. Today, newer technological advances are empowering small and medium-sized businesses to also trade across borders. Relatively new developments, such as smart phones, 3D printing, (exponentially growing) e-commerce platforms, and the emergence of AI, new financial models, and blockchain applications, are leveling the playing field and unlocking the potential of SME’s in a global marketplace.

In addition to educating global supply chain professionals for large corporations, many business schools are focusing on empowering local entrepreneurs and scaling small businesses, helping them to grow by looking beyond their borders for customers and suppliers, navigating the regulations, dealing with cultural differences, and more. Similarly, business scholars are generating new insights to inform these businesses as well as the policies that affect them. Success means more inclusive globalization.

This new globalization requires a different set of approaches. Business schools need to create (and facilitate) new types of international connections, prepare different types of learners with new international experiences, and build new research methods and agendas. Some business schools are going beyond and facilitating access to necessary financial resources and infrastructure, such as more secure Internet and maker labs.

For its part, GBSN is partnering with Deutsche Post DHL to enable and empower SMEs in developing countries for cross-border commerce. In the pilot phase, GBSN has been working with 13 of its member schools to match 25 inaugural GoTrade Fellows to SME leaders in Cameroon, Uganda, Ecuador, and Colombia. The Fellows and SME leaders will participate together in a learning journey, as well as work together to build cross-border trade. Without much publicity, we received 100 applications for the 25 slots!

The second change impacting the globalization of management education is the urgency regarding climate change and social justice, as well as other challenges reflected in the Sustainable Development Goals. As business schools move beyond shareholder primacy to drive action on the SDGs, they’ve begun to think differently about globalization. Only a decade ago, my conversations with deans about globalization were mostly focused narrowly on competitive positioning, revenue generation, and reputation building. When schools partnered with others across borders, it was all about the strategy—it was about collaborating to compete.

By collaborating across borders on climate change (see, for example, Business Schools for Climate Leadership), we can improve our research and increase our influence. By partnering to provide our students with meaningful learning experiences in other countries, we can motivate more of them to pursue careers in government or NGOs. By connecting across sectors, we help our students to take a broader view of the whole system when addressing business challenges.

Today, my conversations about globalization are more often about the positive impact on society.

GBSN is connecting schools from different countries with business and NGOs for collective action on challenging societal issues. For example, we’re partnering with Ecobank Transnational and academic members to empower women-led SMEs in across Africa. We’re working with the Center for International Private Enterprise (CIPE) to improve anti-corruption and compliance training in Indonesia and Nigeria. And we are collaborating with the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN) and World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WCBSD) to build the Demand Generation Alliance to steer consumer preferences towards more nutritious and sustainable foods.

The two changes discussed above are expanding, rather than contracting, the need for global business education and research. From a career development perspective, cross-cultural agility is a skill no longer reserved for the set of graduates who go to work in multinational organizations—or private for-profit organizations for that matter. Business founders need to understand the changing context and emerging opportunities in order to succeed.

We still need student and faculty mobility but are beginning to see it in a different light, as a means to an end rather than the end itself, and to understand how technology can create more value from travel. By leveraging digital platforms to build more internationally inclusive research labs and classrooms we can develop better, more innovations solutions to global challenges—and do it with a smaller carbon footprint.

It’s not the end of globalization we are witnessing, but rather the beginning of a new era, a more responsible one that enables business schools to be a stronger force for good. The new globalization places business schools at the nexus of business, government, and civil society and positions them to play a leadership role in alleviating poverty, taking climate action, improving global health, protecting human rights, and more.

Dan LeClair, CEO

Global Business School Network

A founding member of the Responsible Research in Business and Management (RRBM) initiative, Dan currently participates on its working board. He also serves in an advisory capacity to several organizations and startups in business and higher education. Before AACSB, Dan was a tenured associate professor and associate dean at The University of Tampa.

Dan earned a PhD from the University of Florida writing on game theory.

Connecting Across Sectors for Greater Impact: Welcome to GBSN Beyond

Posted on November 9, 2021November 10, 2021 by gbsn

What does a former President of Malawi have in common with the VP for Talent and Development at Amazon Web Services, former Chief Operational Risk Officer of the World Bank, Head of Human and Child Rights at the Ingka (formerly Ikea) Group, and the VP for Social Impact at Visa CAMEA? They all are keynote speakers at the GBSN Beyond Virtual Conference starting next week. See the full list of remarkable speakers here.

You can see from the agenda that GBSN Beyond is no ordinary conference in the business education space. Speakers come from business, civil society, and government, as well as academia because we believe innovation and impact occurs at the intersection of different perspective and that business schools are much more powerful forces of good when they are connected across sectors. You’ll also see considerable international diversity amongst the speakers, with as many coming from Africa, Asia-Pacific, and South America, as from Europe and the United State. But please don’t be misled by all the diversity. Although they operate in different sectors and geographic contexts, everyone participating in Beyond shares GBSN’s vision for the developing world to have the talent it needs to generate inclusive and sustainable prosperity.

In addition to a large number of sessions exploring the role and impact of business schools, the agenda addresses some of the most challenging issues facing society, especially in areas such as climate, health, and human rights. Conference sessions are organized into clusters in the diagram below, showing that there is something for any business school leader, professor, and student interested in making a difference. And there are a number of networking events and other experiences available on the platform.

Please join us for the event, November 15-17, even it is just for a few sessions. Individual seats are still available and, of course, it is open to everyone—students, faculty, and staff—at institutions that have registered to participate. Register here if you haven’t already.

For GBSN, Beyond is much more than a virtual conference. We started it last year with two major objectives:

to be more inclusive than we could in our regular face-to-face events and
to actually do things that move the needle on our mission “to improve access to quality, locally relevant management and entrepreneurship education for the developing world”

More than 1,000 people representing more than 100 institutions across nearly 40 countries have already registered to participate in this year’s GBSN Beyond. Participants will come from places like Papua New Guinea and Haiti, as well as Nigeria, China, France, Brazil, and the United States.

Regarding action, GBSN Beyond includes a series of experiences across three tracks. The HUMLOG Challenge sponsored by the Hanken School of Economics brings together student teams to improve community disaster resilience. Learn more about the six finalists here. Our Faculty Micro-Simulation Development Lab with Capsim supports teams of professors working together to build micro-simulations for future classroom use everywhere.

Finally, this year with EFMD we have convened the first-ever Going Beyond Awards to engage business schools in reflecting on their community impact. We are in the final judging stages for each of these tracks and invite everyone to check out all the great submissions and celebrate the winners during the awards ceremony on Wednesday, November 17.

GBSN Beyond is also an opportunity to experiment with new ideas for achieving our mission. This year we worked closely with Universidad de Los Andes for an initiative called Race2Imagine. We connected them with Miami-Herbert Business School, Thunderbird-School of Global Management, and the Geneva School of Economics and Management to convene a three-part series of conversations on health, climate, and human rights, respectively. The conversations featured local impact stories by students and faculty, as well as experts on the subjects. Learn more about Race2Imagine here.

Planning the series of events and experiences of GBSN Beyond takes a lot of work and support. We are thankful for the generous support of our fantastic sponsors and a small army of volunteers, including many experts from around the world who served as coaches and judges in our various challenges. And, I can’t say enough about the fantastic GBSN Team who always go Beyond to assist the whole GBSN community to make a positive difference in society.

Dan LeClair, CEO, Global Business School Network

Dan earned a PhD from the University of Florida writing on game theory.

Celebrating the Spirit of GBSN Beyond

Posted on September 27, 2021September 27, 2021 by gbsn

Nine years ago I read about a $150 million gift to start an innovation center at Stanford University. What’s special about an innovation center in Silicon Valley? Well, the gift was specifically to alleviate poverty by creating the Stanford Institute for Innovation for Developing Economies. The institute, known as Stanford Seed, would bring together scholars across the campus but would be housed in Stanford Graduate School of Business.

It makes a lot of sense now. After all, the motto of Stanford GSB is “Change lives. Change organizations. Change the world” and Stanford Seed is now a member of the Global Business School Network (GBSN). But the announcement surprised me at the time and had a major influence on my thinking about business schools. In fact, there have been many such moments throughout my career that contributed to my beliefs and, ultimately, influenced my views about the mission and direction of GBSN.

Sometimes it’s about getting an inside view of what business schools do. It has been a privilege in my career to have daily conversations about the amazing work of leading business schools. I recall my first meeting with the leadership team at Hanken School of Economics and learning for the first time about the school’s global leadership in humanitarian logistics and how important that has been during the covid pandemic. In a recent meeting with the leadership team at Leeds University Business School, I could feel the incredible power of inspiring and enabling an academic staff of over 200 people, and connecting them across disciplines within the school and across institution to address global challenges that can enable business to be more sustainable. I was in a conference room in MIT Sloan’s Global Programs office, when an introduction to MIT REAP transformed my thinking about executive and experiential education, illustrating how innovative such approaches can be and how such programs can impact a whole community and not just an individual or organization.

I’ve learned throughout my career by working closely with schools, experiencing their people, culture, and commitment. My first time in Egypt, in the Moataz Al-Alfi Hall on the new campus of the American University in Cairo, I was struck by the importance and depth of cross-sectoral dialogue in the anniversary business forum I participated in. In another context, I recall meeting Michaela Ranken of Monash Business School for the first time because she traveled from Melbourne to Mumbai to voluntarily contribute to our experiential learning workshop for Indian professors. I remember the unbridled enthusiasm of the remarkable student team from Universidad de Los Andes who took the top prize in our first HUMLOG Challenge.

It’s not just the universities and business schools in the higher education ecosystem. I remember hosting a team from Capsim and having a creative discussion about their Inbox product. I learned from the meeting that we need to take steps to teach and enable, with authoring tools for example, professors to build more interactive experiences for learners.

With more than two decades working in business education globally, I could have listed many more examples. But all of the organizations I highlighted have something in common; they are high-level sponsors of GBSN Beyond. Sure, it is one way to say thank you—to demonstrate our appreciation for “Going Beyond” in their contribution to our mission.

These organizations embody the spirit of GBSN Beyond. They reflect the culture and commitment of GBSN to its mission “to improve access to quality, locally-relevant management and entrepreneurship education.” But as the examples illustrate, the organizations not only embody the spirit of GBSN Beyond, they helped to create it. And they live that spirit—part of their sponsorship commitment enables schools from lower income countries to participate in Beyond.

You see, GBSN Beyond is about breaking boundaries, paving new territory for business education. It’s about the work of business schools across sectors—at nexus of business, government and civil society. It’s about being inclusive of a wide range of schools in the Global South as well as Global North. It means connecting globally to make a positive impact locally.

The spirit of GBSN Beyond is embedded in the core experiences we’re providing. From the student HUMLOG Challenge offered with Hanken to the faculty Microsimulation Development Lab with Capsim. You’ll see the spirit written into the criteria for our Going Beyond Awards, which we’re initiating with EFMD. And you’ll see it in the fantastic program featuring a diverse set of leaders from academia and beyond, including organizations such as Visa, Amazon Web Services, and Deutsche Post DHL to name a few, all addressing our core themes related to advancing climate action, health, human rights, and humanitarian logistics, as well as the transformative role of business schools.

Finally, and most importantly, the spirit of GBSN Beyond is embodied by the participants in GBSN. We already have nearly 60 schools from more than 30 countries signed up to engage their students, faculty, and leaders in the core experiences and virtual conference. They are the stars of Beyond, creating new insights and solutions, building bridges across borders and sectors and disciplines.

If GBSN Beyond reflects the purpose and spirit of your school, we would love to have you. Register here. If, like the schools mentioned above, send me a message.

Dan LeClair, CEO

Dan LeClair is CEO of the Global Business School Network (GBSN). Widely recognized as a thought leader in management education, Dan is the author of over 80 research reports, articles, and blogs, and has delivered more than 170 presentations in 30 countries. As a lead spokesperson for reform and innovation in management education, Dan has been frequently cited in a wide range of US and international newspapers, magazines, and professional publications, including the Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, New York Times, China Daily, Forbes, Fast Company, and The Economist.

Students and GBSN: A Powerful Force for Sustainable Development

Posted on May 19, 2021May 22, 2021 by gbsn

Over the last five weeks, 56 student teams from 32 schools across 15 countries participated in our inaugural Africa Business Concept Challenge, sponsored by Stanford Seed and AACSB and supported by Peaqs, emlyon business school, Localized, and Afrilabs. It wasn’t our first student competition. Last fall 113 teams from 38 schools across 21 countries worked on local medical and food supply chain problems in the Humanitarian Logistics (HUMLOG) Challenge we offered in partnership with Hanken School of Economics.

GBSN student challenges are designed to provide meaningful educational experiences for learners, as well as crowdsource viable solutions to economic and social problems. We believe business students are a powerful force for sustainable development, just like faculty and administrative leaders; and our challenges help them to convert ideas to business opportunities and sharpen their skills at the same time. The challenges complement the experiential learning activities already offered by GBSN business schools and are entirely consistent with our mission “to improve access to quality, locally-relevant management and entrepreneurship education in the developing world.”

We have learned a lot from the student experiences. I can tell you, for example, that the competitions have been difficult to plan and execute, especially given our commitment to international participation and building a robust community of support. In addition to the students, the Africa Challenge also involved local mentors for the teams and an international group of investor experts led by emlyon professor, Rickie Moore. It also included an eight-person international judging panel and seven staff members working across GBSN and two digital platforms.

“I can also tell you that we love working with students. They are enthusiastic, creative, professional, and anxious to develop international relationships.”

My younger staff colleagues have been especially happy with the students and will do anything to empower and support them—to help them to develop, make connections, and make a difference in society. I should note that our student engagement efforts extend beyond business schools, as many of the teams have included of students from other disciplines, such as engineering and technology.

We are leveraging our initial experience to scale and innovate. This year’s HUMLOG Challenge will focus on community disaster resilience, offer opportunities to students to earn a micro-credential, and encourage international collaboration. We are also in early stages of partnership development for additional regional challenges and two major global challenges in 2022 and 2023.

Student Programs

Our student programs go beyond challenges. For GBSN member schools we also provide students with access to career development support through our partnership with Localized, a DC-based company that started with a vision to connect local learners in the MENA region with successful diaspora. We are also building out two programs with our newest corporate member, Deutsche Post DHL, one program for MBA students and one for undergraduate students. We also have plans to engage business students in a range of sustainability-oriented projects, such as developing campaigns that shape the demand for more nutritious and sustainable foods, and effort we’re co-convening with the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN) and the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD).

Although student programs are just one piece of what we do to foster economic and social development, we are excited about the growing portfolio and how well it complements the work we do with faculty and administrative leaders. Please don’t hesitate to contact me if you would like to explore how your students can engage in GBSN’s mission.

Dan LeClair

Full Bio

Business Education and the Inevitable Change

Posted on April 14, 2021April 19, 2021 by gbsn

This editorial was originally published in the Council on Business and Society‘s latest issue of the Global Voice magazine, Walk On, Issue #17.

The Global Voice Magazine

The Council on Business & Society’s quarterly and special issue magazine. The publication features research-based and opinion-piece articles made readable for the student, practitioner and instructor on business and society, management and leadership, sustainability, entrepreneurship and social entrepreneurship, CSR, green finance and social and environmental reporting.

Just like in business, in business education the winds of change are always blowing. Unlike business, however, these winds usually seem to pass without significantly impacting the industry. In recent years, however, the pressures have been mounting. And the Covid-19 pandemic has spread the view that profound change is inevitable.

What fate awaits incumbent business schools in this future? Broadly speaking, there are two different scenarios. The first one involves a massive disruption, in which the bulk of traditional business schools are rendered obsolete by new kinds of providers, which bring specialized, up-to-date knowledge at much lower costs and with a global reach. In one version of this scenario, degrees are broken down into micro-certifications, customized to particular job profiles and employers’ expectations. The other, less dramatic, scenario echoes the famous line in Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa’s. The Leopard, “If we want everything to stay as it is, everything has to change.”

Business schools will keep up with the times and survive with some minor adaptations, like drafting new missions, doing some nice seminars, and perhaps launching some well-intentioned programs. In the end, incumbent business schools will occupy a shrinking portion of the growing market for management education and development.

We believe both scenarios are unlikely for two reasons. The first reason is the business school model itself, which is a curious combination of academic rigor and business flexibility. Many people think that a commitment to scholarly values and the ability to adapt are incompatible, and thus the former represents the greatest weakness of business schools in a changing world. Yet, this model has stood the test of time. Only business schools have managed to articulate research (i.e. the search for truth) with education (i.e. the dissemination of truth). No other organization attempts this delicate balance, nor has the capacity or incentive to do so.

Even while sticking to their scholarly roots, business schools have been remarkably adaptable over time. They have reinvented programs, pioneered pedagogies, invested in enabling technologies, built value-creating collaborations, and developed new markets. The wide variety of circumstances faced by schools, have given rise to a remarkably diverse set of opportunities and responses. Every school has its own situation, its own set of resources, its own challenges. And each school must find its own way. The second reason why the both scenarios are unlikely is that education technology is not the only driver of change, or even the most important one. We believe instead that the most significant development in business education is on the demand side. Simply put, the world is expecting more from business schools—to go beyond business to help address the most complex, important challenges of society. There are mounting social pressures for business schools to create more positive social impact, locally, regionally, and globally.

At the same time business schools embrace the incredible opportunities, they must also address the challenges. Making a bigger difference in society will require profound changes across many dimensions, including curriculum foundations, faculty disciplines, program offerings, community engagement activities, funding mechanisms, and faculty models. To be clear, we see academic independence and rigor as key strengths for business schools in this transformation, but the methods and metrics must evolve to align with the shifting purpose. In this context, technology is viewed more as enabler than a disruptor. It provides new tools for improving research, personalizing education, simulating practice, and more. It steers and supports the industry towards collaboration.

Business schools will leverage their core strengths and working with each other, and with online providers and other players, such a consulting companies, to serve new markets, especially in the continuing education space. Other parts of the business education ecosystem, such as rankings, assessments, and accreditation, will also change in order to support business schools in their new role.
In the end, we believe this is indeed a pivotal moment in the history of business education. But it is hardly the end of business schools. It is the rebirth of business schools, nay each business school, in the context of society.

Download Global Voice Magazine, Walk on, Issue #17

Dan LeClair is the CEO of the Global Business School Network. Prior to GBSN, Dan was an Executive Vice President at AACSB International. Widely recognized as a thought leader in management education, Dan is the author of over 80 research reports, articles, and blogs, and has delivered more than 170 presentations in 30 countries.

Adrian Zicari is a Professor in CSR & Performance at ESSEC Business School; Executive Director at the Council on Business and Society and Honorary representative for Buenos Aires city in Paris. My Google Scholar: http://bit.do/eTkWi

GBSN Highlights from 2020 and Looking Ahead to 2021

Posted on December 7, 2020December 9, 2020 by gbsn

We held our annual Members Meeting last Thursday, 3 December, with more than 50 participants from 30 countries. As with anything that GBSN does, the meeting was designed to be interactive and thought provoking. The agenda included a pre-meeting for Asian members, two networking breakout groups, an insightful presentation on “Skill, Reskill and Upskill – The Future of the Business School” by Andrew Crisp co-founder of CarringtonCrisp, and an enlightening visioning exercise led by Sanjeev Khagram, Director General and Dean at Thunderbird School of Global Management.

The Annual Members Meeting also provides a moment to reflect on the work of GBSN and look forward. One of my colleagues, Nicole Zefran, and I took a little time to speak about highlights from current year and plans as we move into the next one. We would prefer to look further ahead, perhaps 3-5 years, but nowadays that seems like an especially long time. This blog summarizes our presentation.

Our presentation was framed by GBSN’s strategic direction, which we introduced at last year’s meeting hosted by Nova SBE on their spectacular campus overlooking the sea in Carcavelos, Portugal. In short, we are building on GBSN’s extraordinary history as a “project-driven development organization” to become a “purpose-driven network organization.” Four sets of initiatives are driving this transformation.

Strengthening the network through size, diversity, and connectivity

The network is our most valuable asset and we have and will continue to invest in developing it. Network strength comes partly from size and we are excited about the growing interest worldwide in joining the GBSN community to pursue its mission. In addition to size, strength also comes from diversity. This year’s additions to GBSN come from India, France, China, Canada, Japan, Sweden, Switzerland, Netherlands, Australia, Colombia, Ghana, Morocco, Malaysia, and the United States.

There were many firsts in the group, including first members from Japan (NUCB Business School) and Malaysia (Asia School of Business), and our first corporate member (Ecobank Academy). Three of the new member schools are relatively young and will work together with our support to accelerate development. Finally, we are excited about engaging the US-based Western Governors University to learn from their pioneering work in competency-based learning.

A large family doesn’t have much power if nobody talks to each other. Likewise, to achieve our vision we must continuously expand and reinforce the connections between schools and people in the network. Our objective is a network that connects together like Velcro, with multiple hooks and loops between organizations. This year we launched our member portal to support member interactions with each other and with GBSN. While we have long way to go, these efforts are off to a great start.

2. Building programs that engage students, faculty, and administrative leaders

A strong network offers (and is reinforced by) programs that engage members—their students, faculty, and administrative leaders. For GBSN, these programs are designed to simultaneously create learning and positively impact our society in line with our mission. That is, our programs should be engaging experiences, relevant to sustainable development, and impactful.

This year, for example, we offered our first international student team competition. We built the HUMLOG Challenge with the Hanken School of Economics’ Humanitarian Logistics and Supply Chain Research Institute. More than 400 students formed 120 teams representing schools that span six continents registered to consider local medical or food supply chain problems and offer feasible solutions. The winning team offered a water supply chain solution in La Guajira, Colombia and represents Universidad de Los Andes School of Management. The second place team came from WU – Vienna University of Economics and Business in Austria and the third place team came from the Bauer College of Business at the University of Houston.

The initial experience was so successful that we are working on our next competition. It will focus on Africa and be offered in partnership with Peaqs, an innovative learning platform that combines a project development process with a virtual stock market engine for peer feedback. Please let us know if your school is interested in being involved and supportive. Also in 2021, we are working on plans to supplement the experiential learning programs of member schools through partnerships with a couple of very large international companies. More on these programs to come.

For faculty, this year we’re completing our first experience with a small grant program initiative. GBSN and the SWIFT Institute partnered to support the development of three case studies looking at cybersecurity and wholesale banking in emerging economies. A team from Chandaria School of Business at United States International University in Kenya won the grant and have submitted the final cases. We also ran our first Faculty Simulation Lab in partnership with Capsim to develop regionally-relevant microsimulations to drive meaningful education in the developing world. Congratulations to the team form Ashesi University in Ghana for winning first prize for their simulation on “Ethics in International Mining.”

This year we launched Cross-Border Collabs for administrative leaders at GBSN member institutions. The meetings happen on the first Thursday of every month. The idea is to bring our community together on specific topics and, most importantly, create opportunities for leaders to connect with peers globally. We are currently building the agenda for 2021 and, as always, will curate the most important topics through conversations with members.

Collabs work hand-in-hand with our learning communities. This year we quietly piloted this initiative with help from Lancaster University Management School (LUMS) to build a community of Entrepreneurs-in-Residence programs, starting with schools in the US, Brazil, Ghana, Egypt, and India, as well as the UK. The objectives are to exchange best practices, share resources, and facilitate collective action for sustainable development. Interest in forming learning communities is already growing, with new ones emerging in human rights, sustainable energy, healthcare, and community-engaged learning.

3. Becoming a thought leader for role of business schools in sustainable development

To achieve its mission, GBSN must assert a thought leadership role as it relates to inclusive and sustainable development. This means helping business schools to find their way in a changing environment while expanding their positive impact on society, especially in emerging economies. This year, GBSN took a big step in that direction by being quick to introduce a webinar series to help schools to cope with COVID-19. For example, our webinar series on the subject generated more than 3000 participants in April and May, 2020. And our continuing interview series on the World After Covid has generated many useful insights for schools.

In conjunction with leaders track of GBSN Beyond and with valuable support from GMAC® and CarringtonCrisp, we ran leadership roundtables on the future of experiential learning (led by Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth, Asia School of Business, UNC Kenan Flagler, University of Illinois, MIT Sloan, and George Washington University), role of business schools in building more inclusive societies (led by Fundação Dom Cabral and University of Stellenbosch), and entrepreneurship ecosystems and business schools (led by INSEAD and MIT Sloan). The final reports are now available to the public.

GBSN was also pleased to contribute to “The Case for Human Rights in Business Education—A Tool Kit” and encourage business schools everywhere to consider adopting its recommendations. Look for GBSN to continue supporting this initiative being led by the Centers for Business and Human Rights at NYU Stern and at the Geneva School Economics and Management.

In the first quarter of 2021, GBSN and Ecobank Academy will convene the Talent for Africa Forum. In this unique, virtual forum, speakers will focus on the future that Africa wants and the power of its people to achieve it. The Forum highlights the importance of leadership, management, and entrepreneurship across sectors and across the continent, and aims to explore the challenges of building education and development capacity and aligning it with the needs of a rapidly changing continent.

4. Expanding our project work

Prior to 2019 we achieved our mission primarily through project work, which typically involves external funding over a finite horizon to build management education capacity, expand education to underserved communities, and the like. These projects were challenging and impactful, and we did many of them over the years with help from a network of the best business schools in the world. By strengthening that network, especially the multi-sectoral partners, we have been increasing our capacity to do such projects. We have three projects in the works for 2021.

First, we initiated a project to build a mobile (smart phone) version of the highly-successful Management Development Institute (MDI) program supported by Johnson & Johnson, which has provided leadership and management residential training for front-line health care workers since 2006. The main objectives of the project are to build on the legacy of MDI, while expanding access to it for nurses and midwives and increasing its relevance to national health plans as well as learners. Ongoing MDI trainings would thus be more accessible, resilient, and adaptable to evolving national health plans. Potential partners for this project include the World Continuing Education Alliance, Amref, Lagos Business School, Groupe ISM, University of Cape Town, and Nova SBE.

Second, we have been mapping out a collaboration with the Center for International Private Enterprise (CIPE) on a project to improve understanding of how corporate anti-corruption training impacts companies that implement anti-corruption initiatives, to harness the research of business schools around the globe in developing anti-corruption programs, and to provide feedback that will refine CIPE’s anti-corruption program design and development.

Finally, GBSN has been working on an initiative with the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN) and the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) to convene stakeholders across sectors to drive action in the enabling environment—one that delivers the vision of people globally desiring and choosing nutritious and sustainable foods.

In our report, we also talked about and introduced the hard-working, dedicated staff team and spent some time unpacking GBSN Beyond, our hugely successful reimagination of our annual global conference. The event proved to be a great platform to introduce several of the initiatives described above. Overall, we have continued to move forward methodically with our transformation and increasing the positive impact of our network.

Needless to say, 2020 has been a challenging year everywhere. Throughout the pandemic, however, I have seen business schools step up to support their communities, innovate to solve seemingly intractable problems, take a lead role in providing credible information, and more. We are especially proud of our member schools for continuing to put in the time and energy to make a difference in and for the developing world. We have been proud to amplify that difference. Serving the GBSN community and working with such a dedicated team has been an honor and pleasure for me personally. It has been hard work, as it should be. But at the moment there is no place I’d rather be. We have so much good to do together. I’m looking forward to 2021.

Redefining the Boundaries of Business Education

Posted on October 7, 2020October 7, 2020 by gbsn

Boundaries are everywhere in business education. They inform business scholars about which journals they are supposed to publish in for tenure and promotion. Boundaries help us to neatly organize degree programs into categories, such as MBAs and specialized masters, based on objective criteria. Boundaries can be physical; it is not uncommon for university-based business schools to be physically separated from the main campus.

At AACSB, where I worked for 19 years, determining the “scope of review” (what’s included and not) is the first step in the accreditation process. It makes sense. Before beginning the accreditation journey, we have to decide what to evaluate and the unit to which accreditation applies. And because all business programs at the institution, regardless of whether they are in “the business school,” are included by default, this gives business school deans extraordinary power to keep business and management programs from springing up in other parts of the institution. This boundary-setting leverage has always been part of the value proposition for AACSB accreditation.

But the environment has changed. Our traditional boundaries have become less helpful. They supported a focus on quality improvement, but are hindering efforts for impact leadership. Quality is about rules and rubrics. Impact is about creativity and collaboration.

It is time to lift our aspirations in business education. Instead of addressing business problems in the context of society, we should address societal problems in the context of business. We must take down the walls between disciplines and between academia and practice. We should embrace diversity and take a lead role in building interdisciplinary teams to address societal challenges. In schools we should engage in collective actions for common good, as much as competitive ones for individual benefit.

About five years ago, I proposed “breaking the rules” as the theme for a large gathering of deans. My suggestion was rightfully rejected since business schools were being questioned about their efforts to build ethical organizations and leaders. But the basic idea has only come into sharper focus. It is reflected in our work at the Global Business School Network. For example, GBSN Beyond—a value-creating reimagination of our flagship annual conference—is breaking boundaries by inviting business students and faculty as well as administrators to participate.

The first line in the description of GBSN Beyond is:

Motivated to address the most pressing needs of society and enabled by digital innovation, business schools have been redefining the boundaries of their work.

It is time to celebrate and support the pioneers, non-conformists, and boundary spanners who are breaking the rules and pushing out the boundaries of business education. The new boundaries won’t be rigid; they will be fluid and ever changing, reflecting the dynamic world that business schools serve.

That’s why we’ve been encouraging students to form interdisciplinary teams in our humanitarian logistics (HUMLOG) challenge. It’s why the whole university is invited to participate when the business school registers for GBSN Beyond. It is why we are running roundtables on building inclusive societies and entrepreneurial ecosystems and not just on fundraising and differentiating MBA programs. It is why we’re addressing climate change and inequality in our keynote sessions.

Already more than 1,000 students, faculty, and leaders from over 80 leading business schools and 40 countries have registered to join us for GBSN Beyond. And the numbers are growing as we experience, connect, and learn through roundtables, workshops, competitions, and more, all leading up to the culminating virtual conference from November 9^th through the 13^th.