Santiago Iniguez - Dean IE Business School

The Passion for Education

Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.

William Butler Yeats

Tags(clickable): Quotes, yeats

“Is There Anything New Under The Sun?”

"There is nothing new under the sun", says the common dictum of the Bible, but the Sun keeps moving very quickly, I would add. Those were my first words at EFMD’s Deans conference yesterday in Rotterdam. The conference was attended by over 225 deans from all continents, very nicely hosted by Rotterdam School of Management and splendidly supported by EFMD’s staff.

Thank you Mr. Harrison

The Quest for Earnesty http://danielmarkharrison.blogs.com/my_weblog/2006/01/the_quest_for_e.html

Perennial values of education

1. "University should be a place of light, of knowledge and of liberty"

(Speech, House of Commons, March 11th, 1873)

2. "Upon education of the people of this country the fate of this country depends"
(Ib., House of Commons, June 15th, 1874) 

Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of Beaconsfield (1804-1881)

We live blended lives.

This week’s issues of The Economist and Fortune dedicate respective articles about the current challenges posed by the digital world to the media industry. We are going towards a business world where "what you supply matters far more than how you supply it" a world with "an abundance of virtually costless ways to supply consumers with what they want to watch, whenever they want it", in the words of The Economist.

Business and adaptation?

It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change."

Charles Darwin (1809 - 1882)

Tags(clickable): Quotes, Darwin

Genius and Work

An Homage to W.A.Mozart on the 250 Anniversary of His Birth

People make a mistake who think my art has come easily to me. Nobody has devoted so much time and thought to composition as I. There is not a famous master whose music I have not studied over and over."

(attributed to W.A. Mozart)

Tags(clickable): Quotes, Mozart, Genius, Work

A Community of Constructive Criticism

One of those precious occasions that academics value and enjoy most is when they are lucky to find sharp and intelligent critics. Acute and smart criticism is what has fostered the progress of human thinking in all fields from philosophy to the sciences and the arts. Criticising and questioning lies also at the basis of the methodology used at the fundamental stages of professional academic life, such as the defence of PhD dissertations or the publication of papers and books.

Ronald Dworkin, a renowned philosopher who I was fortunate to have as tutor during my doctoral years -and whose work was the object of my dissertation-, used to say that he considered himself an extremely lucky person because he had many detractors. He even recognised that his most productive work were his replies to critics (1). Certainly, his publications had an apologetic character and he built up his law theory on the basis of comments, criticisms, replies and refutations. He was praised -and at the same time rejected- for making philosophy a profitable task, due to the many papers, articles and books published by and about him. Indeed, Dworkin was, and still is, a controversial and prolific academic example (a recent contribution), two attributes that I really admire.

Tags(clickable): Ronald Dworkin, Web2.0, MBA, Business School

Not Bosses but Leaders

You can be appointed a manager, but you are not a leader until your appointment is ratified in the hearts and minds of those who work with you".

John Adair, from his book "Not Bosses but Leaders", 1987.

(Does this still apply in 2006; or did it ever apply?)

Tags(clickable): John Adair, Quotes

Mistakes

When people make mistakes, the last thing they need is discipline. It's time for encouragement and confidence building. The job at this point is to restore self-confidence. I think "piling on" when someone is down is one of the worst things any of us can do"

Jack Welch: “Jack: Straight From The Gut” (with John A. Byrne; Warner Books, 2001; p.29)

Tags(clickable): Jack Welch, Quotes

A Brave New World for Management Education

Next week, coinciding with the Davos Forum, will take place the EFMD Deans & Directors Annual Conference.

This is an annual event that gathers the largest international representation of business school deans. On this occasion the host is the Rotterdam School of Management (Erasmus University, Netherlands). Certainly, it is an conference that should not be missed by the chief executives of management education institutions.

This year, the theme of the conference is "Facing Strategic Options". The rationale behind this theme is that strategy is about choosing between the different available options and rejecting those opportunities that are not consistent with each business school’s mission and resources. This topic was discussed previously in an exchange between Peter Lorange, President of IMD, and I in this blog.

I have the honour of speaking at the opening plenary session of the conference jointly with my colleague Ted Snyder, Dean of the Chicago Graduate School of Management. We will be talking about what choices are available for business schools in an increasingly global education sector. The major tenet of my presentation is that management education is changing in terms of its business model, not undergoing a change of cycle. This, I believe, has decisive consequences for the strategies of business schools and for the decisions that deans have to make in the future.

Tags(clickable): EFMD, RSM, GSM, Business School

Online Education

Knowledge becomes obsolete incredibly fast. The continuing professional education of adults is the No. 1 industry in the next 30 years … mostly on line."

- Peter Drucker (1909-2005), Business 2.0 (22th August 2000)

The relationship between ethical programs and higher profits at companies

I agree with Dean Danos with the need to contemplate CSR (corporate social responsibility) in the context of the complexity of contemporary corporations and their environments. This sophisticated approach needs to take into account many dimensions, but basically the “rightness” of managerial decisions from the perspective of the individual –the executive who takes a singular decision- as well as the adequacy of its potential impact and effects. In addition, it seems that the cultural dimension is also very relevant.

Let me refer to an article written by Thomas Donaldson, Professor of Legal Studies at Wharton, first published by the Financial Times and subsequently by Wharton at knowledge some years ago. It is a very good compendium of the state of the art of CSR at business schools and the reasons behind its élan.

The article refers to a study developed by the Conference Board, in 1999. According to this report

Tags(clickable): Corporate Social Responsibility, Morals, business school, management education

Does Corporate Responsibility Pay Its Dividends?(1)

Approaches to Corporate Social Responsibility.

A recurrent debate today is whether there exists a causal relationship between economic growth and the practice of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). If the answer to this question is inthe affirmative, a second question raised promptly is: which is the cause and which the effect. There may be different answers to both questions.

Some people believe in the idea of "Moral Progress", which supports that, in line with the evolution of knowledge, technology and social institutions over time, human beings have experienced a parallel progress in morals. Today, for example, most countries are signatories of human rights’ conventions, something that could not have been imaginable two centuries ago. The idea of "moral progress" entails that evolution and growth results in wealth, better standards of living and, consequently, brings higher grounds of liberty, recognition of rights and fairer social schemes than before. According to this perspective, social justice presupposes some prior economic growth: poor countries should first get richer and then think about justice and rights since the other way round does not work. This conception could be named as the "Libertarian" approach. The direct application of this approach to corporate social responsibility (CSR) is sharp: a company can only afford the duties of CSR if it generates enough profits and serves it shareholders. A good exponent of this conception is Milton Friedman who stated that "the social responsibility of business is to increase its profits".

Tags(clickable): CSR,  Corporate Social Responsibility, Morals, business school, management education