Santiago Iniguez - Dean IE Business School

"College blogs tell it like it is"

Enrique Dans one of the leading bloggers in Spain (178th in World says BlogPulse) and who also happens to be a professor at IE Business School, started yesterday a much commented-on debate in his blog, in Spanish, commenting on an article of The Boston Globe: "College blogs tell it like it is". He shares his perspective gained from a extensive experience of blogging and of academia, i.e. principally the need for openness and freedom of speech. He says "Censure is always counterproductive" and that over the years he has never pressured a student to create a blog using the school's own blogging platform. Juan Freire, Professor at the University of Corunna, had written earlier about this article in his blog.

Here are perhaps the more interesting lines from the Boston Globe article:

.."Most schools choose their bloggers carefully. Some are  campus tour guides, some come recommended by faculty"...

..."Blogs by school officials are more common, but the undergrad uate  blogs appear to be catching up"...

... "has become one of the hottest trends in college admissions"...

..."One-quarter of all college admissions offices offer blogs written by students or admissions personnel, according to a forthcoming study from the National Association for College Admission Counseling"...

The Academia and The Agora

One of the readings I selected for my Easter break this year is “Point to Point Navigation”, the second issue of Gore Vidal’s Memoirs. I always enjoyed his iconoclastic and refined writings, particularly “Palimpsest”, a work that exhales the spirit of his cosmopolitan life and intense experiences. The second instalment of Vidal’s self-biography does not fall short from its antecedent. In line with his innate irreverence, one of the favourite targets of Vidal’s essays and articles is, again, the deeply entrenched prejudices held by some academics, as shown in a passage taken from the first chapter: 

“Contrary to what many believe, literary fame has nothing to do with excellence or true glory or even with a writer’s position in the syllabus of a university’s English Department, itself as remote to the Agora as Academe’s shadowy walk. For any artist, fame is the extent to which the Agora finds interesting his latest work. If what he has written is known only to a few of other practitioners, or to enthusiasts (…) then the artist is not only not famous, he is irrelevant to his time, the only time he has”.

Let me refer to the two classic Greek words used by Vidal, Agora and Academia, which mean, respectively, the place for doing business and the place for educational activities. Interestingly, in ancient Athens the Agora and the Academia were located quite close to each other on one of the sides of the Acropolis. This proximity facilitated the interaction between academics and business people, as evidenced in many intellectual contributions of that time. It seems there was no separation between thinkers and managers but they rather belonged to the same genre: educators believed that their activity should deal with the problems of political and social life.

However, things changed dramatically in the Middle Ages, when monasteries became the exclusive loci for developing and transmitting knowledge, the true reservoirs of all existing knowledge. Monasteries, though, were closed places, separated from the rest of the community, and monks socialised only occasionally with their fellow citizens. This probably influenced the way knowledge was then conceived and developed, normally as a diverse activity from mundane practices and, at most, only linked to the reduced number of activities developed at the monastery’s pharmacy or garden. This resulted in a progressive separation between the generation and the application of knowledge, a gap that is reflected, for example, in the common principle adopted by many priors: “Ora et Labora” (Pray and Work), intended as a rule to counteract the isolation of monks, since they spent too much time at church but very little working the orchards.

Actually, monasteries were the predecessors of modern universities, and many aspects of the former traditions, practices and culture are still embedded in today’s higher education institutions. In fact, one of the recurrent criticisms addressed to some universities is their distance from the real world, the focus mainly on rigour but the disdain towards relevance. Is it time to bring the Agora and the Academia closer, in line with Vidal’s claim? I believe it is, and business schools can play a leading role here.       

Professional Experience vs. Potential Talent in MBAs

Traditionally, the MBA has been regarded as a post work-experience programme, meaning that its participants should have some relevant professional-experience as an entry requirement. Since it is debatable what should be understood as “relevant experience”, the easiest way to agree on a threshold is to take the length of the applicant’s working years. For example, EQUIS (European Quality Link) Guidelines on MBA programmes establish that the previous professional experience of MBA candidates should normally be at least two years. AMBA (The Association of MBAs) has a more sophisticated system since, though it requires an average two-year professional experience in a given MBA class, it allows a significant percentage of participants with less or even no experience (up to 15%).

The requirement of working experience for those who apply to an MBA programme is based on the supposition that, since MBA programmes have very interactive methodologies –e.g., case studies, role-playing- a substantial part of the learning has as its main source, fellow participants. It is often said that, when using interactive learning methods, the role of the professor resembles that of an orchestra conductor or facilitator of sessions, rather than the lecturer role typical of traditional classes.

Recently, however, the requirement of previous professional experience is under question. Many b-schools –including some of the top ranked by the Financial Times - have wondered whether professional experience could be waived if the MBA candidate has some other significant talents or in order to increase the class’ diversity, for example in terms of gender or international participants. In addition, a further vector of diversity is age itself: doesn´t it enchance the learning experience to have participants with different levels of professional experience, even belonging to different generations, in order to replicate what actually happens at work in real life? A very interesting post on this issue was published last week in this blog.

Indeed, the more diverse an MBA class is, the more enriching is the learning experience. True, sameness of participants–in terms of culture, business knowledge, experience, views of the world and age- may provide a tranquil setting that makes participants feel comfortable and achieve learning objectives in a very orderly way. However, the objective of MBA is to prepare its students to lead companies in a complex and diverse world and thus experience should prevail over the mere accumulation of knowledge.

MBA programmes are living educational offerings, and their entry requirements should change according to the evolution of circumstances. Maybe it’s time to reconsider the traditional view on the values of professional experience and allow more room for young, talented, participants with high potential.

Value Convergence in Multicultural MBA Classes

In his interesting and entertaining book "The Geography of Thought", Richard E. Nisbett explains that "human cognition is not everywhere the same (…) First, that members of different cultures differ in their ‘metaphysics’ or fundamental beliefs about the nature of the world. Second, that the characteristic thought processes of different groups differ greatly. Third, that the thought processes are of a piece with beliefs about the nature of the world: People use the cognitive tools that seem to make sense –given the sense they make of the world." He also adds that the "differences in people’s attitudes and beliefs, and even their values and preferences, might not be a matter merely of different inputs and teachings, but rather an inevitable consequence of using different tools to understand the world". He then jumps into a conclusion that may not be very promising for educators: "if that’s true, then efforts to improve international understanding may be less likely to pay off than one might hope". The remaining core part of his book is devoted to describe what are the main differences between the two major approaches to the world: the Western and the Eastern.

However, the reality of multicultural MBA classes at many internationally-oriented business schools demonstrates more encouraging facts. At my school, for example, MBA participants from many diverse cultures engage in active debate about culturally sensitive issues –like corporate responsibility or ethics- and they not only use similar paradigms of thought in their analysis, but even reach the same conclusions. In an analogous way as to how musicians from different cultural backgrounds can play a piece of Mozart following the same standards, students with different views about the world can apply the same principles and pursue a common line of reasoning to take managerial decisions. Obviously, this does not entail uniformity, and the questions discussed in class do not have "a priori" solutions, but our experience reveals that the differing cultural views of students enrich the debate and do not preclude sharing the same ground of understanding and the arrival at similar decisions.

Taking into account this tension between diversity and cognitive convergence in multicultural MBA classes, I wonder what should be the desired methodological attitude adopted by business school educators. Should they suppose that world economic and political systems, and consequently values, are converging, in line with the thesis defended by Francis Fukuyama a decade ago, or should they believe that the world is deriving towards a "clash of civilisations", according to the vision of Samuel Huntington, who predicts continued difference of values across the board? I support the view of Shinobu Kitayama, quoted in Nisbett’s book, that there is "evidence that cognitive processes could be modified even after relatively limited amounts of time spent in another culture". Our school’s experience tells that the multicultural exposure of participants in the MBA programme, through the development of other cultures’ knowledge, facilitates convergence and mutual understanding. At the same time, business is a subject that naturally promotes common understanding and convergence among its cultivators. Let me recall one of my favourite maxims: good business is the best antidote to bad politics.

Diversity and Cultural Lightness in Canada

Montreal is a crucible of cultures and a showcase of diversity, a city rich in educational offerings, home of some of the best universities in North America. At the end of my  visit, on occasion of the Canadian’s business schools’ conference (CFBSD), I would like to share some impressions from my different meetings with faculty, alumni of my school and friends, but I will start with some forceful and illustrative quotes from “Towards a Canada of Light” (Thomas Allen Publishers, Toronto 2006), a lucid book by Bruce W. Powe, professor of English at York University and recognised Canadian author. He explains that his book is his personal "homage to Canada, a perpetually unfinished book for a country that refuses to make sense to anyone: an evolving book (different in every appearance) to evoke the counter –country that can’t and won’t freeze into one mask" (p. 8).

The cultural frictions existing in Canada contribute, in Powe’s opinion, to generate the particular mosaic identity of the country, in a similar way as to how electricity results from the reaction between contrarian poles, to project a bearable lightness of spirit that comprises many complementary visions, as opposed to other communities where there is identity of political and cultural credos –in fact, Powe traces parallelisms mainly between Canada and the US. In Canada, he explains, "the flashpoints of friction often appear between Quebec and the rest of the country, between the old nation-state with its own borderlines and the new open state process (…) between evolutionary Canada and the revolutionary American empire. What do I mean by evolutionary? A culture and civilisation in perpetual, mostly peaceful metamorphosis" (p. 27). In fact, the cultural mosaic portrayed by Powe is a common phenomenon in Europe, and even inside some European countries. Belgium, Great Britain, Italy and Spain are just some countries where different languages and traditions –even nations, according to some- coexist in a peaceful but dialectic way, projecting an electrifying cultural radiance. The recognition of this diversity is at the basis of most European institutions and a source of both attraction and conflict, but the balance is positive.

The impact of cultural differences in management education did also arise at the meeting of Canadian deans that I just attended. However, CFBSD is one of the most cohesive association of business schools that I know. Beyond diversity, there is a common agenda and a shared spirit in most major issues. Interestingly, my impression is that there are probably more similar features between Canadian and European business schools than with US based institutions. Those similarities include aspects related to income structure, governance, faculty profile and programme portfolio, among others (incidentally, many Canadian universities have a "full-service" programme offerings, from undergraduate to executive education programmes). At the same time, Canadian business schools vary significantly among them, being mainly concentrated in three major locations: Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver. Overall, the performance of Canadian management education centres in recent years is remarkable, given the increasing attraction of foreign students to the country and the relevant position of some of its leading schools in different international rankings.

Chapeau for the diversity and the attractiveness of Quebec’s educational offerings in management education! As Powe says in his referred book, "Quebec and Canada need each other because Quebec provides flashes of challenge, a current of passion, while Canada provides fields, a larger frame for that passion" (p.28)

Share this article:

My visit to the Canadian Dean’s Conference in Montreal

I read in today’s edition of The Globe and Mail, Canada’s leading newspaper, an article by Virginia Galt on "feedforward", a concept launched by Marshall Goldsmith, a California-based executive coach, intended as an alternative practice to the classical "feedback". The philosophy of this new practice is that it is better to focus on doing things better in the future than in talking about the past. "In theory, constructive feedback is supposed to focus on the performance, not on the person. In practice, however, almost all feedback is taken personally, no matter how it is delivered. The beauty of feedforward is that it cannot be construed as criticism because it focuses on something that has not yet happened". Indeed, an interesting contribution which is actually in line what some scholars are already teaching, like Fernando Bartolome, professor of organisational behaviour at my school and previous contributor to this blog.

I am currently in Montreal, attending at HEC Montreal the autumn conference of the Canadian Federation of Business School’s Deans (CFBSD) . I have been kindly invited by Tim Daus to talk about the  Bologna Process and its potential implications in Canadian management education. Interestingly, after the first day of meetings my impression is that the main topics raised by participants at the conference are very similar to those discussed at other similar regional conventions, evidence that management education is becoming irreversibly global. Those topics include the increasing competition for market share and potential funds, the scarcity of management professors, the nature of research at b-schools and the need to reinvent our programmes in order to develop –using Dan Muzyka’s expression- "involved managers and not rock stars".

I increasingly see myself, in this type of events, encouraging my colleagues to experiment and assume risks in their activities. I believe that in an increasingly global and competitive management education industry there is a peremptory need to differentiate each school’s educational offerings, something achievable in many different ways. Globalisation is not about standardisation only: it is about amplifying the range of alternative offers too. Business schools should devote more time to "feedforward", and less to feedback and to the analysis of the past.

Share this article:

B-School’s Supply Chains

In an interesting article published yesterday, November 8, in Financial Times, Dave Barnes echoes the widespread expression coined by Thomas Friedman that "the world is flat" and adds that today "nations –like companies- are becoming more specialized and assuming certain areas of expertise". The formation of distinctive competitive advantages in different countries –e.g. manufacturing in China or call centers in India-, explains Barnes, has driven companies "to outsource parts of their operations to appropriate countries. This increased collaboration –with technology as a catalyst- means that instead of companies competing against companies, by 2010 supply chains will be competing against supply chains".

Technologies have been also a key factor in the globalization of management education, and higher education more generically, along with the internationalization of most business school’s stakeholders and –allow me to use this term- the "glocalisation" of management knowledge and business needs. In fact, I was wondering if Barnes’ reasoning could be also applied, mutatis mutandis, to management education. Is our industry moving towards the creation of major supply chains that could exploit scale and compete on a global basis?

A fact supporting this hypothesis is the proliferation of multi-alliances among business schools and of partnerships with companies of related industries –such as conference brokers and consultancies, to name just two. These latter industries do also experience similar globalization forces and need to compete on a worldwide scale, something that prompts complicity and agreement quickly and easily. Indeed, it is plausible to believe that in coming years we will attend the generation of "management supply chains" that will comprise different organizations –educational and others, for and non-for profit, local and multinational, which combine their activities for the provision of a sophisticated range of services to companies and managers. Since some activities of this supply chains may have multifarious sources –for example, management knowledge can flourish beyond academia, in consultancies or publishing houses- it may make sense that the partners of one of this supply chains distribute their tasks according to their comparative capacities and cost.

A further question raised by Barnes’ article is whether some countries will become specialized in terms of specific academic areas, in a similar fashion to what happens in other industries. We already see this in the creation of recognized clusters: for example, the gravitational force of New York and London’s stock exchanges attract a big number of financial services’ companies and, in parallel, schools specialized in finance. Another example may be the concentration of a significant number of education providers in some particular segment. Some years ago, for example, Financial Times’ survey on Executive MBAs concluded that there were four clear hubs in this field on a global scale: Chicago, London, Madrid and New York, given the concentration of highly ranked schools in those cities.

Interestingly, the globalization of management education generates two concurrent and apparently opposed processes. On the one hand, it promotes the standardization of programmes, contents and business schools’ models. On the other hand, it causes the emergence of many new varieties, formats and specializations. A clear evidence of this is the language of delivery of MBA programmes: although English is increasingly the "lingua franca" of management education, prospective participants may apply to MBA programmes delivered in Welsh or Basque, a singular opportunity that did not exist years ago. Does language diversity represent a potential source of differentiation for b-schools?

Management Education in Greece

Last Thursday I gave a conference on the future of European management education at the University Club of Athens, following the kind invitation of the Kokkalis Foundation. It was an enjoyable event for me since I love Greece and I take every opportunity at hand to spend some time there. Athens, a vibrant and beautiful city of contrasts with an incomparable cultural legacy, has experienced a profound transformation on occasion of the last Olympic Games in 2004. Today is a true cosmopolitan enclave in Southeastern Europe attracting numerous tourists, business people and an increasing number of foreign university students.   

My visit was also a good opportunity to learn about the state of management education in Greece, ten years after Prof. Bryony Conway and I were commissioned by the British Council to develop a study about the opportunity and advisabilty of a Greek association of business schools, in line with what was a common phenomenon in other European countries. At that time, our recommendation was in the positive since we believed that a Greek association of b-schools would enhance the image of their members elsewhere in the continent and would also prompt networking opportunities. One decade after, and halfway through the implementation of the Bologna Accord, I believe that our recommendation has become even more compelling.

Curiously, currently in Greece only public universities are allowed to grant degree programmes with official validity. This status may change in the medium term, but it will require a change in the Constitution, a slow process not exempt from difficulties given the contested interests of many different stakeholders. This situation also contributes to widen the separation between public and private educational institutions, and nurtures an insane debate about whether education, generally considered a public good, is only the domain of public universities, a debate fortunately overcome in many other places.

Indeed, Greece has both public and private management schools that may become truly international players. Among the latter I would like to mention AIM-Athens Information Management and ALBA (Athens Laboratory of Business Administration), which already have strong partnerships with leading institutions worldwide, enjoy close connections with their corporate environment and increasingly attract participants from abroad. I am sure they will enjoy the support of their relevant stakehoiders.

The Fight Against Cheating

During a discussion with colleagues regarding the results of the study conducted by Donald McCabe, i.e. that management education students were the group who most admitted to cheating, some pointed out that MBA programmes are very demanding, sometimes beyond realistic expectations: how could you ask an MBA participant to work more than what is actually possible? In order to cope with these unrealistic demands, some students just cheat. Other colleagues referred to the prevalent culture at many business schools, which emphasizes performance at any cost, thus exacerbating the competition and prompting disloyalty among fellow students –in line with what Professor Sumantra Ghoshal stated in a posthumous article.

In their combat against cheating, business schools officials should not transfer the entire responsibility to students, but rather involve other school stakeholders, docents in particular. A whole set of measures should be displayed in order to make cheating really difficult or very risky, including the adoption of preventive measures along the publication of a list of condemned practices as well as the existence of effective bodies that decide and implement the sanctions.

Enactment of Honour Codes. The surveys released by the Center for Academic Integrity show that "cheating on campuses with honor codes is typically 1/3 to 1/2 lower than the level on campuses that do not have honor codes".

Involve students in the ethical governance bodies. Half of our ethics committee is made up of students making the agreed-on sanctions more legitimate in the eyes of students. At IE we see as key that the student knows the technical means we have at our disposal to prevent cheating (see "Technical Solutions" below). Nobody likes to have to tell a student that they have to leave the course, with the extreme financial discomfort that this would entail etc. We hope to dissuade rather then having to catch and punish students after the act. All this creates an environment where honesty and endeavour are the key elements that resonate; all resulting in a critical mass of fair play.

Empowering and improving the conscientiousness of faculty. According to CAI, faculty members are normally reluctant to take action against suspected cheaters. "In Assessment Project surveys involving almost 10,000 faculty in the last three years, 44% of those who were aware of student cheating in their course in the last three years, have never reported a student for cheating to the appropriate campus authority. Students suggest that cheating is higher in courses where it is well known that faculty members are likely to ignore cheating".

Balance the load of assignment to students.This may seem obvious but at times it might seem outrageous the workload that students are asked to do in some schools. In some cases this creates the sense of desperation necessary for some students to cross the line.

Technical Solutions. My school uses a Web based application called Turnitin to verify that our students are not plagiarising when handing in written assignments etc. Use of this tool sends a strong message that we take seriously the protection of the honest competively-minded student and this has a spill-over effect in the approach to other tasks, such as exams and presentations etc.

Indeed it is in the interest of all the top schools to use this tool to prevent inter-school plagiarism as the tool is constantly becoming more efficient with the many updates to the databases that it references, which include the students’ own assignments. On uploading a given assignment, the most popular academic databases are cross-checked, along with news and information sources, as to the level of originality of the work. The results can be surprising and reveal the most sophisticated cheats, who use, for example, paraphrasing. The disuassion effect can be enhanced by providing students with example reports on the originality of sample works.

Cheating and Personal Happiness

Last week, a report on cheating surveying 5,300 graduate students in the US and Canada, conducted by Donald McCabe, professor of management and global business at New Jersey's Rutgers University and President of CAI (Centre for Academic Integrity), was widely released in different media, including the Financial Times and CNN.

The report, which will be published in the September issue of the Academy of Management Learning and Education, reveals that 56% of graduate business students admitted to cheating in the past year, as compared to 54% of graduate engineering students, 50% of physical science students, 49% of medical and health-care students, 45% of law students, 43% of liberal arts students and 39% of social science and humanities students. Previous reports published by CAI are likely if not more alarming: the results of a 2005 survey of 50,000 undergraduates on more than 60 US campuses showed that on most campuses, 70% of students admit to some cheating. This diagnosis may be aggravated since, as McCabe said, it's likely that more students cheat than admit to it.

Do more students cheat nowadays than, say, four decades ago? It is debatable, although some analysts explain that some facts such as the easy access to almost infinite sources on the Web and the flourishing of virtual communities of cheaters have contributed to make the phenomenon rampant.

In my opinion, given the magnitude of the problem, two extreme reactions should be avoided. The first one is to despise the phenomenon, or even more perversely, to justify, for example, that cheating is a form of innovation or that there are diverse degrees of cheating, some acceptable. The second is to embark in a sensational crusade that may harm some pillars that sustain education and prestigious institutions, thus affecting also negatively those students that comply with the rules.

In this and a subsequent post I will deal with some of the possible approaches that schools can undertake to combat cheating, taking into account that, although eradicating the phenomenon may be almost impossible –in an analogous way as to prevent all people from lying of being disloyal to their partners- it is somehow achievable a state of being where cheating becomes really difficult or very risky.

To start with, there is a need of clarifying a conceptual issue. Normally, cheating is considered a reproachable behaviour because, as the Oxford Dictionary explains, cheating is "to act dishonestly or unfairly in order to gain an advantage". However, the first person who looses out is the cheater: first, by potentially exposing one’s personal reputation to be affected, sometimes for life; and second, and more importantly from a personal point of view, for relinquishing all the benefits that brings the learning process. The expression "You are only fooling yourself" springs to mind. We all know the intellectual satisfaction that results from understanding, memorising, rationalising and discussing theories, ideas and concepts. Those who take the shortcut and skip the wonders of learning are giving up a decisive part of personal development that is directly linked –I believe, in line with many philosophers- with happiness.

Student’s Opinions about the Bologna Process (Report)

Information about the evolution and stakeholder’s reactions to the Bologna Process is currently scarce and fragmented. The implementation of the process –the adoption of the necessary legislative measures to standardise higher education across Europe into the two degree level system (bachelor and master)- is delegated to the each member state. This makes even further difficult the access to aggregated information. It should thus be very welcome the interesting report "The Bologna Process: Students Plans and Perceptions"( 24 pages, 1MB), jointly published by EFMD and Trendence, the first of the series "EFMD Research Report Series". The survey tests the waters with the university students of over 30 European countries about their attitudes and expectations regarding the creation of the single Higher Education Area in the continent.

Let me highlight three of the findings summarised in the report. First, that overall reputation is the decisive factor in student’s decision as to which institution they will choose for studying abroad. Second, only half of the students surveyed were willing to continue into the masters’ level immediately after finishing their first degrees. This proportion is consistent with what happens, for example, in the UK, where the percentage of bachelors who enter the job market after graduation is even higher (estimated at 60%). Third, the language is the key factor considered for choosing a particular country where to study.

MOBILITY SCHOLARSHIPS (page 19) -(51% don't know of any such scholarship)

There are some findings that are, somehow, counterintuitive. For example, despite that the overall reputation of a school is considered a determinant factor in choosing an institution, 51% of the students surveyed have no interest in reports or rankings, which are instrumental in the projection of reputation. An interesting piece of information is that 25% of the surveyed students plan to work, gaining experience, after their first degrees and then later study for a masters’ qualification –this segment being the ideal target for MBA programmes.

Interestingly, the five preferred European countries where to study, both for students already studying abroad or for students currently studying at their home countries is the same and I enclose it below:

- United Kingdom 

- Spain

- France

- Germany

- Italy

Convictions and Conventions in Multicultural MBAs

In my previous post I defended that promoting multiculturalism in class is essential for the transformation of MBA students into cosmopolitan managers. In the context of a multicultural MBA class, the cornerstone of coexistence is the respect for others, that each class member shows equal respect to each other fellow, regardless one’s personal affinities. This is not at all easy, since we all have natural preferences in choosing our friends or partners, and to enforce respect a business school community should engage in a set of principles and practices that embody the basic convictions about basic duties and rights of its members. These convictions may be substantiated in a code of ethics that comprises not only norms related to student’s academic behavior –e.g., refusal from cheating or plagiarism- but also basic principles guiding interpersonal relations. Normally, codes of ethics contain prohibitions or duties –e.g., not insulting others- as well as aspirations formulated in the positive –e.g., assist fellow students in their basic needs, engage in constructive relationships with others-.

The convictions that inspire most business school’s codes of ethics tend to converge across the board and they do not necessarily reflect a concrete ideology, religion or morality but they rather substantiate what could be called as cosmopolitan ethics. In fact, in a multicultural class composed of people who may have different views of the world or about personal morality, the adopted set of convictions should only cover the core rules that guarantee a constructive coexistence among participants, a sort of minimum common denominator that balances diversity and respect to others with the adherence to common rules of behavior.

Besides convictions, conventions -customs shared throughout a community- do also play an important part in facilitating the relations among business school’s members, like in society at large. Indeed, the more diverse personal convictions among the members of the class, the more decisive it becomes the respect for the agreed conventions. In his recent book "Bien Educados" (Well Educated), professor Salvador Cardús develops the idea that conventions, although being the result of arbitrary choices by members of a given society –e.g., driving on a road’s right or left side-, are the basis of civism and fundamental for coexistence. Examples of conventions include dress codes, forms of salute and personal treatment or etiquette at the table. Cardús insists that conventions do not rely on values or moral principles –like convictions- and that being "a well mannered person" is not equivalent to being "a good person". It is plausible to think about someone with exquisite traits but immoral in his actions. However a person with bad manners –I am sure you will agree with me-will likely encounter the rejection of the group, in a different but analogous way to how immoral people experience the reproach of fellow citizens.

In recent decades, many educators have defended that fostering spontaneity in students is desirable in order to cultivate creativity. A perverse understanding of this idea, however, entails the relaxing of conventions on the basis that they inhibit students from freely develop their personality. Like Cardús, I believe that the observance of conventions is, precisely, a requisite to nurture students’ personalities since it facilitates the integration of individuals in a community, thus opening multiple vital options not available for anchorites.

Cosmopolitan managers actively cultivate those conventions that make business relations with people from different cultures not only possible but fruitful. A golden convention is to treat others like they want to be treated. This is a lesson that business schools’ educators can not omit, indeed an exciting challenge for those who aim at moulding cosmopolitan managers.

A Day to Remember

We all remember where and what we were doing at the time of the terrorist attacks to the World Trade Centre (WTC). It is an historic episode made up of a web of different individual stories. In my case, I was at a nearby restaurant to my school with my Marketing Director –I was the then Director of External Relations of IE. My cellular started to ring incessantly and we both left our meals unfinished and rushed to find out more.

Last time I had been at the WTC was May of that same year, on the occasion of IE Foundation’s constitutive meeting, a session that took place at the offices of Thacher, Proffitt & Wood –our legal advisors in the US-, located on WTC’s 2, the South Tower. I remember that during that meeting, the emergency bells rang twice but we did not pay much attention since they were false alarms. From that moment on, our representative in NYC operated out of our legal advisors’ offices in WTC, a very convenient and elegant location in the heart of the city.

I spent most of 9/11’s evening on the phone. First, trying to reach Margarita, then our representative in NYC, who, to our great relief, contacted us early to confirm that she was safe at home. I was also trying to get more information about our legal advisors -Kofi in particular, also a member of our school’s Advisory Board- and fortunately he was out of the office that day. I later learnt that Thacher, Proffitt and Wood had no casualties, indeed a miracle since they were located on the 81st floor of the South Tower. I later tried to contact close friends and IE alumni in NYC, some of whom lived or worked near the attacked buildings. Indeed, the communication lines were busy during a vigil that lasted until the early morning of Tuesday.

Many feelings came to my mind during those intense hours but solidarity is the one that stands out in my memories. We all felt like fellow citizens of the world related to the victims of the attacks. Since, in some way, our own personal stories have been affected and we utterly condemn the irrationality and uselessness of terrorism. Every 9/11 since, we all relive these same feelings and, again, consider ourselves citizens of New York and the World.

Pluto downgraded

One week ago, the International Astronomical Union, the collegial body that gathers the largest number of astrologers worldwide, voted to redefine the concept “planet”, a decision that demoted Pluto to the category of dwarf planet. As such, the decision is the result of a conceptual shift, caused by a deeper understanding of the universe and the discovery of other dwarf planets, but the decision has generated intense reactions in many different quarters, including the emergence of Pluto fan clubs. The intensity of the debate is reflected in the fact that “Pluto” has been a dominant tag in Technorati in the past days and it still is.

Interestingly, social reactions caused by the astrologers’ decision on Pluto is analogous to familiar episodes in business, like Volkswagen’s former decision to stop producing the “Beetle” or the intention to change the original formula of Coca Cola, attempted by Roberto Goizueta, CEO of the Atlanta based company two decades ago. We know how this two cases ended. Volkswagen produces a revamped Beetle, still popular both among nostalgic or avant-garde design customers, and Goizueta reverted his decision to change the formula of the product with the highest brand value worldwide, as reported in Mark Pendergrast’s enjoyable book “For God, Country and Coca-Cola”. In fact, some people speculate whether Goizueta’s announcement to change the Coca-cola original formula was aimed at getting a stronger support from customers and the public, a sort of masterly marketing initiative. I wonder whether the astrologer’s decision on the status of Pluto is also -at least partly- aimed at achieving wider recognition and visibility.

Pluto will be out there in the same shape for millions of years, but the way we see it and conceptualize it has changed. The same happens with the rest of the body of our knowledge, which keeps changing as science and culture evolves. When I did my MBA, 15 years ago, few people spoke about stakeholders (*) or EVA –Economic Value Added- and the prevalent preached business-strategy was non-related diversification. After these years, some of the basic propositions I learnt have changed or being questioned and the different management disciplines have developed in consonance with a better understanding of business and organizations, a fact that confirms the need for managers to constantly update their business knowledge and skills.

One of my favorite philosophical proverbs is “Panta Rei” (Παντα ρει, everything changes). As you
remember, Heraclitus, its author, explained that in the same way that the waters of the river where you bath are never the same, the rest of the things in the world keep changing constantly. Despite most of Pluto’s matter will remain the same for million years –it is a frozen planet- our knowledge of it has changed and our vision of the universe too.

(*) An interesting debate on the stakeholder theory of the firm can be found at
http://orgtheory.wordpress.com/2006/08/18/corporate-social-responsibility/

Return on Superstar Professors

These days, one of the most commented topics in media and blogs is the so called “Tom Cruise affair”, related to the Chairman of Viacom’s decision announced last week to terminate its contract with the mentioned celebrity. The recommendable article “A Big Star May Not a Profitable Movie Make”, written by Porter and Fabrikant and published in The New York Times this week, explains the possible reasons behind this decision from a managerial perspective. According to the findings of the entertainment industry analysts, collected in this article, “if a star-studded movie does well, it does not necessarily mean that the stars are causing higher ticket sales. In fact, it seems to move the other way around: stars select what they believe are promising projects. And studios prefer to put stars in movies that they expect to be a success (…) Movies with stars are successful not because of the star, but because the star chooses projects that people tend to like”. Apparently, “stars, on average, were worth $3 million in theatrical revenue”, which is, in many of the cases, much less of what they actually earn per movie.

The Tom Cruise story reminded me about the impact that superstar professors may have in the returns of business schools and my intuition is that there are interesting analogies with the movie industry. By superstar professor I mean those academics that have gained an outstanding external recognition which results in high professional fees. They are sometimes referred to as “gurus”. Superstar professors may be instrumental in some cases such as, for example, the international promotion of a business school that lacks exterior visibility, or for attracting large companies as clients of executive education offerings. Interestingly, however, business schools that may look for superstars in order to improve their own prestige may face a chicken and egg problem here since, according to a study presented recently at EFMD Deans Conference, the first reason why professors select a school to work for is precisely the school’s reputation. On the other hand, it seems that when a superstar leaves a school, the effects on the school’s image are not relevant: business schools are resilient and their reputation is not affected, unless a substantial number of its faculty members leave.

Superstar professors tend to be more independent and detached from the school and they normally become less involved in the learning process –particularly in spending time out-of-class with students- than their faculty colleagues.

However, denying the value of superstar professors for business schools would be naïve and unfair, since stakeholders demand them. A major challenge for deans is how to create the necessary conditions in order to produce more academics of this sort and the same time keep the balance in their faculties

One Year After Katrina

A year has passed since hurricane Katrina hit with unprecedented force the Gulf Coast of the US. The people and institutions affected are still recovering from the devastating effects and it seems that it will take some time –maybe years- to return to normality, although things will not probably return to the state of what once was.

University administrators of the affected areas in Louisiana and Mississippi -New Orleans and surrounding areas, in particular- deserve respect and admiration. In the past year they had to face the challenge of a severe crisis, to implement extraordinary financial decisions and to reinvent their institutions. In light of what they have achieved only a year after the calamity, they are excellent examples of successful improvisational management and true leaders. Just after the disaster occurred, universities experienced the exodus of students wandering around searching for alternative places to continue their studies; many professors moved, researchers experienced the disappearance of years of arduous work and many staff members lost their jobs.

A look at major strategic documents published in the websites of universities such as Tulane or Loyola New Orleans, to name but two, show the profound impact that Katrina has had on the life of the institutions and its members. Indeed, the crisis generated in the post-Katrina age is already influencing the mission and the activities of the affected universities. For example, the Chronicle of Higher Education reports that "changes in higher education in the area have been dramatic: New Orleans's Delgado Community College, for example, has shifted its emphasis from liberal arts to job training, to prepare graduates to rebuild the city. Tulane University underwent an overhaul unprecedented in higher education, eliminating more than 200 faculty positions, cutting more than a dozen doctoral programs and five undergraduate majors, and axing eight athletics teams".

What could institutions do, public and private, to help universities in the areas affected by Katrina? Evidently, the first priority is financial resources and, according to different expert opinions, they are not enough at present. I am surprised, for example, that this past year has been a golden year for fund raising in the US, including business schools, but institutions based in New Orleans have not attracted comparative major gifts. Another way to support the recovery of concerned universities is to increase the number and quality of alliances and joint initiatives with institutions abroad. This is a way where business schools, both US based and foreign, can really help.

I take the opportunity to send my warmest regards to Angelo DeNisi, dean of the Freeman School of Business at Tulane University. Tulane is a key reference of higher education in New Orleans and abroad and is already playing a major role in the recovery of the state. I am sure that Professor DeNisi, optimistic by nature, will continue doing an excellent job and can count with the support of his colleagues.

Some related sites of interest:

New Orlean's Public Schools One Year After Katrina by The Education Wonks

Lessons of Katrina by Larry Dignan

Katrina, one year after by Alfred Glenstein

Why should deans blog? (*)

Zach Owens, a frequent commentator asked if we found blogging useful and motivating. Without hesitation, my answer is yes.

BizDeansTalk has been running for a few months and has become an open and respected platform for the discussion of management education issues. Many of my colleagues praised this blog at the recent EFMD and AACSB Deans meetings, which I attended at Rotterdam and San Diego, and expressed their interest in participating. I reiterate that BizDeansTalk is open to all of them. The blog has become an amplifier of ideas and has the potential to be the neutral worldwide online network of the major stakeholders of management education.

Blogging has saved me time, made me more efficient and opened my eyes to a changing media, communication and management education landscape. It has been said that a complaint is worth its weight in gold and I could not afford to let this opportunity of having an open channel to customer feedback go past- you could say it is free CRM. (You might refer to an earlier post of mine) My mistake at the beginning was to set aside a certain amount of time each day. Now when going about my daily business and reflecting on the events of the day, I jot down potential ideas for posts, or sources of information, which helps me better shape and clarify my own ideas and hence makes them easier to communicate. In fact, I use many of the posts and comments published in the blog -and their background research- later in meetings, speeches or presentations.

Furthermore the discipline of finding newsworthy management education articles each morning means that I am more up-to-date with the sector and better able to react. I have become much more efficient in the search of information, now using rich panoply of Internet technologies, blogs being only one. Information is indeed power.

Blogging has also been an immense opportunity for networking. Interestingly, my experience is that most of the networking does not happen openly through participation in the blog but many of the readers contact me via email to address the discussed issues or to deal with other particular concerns. It is extremely interesting to be in contact with students, professors, managers and journalists from all continents and reassuring that many times we live similar situations and that our solutions to common problems, more often than not, coincide.

Blogging has also brought me many unexpected opportunities to speak at different conferences. It produces a sort of multiplier effect and as I attend more conferences and keep talking about BizDeansTalk the number of my participations at prospective events increases exponentially, something I am not entirely convinced is desirable though. Furthermore several companies have contacted me with their solutions to problems that I might have raised in the blog.

If I may say so my own school has committed itself more than others to uses of e-learning. I see it therefore as imperative that I use or refer to them myself in the blog, or at least become aware of trends and new developments. How can anyone who claims to teach business not be aware of technological trends?

My experience is that many deans are reluctant to expose themselves too much, and many shy away from the technological aspect, but blogging is a very healthy and productive experience. Over the last year I have seen that many more deans are writing their ideas on their own school websites, which is an intermediary step to blogging. I do definitely recommend all my colleagues to blog. As they are already in the public eye and in time most will be blogging in any case, they might as well embrace the times. I have the dream that more concerted efforts and increased exchanges of ideas will grow and improve the sector to everyone’s benefit.

The Arduous Life of Freelancers

H.C. Robbins Landon: “1791: Mozart’s Last Year”

Many careers can be run on a freelance basis. Being self-employed has many advantages, basically the freedom to choose work assignments, independency and more room for creativity. It has also serious drawbacks, such as its potentially precarity and that working hours normally extend far beyond the standard working schedule of employed people. Traditionally, freelancing has been common in professions such as journalism, writing or consultancy, and according to Wikipedia's "Freelancing on the Internet", the Internet has brought many opportunities for would-be freelancers.

W.A. Mozart, whose 250th birth anniversary is commemorated this year, worked basically as a freelance composer, a fact that forced him to accept almost any order received from friends or strangers. He was once approached by Friedrich Wilhelm II, King of Prussia, and offered the position of conductor of his court’s orchestra, an offer that he declined since he felt very close to Joseph II, the Emperor: “I enjoy living in Vienna, the Emperor loves me and I don’t care about money”, he is supposed to have told a friend. Later, the Emperor heard about this and asked Mozart to become his Chamber Composer, although the retribution was not substantial -800 florins. When he was asked about his honoraries at the court he responded that they were “too much for what I do; too little for what I could do”.

A major risk of freelancers is that they must handle contracts, negotiations, accountancy and other management functions by themselves. Here, Mozart did not prove to be very skilled, according to his letters and to different biographies. He seemed to have always lived on the edge of his economic possibilities. However, his endless capacity for work –he even composed in the presence of friends and at social gatherings-, his music knowledge and experience, as well as his geniality allowed him to sustain his family decently and pay the expensive health bills of his wife Constance at different spas during her recovery from illnesses, although he only left his own wardrobe as inheritance. He is attributed to have said: “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”.

Mozart died young, at 36 years old, the illness causing his death being still a matter of controversy, although biographers mention dropsy or rheumatic fever. Had he lived the same time as some of his contemporary musicians (Haydn: 77 years; Salieri: 75 years) he would have probably produced many more works, and maybe transformed the way we understand music today.

I believe that freelancers need a strong support from their families to cope with their stressful way of living. I am sure that Constance was a dedicated wife, caring for his husband and extremely respectful of his work. However, she was subject to many attacks after the musician’s death. As Robbins Landon refers, she was accused of being “a sex kitten, she was superficial, silly woman incapable of understanding Mozart, she mismanaged the household finances and encouraged him to live a scatterbrained, if not dissolute life”. This writer devotes the first chapter of the book here referred in vindicating Constance and rejects all these criticisms as spurious. They were probably the consequence of envious slander from Mozart’s detractors.

As a tribute to the master who has given us all so many moments of pleasure listening to his music, I enclose a photograph released recently that shows Constance, among other friends, in her late years. (Image: Constance Mozart, 1840) Let me also add the lines she wrote in Mozart’s commonplace book (Stammbuch) the day he passed away:

“I write now, in deep reverence, to you.
Dearly beloved husband! Mozart, unforgettable to me and to the whole of Europe-
Now you are well –well forever!
At one hour past midnight between 4th and 5th December of this year
He left, in his 36th year –O! Only too suddenly!-
This good –but thankless world- O God!
Eight years long we were joined in the most tender and in this world inseparable bond,
O! Would I were soon joined to you forever.
His most distressed wife
Constance Mozart née Weber
Vienna, 5th December. 1791”

The Duty to Be Just

Plato (427-347 BCE): Republic

Western civilization owes a lot to Plato. His ideas have influenced philosophers and thinkers of all disciplines. He was the founder of Academia, a centre of learning in ancient Athens and probably the first institution of higher education that we know of. The methodology practiced at Academia and used by Plato in his writings was the “Socratic method”, in honour of his mentor. It is based on dialectic dialogue by the participants in a discussion on a certain topic about which a conclusive result is rarely achieved, and moderated by a master –Socrates in all of Plato’s dialogues. Incidentally, the case method used at many business schools is inspired by this learning methodology as was, for example, recently explained in a Financial Times article on Robert Bruner, Dean of the Darden Business School.

One of the most commented Plato’s dialogues is “Republic”, which is centred on the discussion of what is justice, both from the individual and the public or state perspective. In Book II, Glaucon tells the story of Gyges’ Ring to illustrate his conception of justice. Let me transcript the tale as it is told in the book:

“Gyges was a shepherd in the service of the king of Lydia; there was a great storm, and an earthquake made an opening in the earth at the place where he was feeding his flock. Amazed at the sight, he descended into the opening, where, among other marvels, he beheld a hollow brazen horse, having doors, at which he stooping and looking in saw a dead body of stature, as appeared to him, more than human, and having nothing on but a gold ring; this he took from the finger of the dead and reascended. Now the shepherds met together, according to custom, that they might send their monthly report about the flocks to the king; into their assembly he came having the ring on his finger, and as he was sitting among them he chanced to turn the collet of the ring inside his hand, when instantly he became invisible to the rest of the company and they began to speak of him as if he were no longer present. He was astonished at this, and again touching the ring he turned the collet outwards and reappeared; he made several trials of the ring, and always with the same result-when he turned the collet inwards he became invisible, when outwards he reappeared. Whereupon he contrived to be chosen one of the messengers who were sent to the court; where as soon as he arrived he seduced the queen, and with her help conspired against the king and slew him, and took the kingdom.” (Republic, II, 359b-360b).

What would you do if you found a ring with those properties? I hope you don’t agree with Glaucon’s pessimistic view that “no man is so virtuous that he could resist the temptation of being able to steal at will by the ring's power of invisibility”.  He even goes further and says that “injustice’s masterpiece is to be seen as a just person without being so (…) that the perfect injustice consists of committing the worst crimes and being able to make oneself recognized as the most honourable”.
Certainly, science has not yet found any object with the magic effects of the mentioned ring, and you may argue that I am philosophising “what if”, but power in business and in other spheres of social life provides its holders with the resources to makeup or hide wrongdoings. Remember Enron, a recent sad episode in corporate history. I do not want to take advantage of a case that has been analysed extensively and judged, their protagonists being imprisoned or sadly dead, but just to extract a lesson that may be useful to all. The managers of Enron enjoyed a sort of Gyges ring: they were able to get the association of accountants, lawyers and major stakeholders and create a sort of invisibility around their mismanagement. When did everything start to go wrong at Enron? Glaucon’s fable is useful here: when the protagonists realised that they were protected by a magic ring that hided their wrongdoings and, more, they were considered by business community exemplary, a sample of the perfect injustice referred above. From there, everything is a slippery slope towards the worse, like in the story of Gyges.

Regrettably, Plato’s “Republic” does not provide, in my opinion, a convincing justification for why to be just. You may find prudential reasons –fear to be punished- or idealistic arguments –the practice of virtue leads to personal happiness-. For the moment, I still find more appealing Kant’s contribution: the duty to be just is a categorical imperative, something that can not be justified on rational accounts in the way you show that water evaporates at 100 degrees Celsius.

Summer series, Tomorrow:
The Arduous Life of Freelancers
H.C. Robbins Landon: “1791: Mozart’s Last Year”

An Early Vision of Global World

Marco Polo (1254-1324):

The Travels

The book referenced was originally entitled "Description of the world" and represents probably one of the first narrations of the Far East and other world regions through Western Civilization eyes: the author claims in the prologue that he is the man that has traveled more extensively since Creation. It is particularly recommendable at times when literature on Asian culture and business is experiencing a renaissance given the increasing weight of China and India in the world’s economy.

According to tradition, the book was dictated by Marco Polo, a 13th century Venetian trader and explorer, to his fellow prisoner Rustichello de Pisa, after been incarcerated together after a battle between Genoa and Venice. “Prisons favor literature, remember Verlaine and Cervantes” once said J.L. Borges.

The book is interesting from a business perspective at least on three accounts. First, it shows how business promotes geographical exploration and knowledge of foreign cultures. The protagonists, both Marco Polo, his father and his uncle, “were men of good family, remarkable for their wisdom and foresight. After taking things over, they decided that they would go across the Black sea in the hope of a profitable venture” as we can read in the first pages. Indeed, they went far. From Crimea they moved to modern day Uzbekistan and further to Cathay (today’s China) where they served the Kublai Khan, King of the Mongols. The book continues to describe Polo’s way back to Europe through India, the Arabian Sea and the Tartar region. In every place they visited, business played a key role and we are told about multiple anecdotes evidencing the importance of trade in their relations with natives.

Map of Transasia Trade Routes

Second, diplomatic skills are core to cross-cultural management, essential for today’s global managers as they were to Marco Polo in his international venture. In fact, he was asked by Kublai Khan to be ambassador of his empire to the Pope and the kings of France and Spain, with the mission of bringing western educators to his country, something he could not fulfill due to the change in the Holy See.

Third, the book illustrates that what people imagine is not less real than what they call reality. We are told about the wall erected by Alexander to stop the tartars, a region where shadows appear and disappear, a tower filled with treasures where a king starves, a dessert where demons adopt voices and features of friends to disorientate travelers, or Adam’s tomb in a mountain’s summit, among an innumerable sequence of incredible episodes. Many contemporaries did not believe Marco Polo and questioned whether his travels were real or fictitious. However, would they have believed that some centuries after it would be possible to fly to Cathay in artificial birds designed by humans?

Next Monday:
Sociability and Informal Relations
La Rouchefoucauld (1613-80): “Maxims”