Eric Cornuel assesses the results and implications of the EFMD’s first research conference.
An increasing understanding of our institutions and our industry confirms how vital leadership, change and innovation are for the business school and management education community.
The early days of the EFMD R&D initiative identified core research themes for management education as a research field. Now the first EFMD Higher Education Research Conference, held in mid-February 2012 at The Lorange Institute of Business in Zurich, Switzerland, has successfully concluded.
The changing context of business and management education was highlighted throughout the conference. A wealth of papers focused on leadership and change in business schools, internationalisation, and on branding and reputation.
Much of the content of the conference reflects thinking that has been circulating within EFMD for some time, though further and more in-depth research work is required. Nevertheless, we have already reached an important milestone.
Business schools have traditionally followed a path of conformity and collective rationality, to some extent driven by external pressures from quarters such as media rankings and government agencies. But despite these (sometimes heavy) pressures to conform, business schools need to find and develop a stronger voice, to start extending their boundaries and to escape the tempting dangers of homogeneity. We also need to acknowledge how different dimensions of excellence may be defined by different stakeholder groups.
[Some of these issues are addressed by Peter McKiernan and David Wilson in their article “Pressures to conform” on page 28 of this issue of Global Focus. Professors McKiernan and Wilson presented their ideas at the EFMD research conference.]
Peter Lorange, who hosted the EFMD research conference, was of course the long-standing head of IMD in Switzerland and now runs his own business school, The Lorange Institute of Business, in Zurich. There he is trying to establish “the business schools of the future” as he foresees it – a networked, high-tech system with few if any full-time faculty.
EFMD is closely observing this experiment, with a generally friendly eye.
Certainly, many of Professor Lorange’s ideas and concepts chime with our own.
He says, for example, that the business school of the future must be characterised by speed, agility and rapid adaptability rather than by bureaucracy, silos and axiomatic force.
This is a true and very important message for business of schools of today to take on board.
For the full article, you can view the PDF.
See more articles from Vol.06 Issue 02 – ’12.
Eric Cornuel has been President of EFMD Global since 2000. An alumnus of Sciences Po Paris and HEC Paris, he earned his PhD from Paris Dauphine University. His influence extends to co-founding and governing various international organisations, such as PRME, CEIBS, GRLI, HigherEd, and ITP. Celebrated with awards like the Magnolia Award and the Légion d’honneur, his publications include ‘Business School Leadership and Crisis Exit Planning’, released by Cambridge University Press. Eric holds fellowships at esteemed institutes and has been honoured with Doctorate Honoris Causas from Koźmiński University and ESCP Business School.
