Executive summary. Sasin School of Management’s transformation from its 1982 founding as Thailand’s first internationally partnered, English language business school to its evolution into a globally diverse institution reveals changing definitions of faculty wellbeing. Beginning as a US-centric model built on visiting faculty from Wharton and Kellogg, Sasin initially emphasised emulating American business education. The journey through international accreditation (AACSB and EQUIS in 2010) marked a turning point toward greater independence and regional identity. Under recent leadership, merit-based hiring has organically resulted in a faculty representing 14 countries, with 59% from outside Thailand. The authors argue that faculty wellbeing extends beyond working conditions to encompass strategic clarity and collective purpose. Three strategic priorities now shape Sasin’s future: advancing family enterprise research, aligned with Asian economic realities, balancing academic rigour with regional impact, and planning leadership succession that preserves the school’s multicultural identity while embracing educational innovation.

Key takeaways

• Sasin’s approach to wellbeing has evolved from a US oriented, teaching focused model with strong reliance on visiting faculty, towards a more balanced system combining research, collegial governance, and increasing international diversity.
• Key institutional shifts, including accreditation, more structured and participative evaluation processes, and merit based global hiring, have reshaped the culture, making wellbeing more closely tied to collaboration, creativity, and shared academic purpose.
• Faculty wellbeing is closely linked to the school’s strategic direction, particularly its focus on family enterprise, regionally relevant impact, and leadership succession, with wellbeing strengthened when faculty see clear purpose, alignment of resources, and meaningful involvement in collective goals.

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The Past Informs the Present

Sasin School of Management has always had a strong concern for wellbeing: the nature of that wellbeing has adapted and changed over time. To understand the evolution of ‘wellbeing’ at Sasin School of Management (formerly the Graduate Institute of Business Administration of Chulalongkorn University), one must understand its origins.

Sasin sprang from an unlikely menage à trois: the 102-year-old Wharton School, the 74-year-old Kellogg School of Management, and the 65-year-old Chulalongkorn University. The idea sprang up in the early 70s from a group of Thai business leaders and academics, spearheaded by Professor Toemsakdi Krishnamra, the tremendously far-sighted and internationally oriented founder of Sasin. This group realised that Thailand—at that time one of the fastest-growing economies in the world—would soon need a business school teaching in English to global educational standards. Before the foundation of Sasin, potential business leaders were sent to the world’s finest business schools (mainly in the US). Many never returned. This brain drain needed to be addressed. Interestingly enough, this was almost the exact thinking behind the emergence of management schools in China in the 80s.

The team realised that there was insufficient time to build from scratch. They also saw that the bureaucratic nature of Thai higher education at that time all but prohibited organic growth from the business school already operating at Chulalongkorn University. They went in search of an ‘instant business school’, and (of course) at that time they went to the then font of business schools: the US of A.

Checking leading schools off their visit list, rejected at each by the risk-averse guardians at the country’s finest institutions, the team eventually found themselves at the Kellogg School of Management.

Dean Don Jacobs had taken the Kellogg helm in the mid-70s, and his entrepreneurial innovations had propelled the school to a top-tier status. A career academic, economist, and finance professor—with a strong entrepreneurial streak—Don Jacobs transitioned the school from the individually competitive traditions of most business schools at the time, to the much more collaborative, teamwork culture that characterises many business schools today.

Instant Business School: Just Add (Visiting) Faculty

In 1982, when Sasin taught its first class, creating a business school based totally on visiting faculty was unknown. But that is precisely what Sasin did.

The model was to teach the same number of classes in five weeks as are usually taught in a US quarter. In fact, each module was numbered 1.1, 1.2, etc., to indicate Quarter 1 Part 1, etc. Each course would meet four times a week for a 90-minute class. Friday evenings and Saturdays were devoted to the Executive MBA. Supposedly, the remuneration for teaching one course to MBA and to EMBA for a five-week module was about the same as one third of the annual salary of a Wharton School Associate Professor: truly, a princely sum at that time.

When I first encountered Sasin, the school was already some 10 years old. I came as a visiting professor for a 5-week teaching stint from Toronto to Bangkok. I found a school with excellent visiting faculty, still mainly sourced from the US, but including talented teachers from around the world. At that time, Sasin was a school that was very much focused on teaching rather than research.

Sasin was a school that placed massive emphasis, in all it did, on the US founders of the school. For every problem, the first question was ‘What do they do at Kellogg? How does Wharton handle this?’ The orthodoxy of the US business schools was unquestioned. The Fourth of July was celebrated as a national festival at Sasin!

Sasin’s partnership with Kellogg was more than a collaboration—it was a blueprint. The EMBA model we developed together proved so successful that Kellogg adopted it as its framework for global partnerships, rolling it out to institutions like HKUST and Schulich. In essence, Sasin served as the prototype for what became Kellogg’s worldwide network of EMBA programmes.

The resident faculty at Sasin at that time numbered in single digits. All were Thai nationals who had completed their PhDs at leading US universities. As a good Canadian—if a transplanted Brit—with some US teaching experience, it seemed clear that there was more to be added, more to be said. Yet, when given their choice of exchange programmes, the students flocked to US schools. The established capitals of Europe were ok, definitely also-rans, but for sure no one wanted an exchange to Asian schools (been there, done that). Meanwhile, some of the more reflective executives saw the programme’s deficiencies and hungered for Asian examples, Asian cases, and recognition that Asia had lessons from which the world could learn.

The tension between West and East was buried beneath a veneer of US-centricity. This was very apparent in faculty remuneration. While the visiting professors were handsomely rewarded and feted by the students—quite literally with elaborate dinners—the resident Thai faculty were less well paid, and their teaching much less appreciated by the students. A feeling that was, in some ways, reciprocated, as the resident faculty taught pretty much directly from textbooks, which only reinforced their lack of appreciation. Global education was excellent, regional expertise notable mainly by its absence.

Every attempt was made to improve the teaching skills of the resident faculty. New Thai faculty were apprenticed for a few months at a US partner school to improve their pedagogical and student engagement skills. But in the classroom, they remained very much second-class citizens. From time to time, there were efforts to enhance regional content: at one point, faculty were asked to ‘adopt’ a country in the region, but without follow-up, little came of it.

At this point, ‘wellbeing’ was very much defined as being as similar as possible to leading US business schools! The ‘culture’ was very much top-down leadership; the intent was emulation.

International Accreditation

After serving as a visiting professor for some seven years, I spent a sabbatical year in Thailand and, in 1999—right after the dotcom crash—set up an e-commerce company, neither an auspicious nor a sensible undertaking. After the inevitable failure of this venture, unwilling to return unsuccessful to Canada, I asked to join Sasin full-time, agreeing to teach four courses each year—the usual load in North America at that time. This request was granted.

Seeking to justify my existence and having really not much to do, I suggested pursuing AACSB accreditation. At times, the procedure was so US-centric and took so long that at several points I felt certain the accreditation attempt would fail, and I should look for another job! Partway through the AACSB accreditation process, we started EQUIS accreditation, and we pursued it after that as well.

Eventually, Sasin obtained both accreditations in the same year and, in 2010, became the first school in Thailand to be AACSB-accredited and the first to be EQUIS-accredited. Setting an aspirational goal for Thai business schools for the next 10 to 15 years.

In many ways, accreditation was a turning point for Sasin, and perhaps for me. It showed the imperfect fit of the North America model to the Asian reality, and the closer—but still imperfect match—with the European model. It also brought Sasin much more into the mainstream of business schools. However, 90% of the resident faculty (by now around 15 strong) were still Thai nationals, and the student body, particularly the MBA, was almost totally Thai. Nonetheless, Sasin was awakening and starting to be aware of competitive schools.

As a result of the accreditation process, ‘wellbeing’ became much more defined as pursuing research publications in academic journals. At the same time, ‘culture’ started a long path to becoming more creative, entrepreneurial and bottom-up.

…ch-ch-ch-changes

By 2014, Professor Toemsakdi Krishnamra, the founding director of Sasin, had retired and Professor Dipak Jain, previously Sasin’s point of contact with Kellogg, and subsequently Dean of Kellogg and then Dean of INSEAD, had assumed the directorship. Unfortunately, Dipak was already in poor health and by 2017 had stepped down, to be replaced by an Acting Director, Paron Israsena Na Ayudhya. I was invited to become one of the Deputy Directors, responsible for External Relations, which was primarily marketing.

As someone whose teaching and research focus was digital marketing, the first task was to improve Sasin’s digital marketing. This was relatively straightforward, as at that point Sasin’s entire marketing budget was in print and PR. We immediately reallocated the budget almost entirely to digital channels and were rewarded with a noticeable increase in applications and admissions.

At the end of his two-year Acting Director term (a term that was mandated as non-renewable), I took over as Director. An early task was to make faculty evaluations more objective, more collegial, and better attuned to the university’s workload system. We developed an approach in which faculty members participated in Performance Evaluation & Development assessments.

Each faculty member was asked to outline their achievements over the past academic year and their intentions for the next. After discussions with an assessment group composed of the management team (Director and Deputy Directors) and representatives from the Human Resources Committee, a ‘focus’ was agreed for each faculty member, outlining the faculty member’s expected focus on teaching, research, and administrative support activities. Over time, in part as a response to various appeals by faculty members, this procedure became more objective and well-defined.

Global Representation: Natural Evolution, Not a Target

When we set out six years ago to rebuild our faculty, we embraced a simple principle: hire the best person for each faculty position, regardless of nationality. This seemingly straightforward commitment has reshaped not just our faculty composition, but the very character of intellectual life at Sasin as we build a global reputation for regional expertise.

The results speak to the power of merit-based selection pursued with genuine conviction. As of July 2025, our core faculty of 29 includes 17 colleagues (59%) from beyond Thailand, collectively representing 14 countries. This is not a statistic that was deliberately engineered. It is the natural byproduct of choosing excellence, wherever it is found. Sasin now includes faculty (as well as students and staff) from diverse backgrounds, providing a range of intellectual and cultural perspectives. Our school has become reflective of the international workplaces typical of multinational organisations worldwide.

Sasin’s planned evolution is the result of careful deliberation and consensus. Hiring comes after consulting with appropriate stakeholders and approval by our Human Resources Committee, because we know that every hire shapes our collective future. And as in most schools, faculty hiring errors tend to haunt us for many years afterwards.

Our expectations remain uncompromising: every faculty member must excel across teaching, research, and administration to create meaningful impact. For most, this translates into rigorous scholarship yielding quality publications alongside exceptional teaching.

It’s clear that faculty wellbeing is enhanced by this ongoing pursuit of diversity. Faculty members are inspired by the intellectually diverse ideas around them. They are more open to international collaboration and show our students what it means to think globally, but be in tune with the Asian business environment.

This is the Sasin we have become: a place where the best minds from around the world choose to build their careers, not because we targeted geographic diversity, but because we created an environment where exceptional scholars naturally want to be. The global representation we now enjoy was not achieved by rigid KPIs. It is living evidence that when you pursue excellence relentlessly, the world takes notice and talent gravitates accordingly.

By now, ‘wellbeing’ has become multi-dimensional. Although still with a strong publication emphasis, it is much more wrapped up with innovation and creativity, a spirit of experimentation, and multicultural participation. As Sasin’s mission statement puts it: inspire.connnect.transform for a better smarter sustainable world.

Strategic Priorities

Reflecting on the foundations of faculty wellbeing at Sasin, it becomes clear that sustaining a thriving academic community requires more than attention to immediate working conditions and collegial relationships. Faculty wellbeing must ultimately be anchored in—and driven by—a widely accepted strategic vision. One in which an overwhelming majority of the community has a stake and a belief.

The vitality of any faculty depends fundamentally on its ability to see itself as a central actor, independently pursuing meaningful goals that in fact extend beyond individual achievement to encompass a collective purpose and institutional distinction. This emphasis on the communal purpose and institutional distinction helps faculty feel part of a larger, meaningful endeavour. Of course, there will always be dissenters; in fact, they help define that communal purpose.

Most recently, Sasin’s efforts have been recognised by our EMBA, entering the Financial Times Top 100. This puts Sasin as #1 in Thailand (the only Thai school ever to have been in an FT Top 100), top 3 in Southeast Asia (the only one outside the Singapore enclave), and in the top 20 in Asia.

Of course, questions remain to be answered in the future. Three in particular will shape the school’s future wellbeing: family enterprises, regionally oriented impact, and succession at Sasin.

Family Enterprise Imperative

Perhaps the most distinctive strategic opportunity—both for Sasin and for this region—lies in family enterprise teaching and research. This represents a fundamental alignment among our institutional identity, our student composition, and the regional economic landscape we serve.

Two-thirds of our students and alumni are connected to family enterprises, reflecting the reality that family businesses constitute the backbone of Asian economic life. These enterprises possess distinctive characteristics shaped by regional heritage, cultural values, and governance patterns that differ from their Western counterparts.

How can we best pursue excellence in this area, while energising and focusing faculty research, advancing knowledge in the field, and yet delivering on students’ highly practical needs?

Regionally Oriented Impact

Within the broad mainstream of management education, there is a growing tension between the demand for peer-review journal (PRJ) publications—currently the basis for most faculty recruiting and promotion, and the mainstay of most business school rankings—and the increasing realisation that most PRJ publications have little impact on the world outside of the narrow ranks of academia.

This tension is especially strong in Asia. To teach and learn effectively about Asian management, a much greater quantity and variety of high-quality materials are required. Several schools are producing Asian oriented teaching materials, but as information spreads so quickly online, most traditional cases are ‘blown’ after a couple of classroom uses, with high-grade earning ‘solutions’ widely accessible. There is an insatiable demand for up-to-the-minute teaching materials. The same can be said for applied management thought leadership.

Who will be brave enough to lead the change in ‘quality’ assessment from a narrow academic research perspective to broader impact measurement? This change is inevitable, but it is hard to see from where it will spring. Established schools built their position on academic research; less-established schools, by definition, carry less weight and will find it hard to shift the assessment of quality.

Succession at Sasin

As Sasin looks toward future leadership transitions, the question is not merely who will occupy particular positions, but how those characters will balance the global reputation and the regional expertise.

Sasin is widely described as the most international unit within its university. A description earned, as outlined above, but our inclusivity, our openness to new ideas, and our wider range of faculty and staff backgrounds. It would surely be disappointing to see the school abandon its multi-cultural heritage.

As a globally ranked school, with an increasingly diverse clientele and outlook, Sasin demands a globally respected leadership team that will extend the current wide participation in decision-making and strategy formulation. Such leadership demands a global search and careful assessment. At the same time, business school leaders are in short supply.

Effective succession planning for Sasin must involve stakeholders at all levels. It will require careful identification—and quite possibly development—of leadership talent. While we should take care to preserve institutional values and brand reputation, management education is changing faster than ever before. Sasin leadership must continue to embrace and shape that change. This will surely have many dimensions, a prominent one will be the use of digital media, distance education methods, and a blending of in-person and online teaching modalities. The future of Sasin will lie in its leadership in this area.

The Strategic Foundation of Faculty Wellbeing

These three challenges—advancing our distinctive focus on family enterprise research and teaching, ensuring regionally oriented impact, and preparing for leadership succession—may seem disparate, but they share a common thread. Each speaks to the necessity of connecting faculty wellbeing to institutional strategy. Faculty members thrive not just because their immediate working conditions are satisfactory, but because they see themselves as involved contributors to meaningful collective endeavours.

Faculty flourish when institutional strategy provides clarity of purpose, when resources are aligned with stated priorities, and when they can observe their institution positioning itself for distinction rather than merely managing operations. This strategic clarity and resource alignment instils confidence in the faculty about the institutional direction.

When faculty members understand where their institution is heading—and feel an active involvement in shaping that direction—their work tends to contribute to common goals, they tend to trust that leadership will provide the resources and support necessary to achieve excellence, and the foundation for sustained faculty vitality is established.

As Sasin moves forward, the wellbeing of our faculty will depend less on specific policies or programmes—important as these are—than on our ability as an institution to maintain strategic clarity, to pursue distinctive goals with focus and resources, and to create conditions where faculty members can see their individual contributions amplified through collective achievement. This is the ultimate responsibility of institutional leadership: not to manage faculty wellbeing as a separate concern, but to drive strategy in ways that make meaningful faculty work possible and institutional distinction achievable.