CEEMAN’s 19th Annual Conference “Management Education in a Changing World: Are We Ready for the Challenge?” was held on 21-24 September 2011 in Tbilisi, Georgia. The host and co-organizer of the event that attracted 130 participants from 32 countries was the Caucasus School of Business, Caucasus University along its President Kakha Shengelia and his team headed by Boris Lezhava, Dean of Caucasus School of Business.
As traditionally known for CEEMAN annual conferences, the general theme was elaborated in several inter-related aspects, which were briefly introduced in the welcome words provided by CEEMAN President Danica Purg and Kakha Shengelia, President of Caucasus University, as well as in the introduction of Nakiye Boyacigiller, Dean, Sabanci University, Faculty of Management, Turkey.
Focusing on change, business opportunities, and the challenges in Georgia expanded further to include and encompass the emerging markets and global business landscape. Corporate views were presented and discussed first in order to identify key leadership challenges and their implications for management education.
The central issue on whether business schools are ready for the challenge was discussed in three different but highly inter-related aspects. On one hand, the question was whether business schools actually teach what their customers need. On the other hand, conference participants exchanged their views and experiences on how management research impacts practitioners, teaching, and new theory development. Last, but not least, the question on whether business schools have and/or build the right faculty to meet the future was discussed.
In the keynote address of Dmitry Gvindadze, Minister of Finance, Georgia, and the input by Kakha Baindurashvili, President of the Georgian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, a comprehensive insight into the past, present and future of Georgia, including business opportunities and challenges was provided. A particularly important issue discussed and emphasized was the importance of consistent economic reforms and structural changes for the improvement of the country’s overall level of competitiveness and therefore for the advancement towards achieving broader social development goals.
In the panel on emerging markets and the changing business landscape Peter Kraljič, Director Emeritus. McKinsey, Slovenia/Germany provided a comprehensive picture of global changes, challenges, and opportunities. Stressing the importance of competitiveness, he also underlined the need for social cohesion, safety, and overall sustainability. One of the key challenges is how to move factor-driven and efficiency-driven countries into the group of innovation-driven countries and broader regions. CEEMAN members and CEEMAN as a whole should play an active role in this process, since their mission is to develop a new generation of business leaders adept and accomplished to lead their companies and countries towards higher competitiveness and sustainability.
Jean-Pierre Lehmann, Founder, The Evian Group, Professor Emeritus IMD Lausanne, Switzerland, expanded further on the fact that some economies are re-emerging, some others are submerging, whereas there are still countries and regions that are excluded from the global convergence processes. While introducing the demographic factor, he pleaded for more attention to the social aspects of development. Future development needs to be more inclusive since poverty has already been seen as the highest risk in the global environment.
Pavlo Sheremeta, President and Institute Senior Fellow, MBOSI-Malaysia Blue Ocean Strategy Institute, who moderated the panel, suggested that instead of following the path of incremental improvements, emerging economies could pursue the radical simplification strategy when it comes to innovation. He also added that in order to be successful in innovation-driven growth and development, companies and countries need to develop also talent management strategies. This is an area where business schools and CEEMAN can contribute and support through their expertise.
The conference parallel workshops delved into detail how the changes in the global and local business landscape are felt in business and business education (the session moderated by Robert Whieldon, Corporate Development Director, University of Leeds Business School, UK) and how business education searches for new partnerships with businesses (the session moderated by Marina Karchava, Vice Rector, Free University of Tbilisi). Both sessions underlined the dynamic and contextual nature of management education needs, which requires a continuous dialogue and long-term partnerships between business schools and their learning partners.
The session on whether business schools teach what their customers need (moderated by Nana Adeishvili, Competitiveness Analyst/Strategist, Georgia), indicated that business schools need to provide students with the proper skills they will need for tomorrow, rather than those for today or yesterday. Skills related to innovation and entrepreneurship are particularly important.
Business schools should help students build their own intellectual roadmaps and adapt their careers to changes in the political, economic, social, technological, natural, and regulatory environments, as well as, to better understand the issues of ethics, integrity, human capital, and the creation of knowledge. Schools should also assist and support their students to balance their professional and personal lives. The need for a more intensive dialogue between schools and businesses to identify the learning needs of the corporate world and other educational partners was also strongly emphasized.
How management research impacts practitioners, teaching, and new theory development was the theme of the session moderated by Teimuraz Vashakmadze, Senior Lecturer, IBS-Moscow, RANEPA, Russia. The session emphasized that research needs to be relevant, which implies that research questions need to be more contextual.
This calls again for a closer collaboration and more open communication channels between schools and businesses. This is also an important requirement for the effectiveness of research in the classroom, because it helps the students to get actively involved in research projects. New theory development requires research to have a more sophisticated vision and better research methods, both qualitative and quantitative. Furthermore, it needs more interdisciplinary overlap and greater courage in thinking. This calls for the appropriate incentives in regard to research and publication, better learning environments, and a supportive infrastructure. Sharing resources and cross-border collaboration are additionally important, and this is an area where the role of CEEMAN can be instrumental.
This point was also passionately supported in the concluding session on the topic of whether schools have and/or develop the right faculty for the challenge of the changing world. A high quality faculty is the key success factor in management development. While more emphasis on business ethics, sustainability, and social networking is needed in degree education, the executive education is lacking faculty capable of playing a multiple role in which they are expected to perform. As educators, they need to have excellent facilitation skills. Multidisciplinary approach is necessary since creativity is essential and it does not lie within any single discipline. As researchers, they should be more open to practice-based research, but also rewarded for it. As consultants, they are expected not only to respond to the specific and changing customer needs, but also to contribute to the marketing and branding of their own institutions, while in the institution-building area they need to contribute, among other things, also to the faculty team culture and the climate of cross-disciplinary and cross-departmental sharing.
Business schools need to have clear faculty development policies. Mentoring new faculty, particularly as they progress towards teaching in executive programs, should be given more attention and consideration. Partnerships within the institution and externally with different institutions and faculty development programs are becoming increasingly important. Schools need faculty who are able to anticipate and understand future customer needs. In this context, the role of CEEMAN and its International Management Teachers Academy, as a world-class program aimed at the development of a new generation of management professors, has been particularly emphasized and commended.
In her closing remarks, the conference Chairperson Nakiye Boyacigiller expressed her thanks to all the speakers and participants whose inputs and discussions made the conference an exciting and inspiring event. She particularly thanked participants for sharing issues that they were facing at their own institutions and bringing into the conference what they, business leaders, professors, or deans had done that they were particularly proud of. All this hopefully provided for each participant insight to some of the answers for their specific challenges, and in turn helping CEEMAN to identify new opportunities for collaboration in the areas where joint action is needed.
19th CEEMAN Annual Conference proceedings are available for download at CEEMAN website, while videos will also be available shortly.
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