DeansTalk - business management education

Bologna Process | - To follow an inspirational pragmatist.

Santiago Iñiguez, Dean of Instituto de Empresa Business School.

The implementation of the Bologna process needs political leadership and determination. The style of leadership required for multilateral initiatives, such as this one, was exemplified in Jean Monnet (1888-1979), considered as one of the fathers of the European Union (EU). It is a leadership model that may inspire other multinational projects where the interests of many different parties, each with its own agenda, have to be combined to produce a win-win situation.

Mark Leonard, Director of Foreign Policy at the London-based Centre for European Reform, refers to Jean Monnet, in his book “Why Europe Will Run the 21st Century”, as the model of leadership to imitate in multinational institutions. Monnet had a very different profile to that of war heroes such as Churchill or De Gaulle and could have almost been described as a civil servant due to the low profile he tended to keep on the political scene. He was intelligent, a great team builder, a tireless worker and a consensus maker. However, with his distinctive style of leadership, he played a decisive role in the construction of the EU. The great insight of Monnet was to understand that a diverse community of nations, with both common and divergent interests, could not be accomplished in just one go according to a general plan, but rather through consecutive and concrete achievements that could create a solidarity among the members. Paradoxically, his vision was to avoid a great vision. Pragmatism and gradual change were the key elements for the success of the project, implying iterative stages of integration and cooperation until the creation of the admirable EU of today.

We need a similar approach and leadership style in the implementation of the Bologna process, where initiative is delegated to the member countries with the participation of a wide panoply of stakeholders: representatives from universities, quality-assessment agencies, teachers, students, employers and administrations, amongst others. Given the need of several Monnets to orchestrate the implementation of Bologna, I took the opportunity of a recent visit of Klaus Schwab to Instituto de Empresa (IE) to suggest to him that at the next Davos summit he should organise a panel to discuss Bologna Process issues.

(Klaus Schwab (left), President of Davos World Economic Forum, speaking with Diego Alcázar (right), President of IE)

Current-Affairs | - "Update on Katrina relief efforts"

Paul Danos, Dean Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth.

Earlier this month I wrote about Hurricane Katrina and the responsibility we share as leaders in the business community to teach and encourage corporate and personal social responsibility. I mentioned that our first-year students, in one of their first acts as a class, rallied together to raise funds for victims of Katrina and issued a challenge to the second-year students to match their goal of $2,500 or more. Today, just three weeks after my post, I am proud to share with you the results of this challenge. Both classes, far surpassed their goal, and with matching donations offered by our alumni, the combined amount raised to support Hurricane Katrina victims has reached $100,000.

The Tuck student body contributed to this effort, and donations also came in from faculty, staff, alumni, and corporations and four separate alumni each matched the total funds raised by each class.

Seeing the community come together on such short notice to respond to disaster on the opposite end of our country has been very moving to me, especially as a native of New Orleans. I have seen in practice many times that the Tuck community extends far beyond the borders of New Hampshire. Our community, our family, extends throughout the United States and abroad.

When one of our eldest alumni, who lives in the Hanover area, heard of our first-year's fundraising efforts by reading the local paper, he made a point to come by Tuck in person to drop off a check. People like this inspire me, and constantly remind me that fortune can turn to misfortune in the blink of an eye and that we rely on our neighbors and should be conscientious of our actions or inactions, as one day we may have to rely on them as they have on us.

When students arrived on campus at universities in Louisiana late last month, the last thing they expected was an immediate evacuation and then to have that extended from a week or two to four months or more. In the aftermath of Katrina, business schools and colleges have opened their doors. At Tuck, we now have two students from Tulane University in our second-year courses. We welcome them to our community and will work to do everything we can to make their work here productive.

Research | - "Comments at Academy of Management Conference, Hawaii"

Paul Danos, Dean Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth.

I had the opportunity to be on a panel at the Academy of Management conference in Hawaii last August where much of the discussion revolved around the value of academic research in a management program. Here are some of the thoughts I tried to express in that session:

When I look at the central question of value of research in a business school setting, my belief is that the understanding of business processes, best practices, theories, and methods will all grow in importance. In general, business professors who are leading researchers know, as well as anyone, best practices, and the efficacy of those practices. They have the advantage of studying a cross-section of companies and therefore they can generalize their findings beyond the single company or industry; and their research success depends on rigorous review of their work.

In the debate about the value of academic business research, one central question must be considered: What process is best at developing and teaching knowledge of business to our students? I believe that the research process, as practiced in top business schools, offers the best approach to giving students a forward looking and relatively accurate picture of the world in which they will work.

Some people criticize professors for a lack of understanding of general management processes and here the appeal is usually to a lack of “real business” experience for faculty and for students. I agree that some of what is important to an MBA student can be best taught experientially. For instance, areas like teamwork, leadership, ethics, and negotiations require some hands-on work, but even in those cases, research can and should inform the coverage.

Most of the material in the elective courses taught at Tuck is based on our faculty's expertise derived from their research, and I know the same is true for many other schools. These electives are very highly rated by students for relevance and effectiveness.

On balance, I believe in rigorous research as a way of unfolding knowledge of important business processes. I understand that different fields have different challenges in making progress and therefore are at different points in their development. Top researchers in business schools know a great deal about what can and cannot be legitimately said about those processes, and for the most part they work on important topics and are quite honest about what they know.

In general, there is much to admire in the schools with good MBA programs-innovation and response to markets, coverage of leadership, ethics, teamwork, entrepreneurship, technology, community action, communications, teaching quality, career development, and alumni services. In addition, business schools have found ways to support good research and professors have found ways to have that research become part of the learning process. In general, I know of no professional programs that have done more.

Bologna Process | - "A catalyst for Globalisation"

Santiago Iñiguez, Dean of Instituto de Empresa Business School.


The Bologna Process will not only transform the European university landscape. It will contribute decisively to the globalisation of higher education worldwide. The current list of signatories of the Bologna Process includes 45 countries, which goes much beyond the membership of EU, and the number is growing. The harmonisation of educational systems among the signing countries will probably precede ulterior forms of integration–-social, economic and cultural--including future membership to EU.

I know that many other universities outside of Europe are preparing themselves for the Bologna future. North American institutions are looking at our continent as a promising future market, which explains the recent disembarking of some in Europe. Ironically, the institution that has developed the best study on the consequences of the Bologna Process in management education has been GMAC, an American company.

The interest in Bologna is also spreading quickly in Latin America. From my recent conversations with fellow deans of that continent, I detect a strong interest in anticipating the effects of Bologna in their region. In fact, some universities in Latin America are already adapting their higher degrees structure –from the typical 5 years “licenciatura” to bachelor+master- in order to get ready for the global effects of Bologna

Certainly, Bologna is a major topic at dean’s meetings. Today I was lucky to be the host at IE of Prof. Haifa Reda Jamal Al-Lail, Dean of Effat College in Saudi Arabia, an impressive person with a strong entrepreneurial drive and also a nominee for a 2005 Nobel Peace Prize.

The subject of Bologna came out over our conversation and we both agreed that it may provide many opportunities of collaboration and understanding between European and Middle East communities. We should resolutely support the Bologna process because it will extend many bridges among civilisations.

(Prof. Haifa Reda Jamal Al-Lail, Dean of Effat College, second from left)

Looking at the map, I wonder why Belarus has not joined the Bologna agreement; it seems it’s the only exception in Eastern Europe.

Bologna Process | - "Scope for confusion"

Della Bradshaw, The Financial Times Business Education editor.

I think the implementation of the Bologna accord is a wonderful opportunity for Europe to develop a common system of higher education, but there is still huge scope for confusion as far as I can tell.

Professor Iniguez suggests the reorganisation will result in a three-year bachelor programme and a two-year Masters programme, but all the evidence is that many countries, and many schools within those countries, will adopt different systems.

The Financial Times recently published a ranking of the top 25 Masters in Management programmes (for pre-experienced students). Of these 25 schools, 10 offered one-year masters programmes.

I am not sure whether this is such a bad thing. Clearly in the MBA market prospective participants can choose between one-year and two-year programmes, so why should the Masters in Management market be different?

What universities will have do is clearly articulate the value of their own programmes and successfully market them in an increasingly competitive arena. All of which could prove very expensive.

Bologna Process | - "Bologna"

Santiago Iñiguez, Dean of Instituto de Empresa Business School.

You may be familiar with the hit movie of a few years ago, L'Auberge Espagnole , which recounts the story of a European student who leaves home and studies in a foreign country. He wins his independence, expands his horizons and makes long-lasting friends from all around Europe on the same program as himself. The Erasmus program has changed how we view ourselves as Europeans and our knowledge of our neighbours.

However, this is nothing compared to the veritable revolution that is planned to occur by 2010 that bears the name “The Bologna Process”. Effectively the EU will become the United States of Europe, well at least in what refers to education. Imagine a Greek computer science graduate who heads to Ireland to finish their studies and gets accepted to do a Master in Computer Science receiving teaching from a Polish professor, all of them voluntarily there due to the reputation of the university that they attend. This example will be greatly amplified in number and will have enormous ramifications in terms of mobility and dynamism, creating the healthy situation where each university has to differentiate itself from every other comparable one in Europe. This transformation is the equivalent in higher education to what happened in the European economy with the adoption of the Euro.

Bologna is an Italian city famous for its University, the oldest in the Western World. But since 1998 the name Bologna has been associated with a transcendental process initiated by the European Union education ministers that formulated the European Higher Education Space (EHEA). According to this agreement, university studies must have the same structure in Europe by 2010. The main purpose of the Bologna Process is to foster cross movements of students, academics and knowledge, in turn improving the quality of teaching and research, ultimately increasing economic productivity in Europe.

Certainly, the creation of EHEA will transform the university landscape in Europe. Currently, university studies across Europe vary widely, both in terms of duration, contents and degrees, among other important issues. The Bologna Process will harmonise the current divergence into two major degrees: bachelor (three years) and masters (two years) degree programmes, in line with the prevalent model in the US or UK. The implementation is mainly delegated to national governments, in line with the standard way that most legislation is developed in the European Union. Most member countries have approved this legislation.

More information can be found at the EFMD website among many others. It might be beneficial to discuss the implications in terms of the necessary financial schemes that would need to be put in place as well as the extent of the IT system needed to keep track of that movement.

Economist and OECD.

Ethics | - "Ethics discussed at meeting yesterday of Sumaq at IE."

Santiago Iñiguez, Dean of Instituto de Empresa Business School.

“Fire burns both in Hellas and in Persia, but men's ideas of right and wrong vary from place to place”, stated Aristotle in his Nichomachean Ethics. The great philosopher could hardly be accused of moral relativism but supporters of this philosophical stream have frequently used that passage to illustrate their basic tenet: that moral principles are culturally based and, consequently, vary across the board. From this descriptive observation, moral relativists jump into the normative sphere: we should respect the customs of other cultures, whether we believe they are right or wrong.

Aristotle’s quote came to my mind yesterday over a discussion on moral codes at business schools with representatives of Sumaq, the alliance of the leading business schools in Latin America. I found solace in that the attending deans and programme managers said that they encounter similar challenges when designing and implementing moral codes (students’ codes of conduct) in MBA programmes with varied student cultural profiles. The challenge is how to find the right balance of adherence by all students for a clear and defined set of rules -a sort of global Decalogue or minimal moral denominator- and at the same time leave room for cultural diversity and divergence in customs.

In our International MBA, with participants from over 60 different countries and no dominant culture, there occur multiple cultural clashes among students every year. This is to be expected and reflects what happens in the real world. The important thing is how to solve those clashes and learn from those experiences. Certainly, dealing effectively and respectfully with cultural difference is something our students should learn.

I very much oppose moral relativism. We should respect cultural difference but we cannot allow, for example, sexist prejudices in our classrooms, despite that this may be, unfortunately, common practice in other cultures. I suppose that codes of conduct in MBA programmes act as moral equalisers. It is part of the global learning our students can achieve.

Martin Varsavsky (4th from right ) spoke yesterday with members of Sumaq.

Research | - "My presentation on research at AMBA in Chile"

Santiago Iñiguez, Dean of Instituto de Empresa Business School.

Readers may trace the discussion on management research generated in the past weeks in this blog. We debated the meaning of research for business schools, the necessary link between research and teaching and what defines cutting-edge research. The discussion probably resembles a recurrent debate present in Academia since the beginnings: the tension between theory and practice, between speculative work and its adaptation to real life. You may recall one of the famous quotes attributed to Immanuel Kant: “Experience without theory is blind, but theory without experience is mere intellectual play”. The same author also explained that creating a separation between theory and practice is fallacious. Theories that are not applicable in practice are just bad theories.

In late August I was invited by the Association of MBAs (AMBA) to talk on the balance between teaching and research at business schools, on the occasion of their conference for Latin American deans in Chile. There, I had the opportunity to revive the same debate about the right balance between theory and practice in research activities. The main conclusions of my presentation were the following. First, since management education has become “glocal” and has varied sources and different distribution channels, business schools need to find their own sources of differentiation. Second, that there is a need to stipulate a wide and comprehensive conception of research. A plausible solution is to use the concept RDI (research, development and innovation. You will find the contents of my contribution ("Session 4"), along with others at the same conference, here at the AMBA website.

Current-Affairs | - "Message to the Tuck Community"

Paul Danos, Dean Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth.

MBA students must be involved in addressing societal challenges. In a world where the private sector is of growing importance and where the private sector controls so much of the wealth of most countries, business leaders cannot ignore the communities in which they work. Each person must decide how he or she will respond to the world's problems, be it an epidemic such as AIDS, a tsunami, or the destruction left in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.

Being a native of New Orleans and having many relatives there, I have a special connection to this particular disaster. Growing up, I always heard of the dangers of living in a place that was surrounded by water, below sea level, and continuously dependent on pumps for drainage. It was said that a "perfect" storm from a certain direction and of a certain intensity would be devastating. It seems that now such a storm, Katrina, has taken a dreadful toll on many people and on a wonderful culture that played such an important part in so many lives. Many now say that the old city and the culture will never fully recover.

Certainly, our MBA students, who will some day be leaders in the world's great businesses, must view their sphere of responsibility to include the welfare of others in society. At Tuck we often discuss the relationship between business issues and societal issues. Students work directly on long-term solutions through projects and voluntary work. We encourage our students and the entire community to be involved in crises that demand immediate attention, and particularly in this case of the Gulf Coast devastation, to contribute to organizations like the Red Cross, Americares. Our goal is to expose students to business leadership in its broadest meaning, and to contribute to the immediate alleviation of human suffering and despair is a big part of that. I want to let you all know that Tuck will arrange for a limited number of special exchange students from the affected universities to be admitted to the second year of the MBA program.

I am gratified that our first-year students in their first week on campus are mounting a fundraiser for their class and challenging the T'06s to match their goal of $2500 or more. Jim Allwin has pledged to match the students' contributions and I want to encourage everyone in our community to join in. This is going to be a long and arduous road for the people in the disaster zone and I commend our students for taking this initiative.

Bologna Process | - "What will the Bologna agreement mean for the MBA in Europe?"

Della Bradshaw, The Financial Times Business Education editor.

I was fascinated to read some of the comments made by German academics in Professor Danos's posting from his meeting in Germany. One question that really interests me about the Bologna agreement is what effect it will have on the MBA degree in Europe.

Professor Kieser from Mannheim University says that European governments assumed that under the new bachelor/masters system only 20 to 30 per cent of bachelor graduates would study a masters degree straight after their undergraduate programme.

So, what will happen to the other 70 per cent?

The traditional five-year degrees in continental Europe have always meant that most university students are 24 or 25 before they graduate with their first degrees. This means they are not eligible for the US-style MBA programmes at the age of 27 - the average age for entering an MBA programme - because they do not have the appropriate work experience.

If they enter the workplace two years earlier, will the MBA become an attractive option for them?

Diary | - "Roundtable on future of business education in Germany"

Paul Danos, Dean Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth.

The idea of a series of roundtable discussions in important regions of the world, which would include leaders of business education, came out of the enormous growth and changes I  have witnessed in this industry over the last five years.

Germany is a particularly dynamic setting and a good example of the burst of innovation and change throughout Europe created by the Bologna Accord. This summary of our discussion delves into the German situation. We plan to host future roundtables in other key regions in the coming years.

Research | - "Impact and Opportunities."

Santiago Iñiguez, Dean of Instituto de Empresa Business School.

Kai Peters raises the issue of research on education and how could we measure the impact of the learning process on students. Business schools are probably the segment of higher education where impact is more closely monitored. This is reflected, for example, in the sophisticated systems to evaluate teaching performance at our schools or the processes in place to implement feedback from recruiters that hire our graduates. As regards executive education, some schools, along with specialized consultants and human resource departments, have developed mechanisms to measure the impact of tailored programs in the actual performance of attendees and the company itself. There are systems, with some limitations however, that can evaluate the return on sales or the increase in productivity attributable to educational programs.

At the same time, some of the prevalent methodologies implemented at MBA programs have become paradigmatic. The case method, for example, has the virtue of linking theory and practice by the application of concepts and tools to particular business situations, while at the same time allowing for the development of valuable skills of participants. Teamwork has also been fostered at our schools, preparing students for the working environments they will encounter in real life.

Another example of the constant search for suitable learning methods at business schools is the ongoing debate about how to instill a social responsible attitude in our students. If you just search in Google the item “can ethics be taught” you will find over 3 million entries, many of them referring to management education. I hope that this particular debate is already producing fruitful results. We see, for instance, an increasing number of MBA graduates who engage in social entrepreneurship.

Talking about research on educational methodologies, a major challenge we now face is how to take advantage of the opportunities that technology is offering us to optimize the learning process. All ideas are welcome here.

Research | - "Need to find 'kangaroos' for our Faculties"

Santiago Iñiguez, Dean of Instituto de Empresa Business School.

Similarly to what happened in other sectors, management education has become global and this has affected the nature of management knowledge in terms of its content, origin, diffusion and relevance. An example is that the current sources of management research are multifarious, and authors in academic journals include not only business schools’ professors but also consultants, financial analysts and journalists, just to name a few. In this new global and brave world, some outsiders to education, such as consulting firms and investment banks, have sometimes more opportunities for originating new knowledge because of their larger resources and proximity to markets. In fact, the potential synergies between business schools and consultancies or other companies have prompted many joint alliances aimed at developing research.

Likewise, the channels of management knowledge diffusion, as Kai Peters points out, have become very varied and fuzzy. Here, Internet is making a big impact in the way business theories are currently being discussed and disseminated. Think, for example about collaborative online tools and Creative Commons. If we, as educators, aim at delivering the ultimate management inventions, we probably have to look also outside the canonical channels of diffusion.

These multifaceted origins and channels of management knowledge have driven some accreditation systems to amplify the meaning of research when it comes to assessing the quality of business schools. Some years ago, AACSB International opted to introduce a new concept, “intellectual contributions”, in order to cover a wide range of research outputs, from articles in refereed journals to teaching materials. On the other side of the Atlantic, EQUIS created a different category:  RDI (Research, Development & Innovation), which goes beyond a narrow conception of academic research and allows candidate schools to define the nature and forms of its knowledge processes and products according to their mission.

Globalisation is affecting decisively the meaning of management knowledge. Like Della Bradshaw and Dean Danos, I believe that cutting-edge research should be an essential activity at business schools and is the necessary basis for excellence in teaching. Some analysts characterise teaching as opposed to research when it comes to defining the ideal profile of a faculty member. But this opposition is fallacious. My experience, in line with what Dean Danos states, is that the most successful and sought-after professors, by corporate clients for example, are also those who excel both in research and performance in class. The challenge for business school deans is how to attract and retain the “kangaroos”, i.e., those professors that combine a remarkable research and teaching profile and have ample practical experience. This is becoming increasingly difficult in our global industry.

Research | - "Are the Perspectives of Academic Researchers too Narrow?"

Paul Danos, Dean Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth.

Both Della Bradshaw and Kai Peters are rightly concerned with the relevance to students of different kinds of research. Do faculty who publish at the refereed journal level have the perspectives on their topics that would lead to their teaching being special? Or more broadly, what process is best one to develop and teach the knowledge our students need? I believe that the research process as practiced in top business schools offers the best chance of giving students a forward looking and relatively accurate picture of the world in which they will work. Sometimes we assume that our academic researchers are narrowly focused and that non-researcher teachers give a broader perspective, but I believe that it can be just the opposite. The top researchers give generalizations based on sampling of populations and/or very general principles. So, for instance, when they generalize about the effects of promotions on subsequent sales, they are not talking about one company or one person's experiences but about the class of companies under study. In a sense, they can be broader in their perspective and they are not limited by their own personal experiences. Of course, the “scientific research” approach to management studies does not always work well, and there are many great teachers who do not actively engage in that process. However, I believe that the practice at most high-quality schools to reward great teaching done by great researchers is rational and justified. As business education expands to new populations, we must look at the costs associated with research and decide on adaptations needed to make solid and relevant research a part of the education of all business leaders.

Research | -"Business Schools' unique research capabilities"

Paul Danos, Dean Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth.

Dean Iñiguez asks about cutting edge research and the debate about how and where this fits into a business school setting, especially in light of the recent HBR article by Bennis and O'Toole.

I believe that business school researchers have special insights into best business practices and that they can therefore give students unique knowledge that non-researchers may miss. Of course, there are no absolutes here, and exceptions can be found in both directions.

The greatest researchers I have known are among the greatest teachers I have known, and because researchers are often generalizing across many observations, they bring a breath of knowledge that is hard to match. Many of the critics of current business school faculty seem to imply that these brilliant people are in some way engaging in frivolous research behavior and that their schools blindly support that behavior. On the contrary, I believe that for the most part business school research is serious and relevant, and most importantly it leads to truly exceptional learning experiences for students.

Former Dean of HEC MBA hopes for change.

Santiago Iñiguez, Dean of Instituto de Empresa Business School.

A former dean of Hec's PhD and MBA programs has today written an article on his blog about our debate. He gives five reasons why our blog is interesting : "This newcomer is interesting on many accounts" . He hopes that European students can begin to see themselves more as shareholders. It can also be read by clicking on the "TrackBack(x)" link at the end of the post of June 17th.

In our "Blogs in Education" section we have a link to another one of his posts: "Standford conference..."

Happy reading!

Comment on Dean Danos' post of June 17

Santiago Iñiguez, Dean of Instituto de Empresa Business School.

At the end of his post Dean Danos raises the question: “What is the relationship between cutting edge research and relevant courses?” I think it’s important to ask ourselves the question: What exactly is cutting edge research? Traditionally, there has been a taxonomist effort to distinguish between academic and applied research, theoretical and clinical knowledge, speculative and pragmatic thinking. The tension between those two broad types of intellectual contributions has upgraded the status of academic research at the expense of applied studies. A recent article in HBR by Bennis and O’Toole How Business Schools Lost Their Way questions this conventional approach of how research should be conducted. Basically, they assert that business schools have adopted an inappropriate and ultimately self-defeating model of academic excellence because they assess their performance almost solely by the rigor of their scientific research. Their accusation is causing lots of debate on both sides of the Atlantic. Is it sound?

North American and European Models for Business Education

Paul Danos, Dean Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth.

Business schools across the globe have considerable similarities in curriculum design and courses taught. One reason could be that global businesses call for strong common threads in how accounting, finance, marketing and the other business fields are covered, or that the course materials are produced in a global publishing regime that has few boundaries, or even that most professors have similar training and there is significant communication between professors in a field.

One of the big areas of difference across regions is in the sources of revenues. Top North American schools have significant annual gifts and endowment incomes and high tuitions. North American state-supported schools also get government subsidies, and they too have moved to higher tuitions. European schools have a few examples where revenue sources are similar to North American top schools, but most are largely state supported, with annual giving, endowment income and tuition currently making up a smaller percentage.

Another area of considerable difference is in faculty focus, where most top North American schools' professors aim their research at scholarly journals and they are rewarded for refereed publications. In other parts of the world, there seems to be more emphasis on publications that are accessible to a wider practitioner audience.

I don't believe that the North American faculty model will change much any time soon, though economic pressures seem to demand at many schools the adding of adjunct faculty who do not do as much primary research. I think that most of the growth in management education will come from outside of North America, and I predict that those schools will employ fewer PhD's and more adjuncts, primarily based on cost considerations but also to achieve what is believed to be a more practical set of offerings.

Interesting questions for future discussion are: “What is the relationship between cutting edge research and relevant courses?” “Will faculty prestige continue to be identified with refereed publications?”

Venus and Mars

Santiago Iñiguez, Dean of Instituto de Empresa Business School.

Venus and Mars; is how some view European society and thinking as opposed to that of America (it’s debatable if that includes Canada or Mexico). This metaphor has been used to illustrate the different general abiding attitudes on opposing sides of the Atlantic vis-à-vis social issues, philosophy and religion etc. Does this same paradigm apply to management education?

Some differing cultural and structural features are at the root of this confrontation between the two different archetypes of American and European business schools. In America prevails a shareholder culture, universities rely heavily on the income generated by their endowments and the MBA market is the biggest and the most homogeneous worldwide. In Europe, there is a dominant stakeholder culture, management education is still very fragmented and there is a coexistence of various business school models. ( A difference of opinion | Economist.com 4/5th paragraph). If I were to choose a word to define higher education in Europe it would be “diversity”. The size of the American education market and the resources available to business schools result in more research-oriented faculties and in a more decisive role of a school’s brand name. As regards sources of revenue, business schools in our continent rely almost entirely on the revenues generated by their activities and, in the case of public universities, on state subsidies.

Let’s give credit to where credit is due: Management Education was invented in America. In fact, the first MBA in history was launched by Dartmouth University, my co-blogger’s stomping ground. However in Europe, the flourishing of business schools only occurred in the late 1950s. Many business examples demonstrate that being the pioneer does not necessarily ensure continuing as the benchmark in the long run. The Wright Brothers first flight heralded a subsequent US lead of the aviation industry for the rest of the century. However, Airbus, the European aircraft manufacturing consortium, has overtaken Boeing in the past years.(Financial Times: Boeing/Airbus)

Analogously, it seems that in the last decade European business schools have caught-up with their American counterparts and have lost their historical inferiority complex. Della Bradshaw, the renowned journalist of the Financial Times and co-blogger, might agree with me having written articles like European schools make a move up the table in her Business Education section.

Despite the two differing models of management education, the trend is, irreversibly, towards convergence: it is a consequence of globalisation. Will the descendent of Venus and Mars take more after its mother or father?