DeansTalk - business management education

Rethinking Undergraduate Business Education: Liberal Learning for the Profession - Carnegie Foundation

From Carnegie Foundation studies of Higher Education, carnegiehighered.org

Book

• Anne Colby, Thomas Ehrlich, William M. Sullivan, Jonathan R. Dolle, Foreword by Lee S. Shulman
• Jossey Bass, January 2011

“The authors have provided the most thoughtful and systematic study of undergraduate business education since the famous Ford Foundation and Carnegie Corporation reports of the 1950s. It is difficult to imagine a more bold and timely study that also offers a path for revitalizing America’s undergraduate business schools and, in turn, our nation’s business leadership.”
–Rakesh Khurana, Marvin Bower Professor of Leadership Development, Harvard Business School; author of From Higher Aims to Hired Hands (Princeton, 2007)

University of North Carolina as job laboratory

Reuters, February 9, 2012

CHAPEL HILL, NORTH CAROLINA — At the age of 17, Holden Thorp (@chanthorp) placed fifth in a nationally televised Rubik’s cube competition on the ABC show That’s Incredible! At 24, he received a doctorate in chemistry from the California Institute of Technology after studying for three years instead of five. And at 43, he was named chancellor of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, becoming one of the country’s youngest university presidents.

Today, Thorp is trying to turn this 29,000-student public university into an engine of economic innovation. A business owner who has twice launched $25 million pharmaceutical startups, Thorp has streamlined the process for faculty members to turn their discoveries into private companies. He has made “entrepreneurship” a minor for all undergraduate students.

And Thorp has co-written a book, Engines of Innovation: The Entrepreneurial University in the 21st Century, with the university’s “entrepreneur in residence” — a former venture capital banker. It calls for the top 125 U.S. research universities to revitalize the American economy. (www.revupinnovation.com)

“The jobs of the near and distant future,” he told me, “are going to be for those who create them for themselves.”

...

Thorp and Goldstein insist they are not backing the commercialization of academia. Their definition of entrepreneurship is a broad one, they say, that includes social entrepreneurship.

“It’s not Donald Trump,” Goldstein said.

Former Harvard University President Derek Bok, whose book “Universities in the Marketplace: the Commercialization of Higher Education,” looked at the phenomenon...

Professor Thomas J. Sargent, of Economics, New York University - "United States then, Europe now"

Thomas J. Sargent delivered his Nobel Prize Lecture on 8 December 2011 at Aula Magna, Stockholm University. He was introduced by Professor Per Krusell, Chairman of the Economic Sciences Prize Committee. slides PDF.

 

YouTube, at 16mins30

"In Defense of Globalization", book by professor Jagdish Bhagwati (Columbia University)

On Amazon

Jagdish Bhagwati Wikipedia

Reviews (PDF, 7 pages)

In Defense of Globalization is an important contribution to an often incoherent debate. As we expect from Mr.Bhagwati, it is cogently argued and well written. It sets out a persuasive case in favour of globalization. And because of Mr. Bhagwati’s impeccable credentials, there is a better chance his book will be given a fair hearing than might be the case with some other authors. Put simply, Mr. Bhagwati has “street cred.”
Anne Krueger, The Financial Times

 

Why globalisation works—and how to make it work better, The Economist, Apr 29th 2004

"An outstandingly effective book.... Until further notice In Defense of Globalization becomes the standard general-interest reference, the intelligent layman's handbook, on global economic integration."

...As you might expect, given the thrust of the author's previous academic and policy work, Mr Bhagwati regards liberal trade—the principal driver of globalisation—as essential to raising the incomes and improving the longer-term development prospects of the world's poor.

GlobalTradeAlert.org

globaltradealert.org

globaltradealert.org/about

• Independent: GTA is co-ordinated by the Centre for Economic Policy Research, an independent academic and policy research think-tank based in London, UK. GTA draws upon expertise and analysis from 7 independent research institutions around the world.

•  Comprehensive: GTA complements and goes beyond the WTO and World Bank's monitoring initiatives by identifying those trading partners likely to be harmed by state measures.

•  Accessible: The GTA website allows policy-makers, exporters, the media, and analysts to search the posted government measures by implementing country, by trading partners harmed, and by sector...

The Centre for Economic Policy Research, founded in 1983, is a network of over 750 researchers based mainly in universities throughout Europe, who collaborate through the Centre in research and its dissemination. The Centre's goal is to promote research excellence and policy relevance in European economics. CEPR Research Fellows and Affiliates are based in over 237 different institutions in 28 countries (90% in the EU). Because it draws on such a large network of researchers, CEPR is able to produce a wide range of research which not only addresses key European policy issues, but also reflects a broad spectrum of individual viewpoints and perspectives. CEPR has made key contributions to a wide range of European and global policy issues for over two decades.

France looks to the big league - to spend €7.7 billion for world-class universities

The Economist, Nov 4th 2011

PLANS to create a French Ivy League are part of the biggest shake-up in French higher education since students threw cobbled stones in les évènements of 1968. Championed by President Nicolas Sarkozy, the idea is to spend €7.7 billion ($10.6 billion) to produce a handful of world-class universities which can compete with the best...

...After all, business schools the world over have already come to understand the value of collaboration with other academic disciplines to create wealth and jobs. The collaboration between Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s management, engineering and science faculties, for example has created over 130 companies in the past 20 years with a market capitalisation of over $15 billion.

Top 150 universities of Global Employability Ranking - NYT

Ranking of top 150

October 20, 2011, in The International Herald Tribune with the headline: Gauging the Value of Your M.B.A.

...Emerging, a French consulting firm, surveyed employers on which schools they tended to rely on, and on what qualities made job candidates most employable.

Carried out in collaboration with Trendence, a German consulting firm, the survey included hundreds of employers from 10 countries.

Emerging boiled down the results to 150 universities that it called the Emerging/Trendence Global Employability Ranking — a list that includes the traditional top elite schools in North America as well as relative newcomers in Asia and Europe.

The study is meant to give “universities, recruiters and students the most valuable of tools: a road-tested blueprint of where it’s best to study in order to get a job,” Emerging said as it released its findings...

Social Sciences Still Young - Professor Edward L. Glaeser (Harvard)

"Social Sciences Still Young, Better data, the rise of real experiments, and interdisciplinary advances in the social sciences" (Harvard Magazine) (via @Beerkens)  

("Social Science" Wikipedia)

Edward L. Glaeser is Glimp professor of economics and director of the Harvard Kennedy School’s Taubman Center for State and Local Government.        

Social scientists seeking an ancient intellectual lineage can find antecedents for economics, sociology, and political science in the work of Plato and Aristotle, but truthfully, the social sciences are parvenu fields...

...Yet these pioneering steps seem slow relative to the current onrush of new data that is now transforming the social sciences...

Professor Jeffrey Sachs (Columbia) - FT - "Tripped up by globalisation"

August 18, 2011 Jeffrey Sachs, Financial Times.   

..The path to recovery now lies not in a new housing bubble, but in upgraded skills, increased exports and public investments in infrastructure and low-carbon energy. Instead, the US and Europe have veered between dead-end, consumption-oriented stimulus packages and austerity without a vision for investment...

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On Wikipedia

Huffington Post posts

Jeffrey D. Sachs is the Director of The Earth Institute, Quetelet Professor of Sustainable Development, and Professor of Health Policy and Management at Columbia University. He is also Special Advisor to United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon...

Professor Jean Pisani-Ferry (Uni. Paris) - Series: Reuniting Europe - Project Syndicate

Jean Pisani-Ferry Series: Reuniting Europe

Jean Pisani-Ferry is Director of Bruegel, an international economics think tank, Professor of Economics at Université Paris-Dauphine, and a member of the French Prime Minister’s Council of Economic Analysis.

voxeu.org - professor Daniel Gros - "August 2011: The euro crisis reaches the core"

VOX

Research-based policy analysis and commentary from leading economists

"Editors' choice" tab

Daniel Gros
11 August 2011

The euro crisis reaches the core

Investors are anticipating the unravelling of the 21 July 2011 “solution” and a breakdown of the interbank-market that would throw the economy into an “immediate recession” like the one experienced after the Lehman bankruptcy. This column argues that this will happen without quick and bold action...

...

What needs to be done

At this point the Eurozone needs a massive infusion of liquidity. Given that the cascade structure of the EFSF is part of the problem, the solution cannot be a massive increase in its size. However, the EFSF could simply be registered as a bank and could then have access to unlimited re-financing by the ECB, which is the only institution which can provide the required liquidity quickly and in convincing quantity.

This solution would have the advantage that it leaves the management of public debt problems in the hand of the finance ministries, but it provides them with the liquidity backstop that is needed when there is a generalised breakdown of confidence and liquidity. This is exactly when a lender of last resort is most needed.

It would of course be much better if the ECB did not have to ‘bail out’ the European rescue mechanism, but in this case one has to choose between two evils. Even a massive increase in the ECB’s balance sheet (which if the US experience is any guide will not lead to inflation) constitutes a lesser evil compared to a breakdown of the Eurozone financial system.

Editor’s Note: Daniel Gros expands on his thoughts in a companion audio piece, the Vox Talks The Eurozone crisis: only the unlimited firepower of the ECB will stop market panic

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Daniel Gros is the Director of the Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS) in Brussels. Originally from Germany, he attended university in Italy, where he obtained a Laurea in Economia e Commercio. He also studied in the United States, where he earned his M.A. and PhD (University of Chicago, 1984). He worked at the International Monetary Fund, in the European and Research Departments (1983-1986), then as an Economic Advisor to the Directorate General II of the European Commission (1988-1990). He has taught at the European College (Natolin) as well as at various universities across Europe, including the Catholic University of Leuven, the University of Frankfurt, the University of Basel, Bocconi University, the Kiel Institute of World Studies and the Central European University in Prague.

Professor Joseph Stiglitz (Columbia U.) - Europe's Travails and Our Collective Fate - NYT

Article of The New York Times, July 19, 2011.

ATHENS — An emergency meeting of European leaders in Brussels on Thursday to discuss another Greek bailout will decide the future of the euro. If they do what they have done so often since the crisis first began in Greece some 18 months ago, they will simply have kicked the can down the road. Contagion is almost inevitable. A problem that began in the periphery has now moved to the center, and while Spain and Italy have been the most shaken, other nations will almost surely be affected in coming months.

What needs to be done is by now well-known: Issue European bonds, using the collective borrowing power of the European Union, and pass the low interest rates onto the countries in need, combined with a growth strategy that will engender needed revenues...

U-Multirank

University World News site, 12 June 2011

The Europe-driven global benchmarking system U-Multirank, which allows universities to create personalised rankings using an array of indicators, was unveiled in Brussels last week. It is "a new user-driven, multi-dimensional and multi-level ranking tool in higher education and research," said its creators.

Because of these characteristics, U-Multirank differs substantially from existing rankings and meets the needs of various higher education stakeholders, said its designers Frans van Vught and Frank Ziegele in a presentation on Thursday.

"The Innovative University" - book of Clayton M. Christensen & Henry J. Eyring

www.theinnovativeuniversity.com

Hardcover: 512 pages
Publisher: Jossey-Bass; 1 edition (July 26, 2011)

"The language of crisis is nothing new in higher education—for years critics have raised alarms about rising tuition, compromised access, out of control costs, and a host of other issues. Yet, though those issues are still part of the current crisis, it is not the same as past ones. For the first time, disruptive technologies are at work in higher education. For most of their histories, traditional universities and colleges have had no serious competition except from institutions with similar operating models. Now, though, there are disruptive competitors offering online degrees. Many of these institutions operate as for-profit entities, emphasizing marketable degrees for working adults. Traditional colleges and universities have valuable qualities and capacities that can offset those disruptors' advantages—but not for everyone who aspires to higher education, and not without real innovation. How can institutions of higher education think constructively and creatively about their response to impending disruption?"

Professor Lars Peter Hansen (U. Chicago) wins one of the BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Awards (400K euros)

The BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Awards seek to recognize and encourage world-class research and artistic creation, prizing contributions of lasting impact for their originality, theoretical significance and ability to push back the frontiers of the known world

The award in the Economics, Finance and Management category goes to Professor Lars Peter Hansen of the University of Chicago “for making fundamental contributions to our understanding of how economic actors cope with risky and changing environments”, according to the jury’s citation. 

President Amy Gutmann of the University of Pennsylvania, interview with The New York Times

New York Times, June 18, 2011

...those two things are really important about leadership, to have courage and to be farsighted in your vision, not to be just reacting to the next small challenge...

Dean Santiago Iniguez (IE) presents 2nd conference "Reinventing Higher Education"

 "Reinventing Higher Education: The Role of the University in a Global Society"

IE University, Madrid (Segovia), October 18, 2011

Following the success of the first event held in Segovia on May 4, 2010, IE University, in collaboration with the Chronicle of Higher Education is organizing the second edition of the Conference on ‘Reinventing Higher Education: The role of the University in a Global Society’, which will take place in Madrid at IE campus, October 18th, 2011. The aim of the conference is to gather university administrators, policy makers, business entrepreneurs, academics, student representatives and media experts to discuss the current status and future evolution of Higher Education (HE), and to debate the direction in which research, learning, governance and management of universities should now go. The conference is organized in partnership with The Chronicle of Higher Education, No. 1 source of news, information, and jobs for university faculty members and administrators.

 

Daniel H Pink: employees are faster and more creative when solving other people's problems

Article of The Telegraph, 22 May 2011

Recent research reveals that people are more capable of mental novelty when thinking on behalf of others than for themselves. This has far-reaching practical implications at every level of business.

...Evan Polman of New York University and Kyle Emich of Cornell University...

Over the years, social scientists have found that abstract thinking leads to greater creativity. That means that if we care about innovation we need to be more abstract and therefore more distant. But in our businesses and our lives, we often do the opposite. We intensify our focus rather than widen our view. We draw closer rather than step back.

That's a mistake, Polman and Emich suggest..

Meet deans Sally Blount (Northwestern University) and Sunil Kumar (University of Chicago) - Chicago Tribune

Melissa Harris CHICAGO CONFIDENTIAL, May 19, 2011

Business school deans tend to hold their posts for five to 10 years. And the most prominent ones in Chicago — at the University of Chicago's Booth School of Business and Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management — have been arriving and departing on similar schedules as of late...

Sleep deprivation - FT

May 6 2011, Financial Times.

A good night’s sleep can be more important than you might realise when it comes to doing a good day’s work.

Research into sleep deprivation has revealed that insufficient rest can lead to deviant behaviour in the workplace, ranging from turning up late and going home early to rudeness, theft, vandalism and even violence.

Michael Christian, an assistant professor of organisational behaviour at Kenan-Flagler Business School at the University of North Carolina and Aleksander Ellis an associate professor in the management and organisations department at the University of Arizona’s Eller College of Management looked at two groups of people...

...The study - Examining the effects of sleep deprivation on workplace deviance: A self-regulatory perspective,” will be published in an upcoming Academy of Management Journal.

First female president of the European University Association

New Leader in European Higher Ed, April 28, 2011, Times Higher Education

The first female president of the European University Association has vowed to use her term of office to smash the glass ceiling for women working in higher education.

Maria Helena Nazaré, former rector of the University of Aveiro and the first female rector in Portugal, was elected by a narrow margin at the EUA 2011 conference in Denmark this month...

...Professor Nazaré said there was room for improvement at the EUA, although she emphasized its success in developing from an "almost nonexistent" entity to the lobby group for more than 800 European institutions in just a decade...

Becker and Posner - College Education.

What Is a College Degree Really Worth? - Posner, 03/14/2011

Are Too Many Young People Going to College? - Becker, 03/14/2011

"Justice" course of Michael Sandel - one of Harvard's most popular courses free online

justiceharvard.org - Michael Sandel - 12 lectures

Wikipedia - Michael Sandel

Sandel has taught the famous "Justice"^[1] course at Harvard for two decades. More than 14,000 students have taken the course, making it one of the most highly attended in Harvard's history. The fall 2007 class was the largest ever at Harvard, with a total of 1,115 students.^[2] The fall 2005 course was recorded, and is offered online for students through the Harvard Extension School. An abridged form of this recording is now a 12-episode TV series, Justice: What's the Right Thing to Do?, in a coproduction of WGBH and Harvard University. Episodes are available on the Justice with Michael Sandel website.^[3][4] There is also an accompanying book Justice: What's the Right Thing to Do?, and the sourcebook of readings Justice: A Reader.

A College Degree Is Still Worth It - Bloomberg Businessweek

Article of March 20, 2011

Sure, it costs more, and technology is threatening high-paying jobs. But the Great Recession shows postsecondary education is more valuable than ever.

...

Yes, it has been a rough decade for college-educated workers. The real earnings of young college graduates have stagnated. The job market has been inhospitable to newly minted graduates since the recession started in 2007, and economic research suggests an initial income hit for workers just starting out continues to exert a downward influence on their wages 15 years later. Routine white-collar jobs are being outsourced to high-tech shops at home (think legal research) and to emerging markets abroad (jobs such as processing individual tax returns).

Still, college graduates are doing better than everyone else. For instance, the median earnings of a college graduate with a BA working full-time in 2008 was $55,700 and for those with an Associates Degree (typically awarded by community and technical colleges) was $42,000. That's significantly better than the $33,800 for high school-only grads and $24,300 for those without a high school diploma...

Times Higher Education’s list of the world’s top universities for 2010-11

www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/world-university-rankings

Interview With US-Economist Berkeley-Professor Barrry Eichengreen - Europe's Banks and March's summit - Der Speigel

Article of February 3, 2011, Speigel Online International

Interview With US Economist Eichengreen, (@B_Eichengreen, Wikipedia, on Project Syndicate), 'Europe's Banks Are in Far Greater Danger Than People Realize'

The European Union is hoping that aid to Greece and Ireland combined with closer economic policy coordination will be enough to put an end to the euro crisis. But that's not likely, warns US economist Barry Eichengreen. First and foremost, he says in an interview with SPIEGEL, Europe needs to help out its ailing banks.

SPIEGEL: Professor Eichengreen, you have spent many years studying whether the European common currency union could collapse. Your conclusion: It would be technically possible for a member state to leave the euro zone, but that politically it is about as likely as a meteorite hitting the Eurotower in Frankfurt. Are you sticking by that assessment?

Eichengreen: Yes, but with one condition. That at their summit in March, the member states face up to some unpleasant truths. Plan A has failed. Now they have to switch to Plan B. They must stop attempting to combat the crisis in Greece and Ireland by forcing these countries to pile more debt onto their existing debts by saddling them with overpriced loans.

SPIEGEL: But at the same time, Europe is stifling any chance of growth in Greece and Ireland by forcing them to comply with harsh austerity measures. Is there any way this strategy can actually add up?

Eichengreen: The present bailout attempts have never made sense...

Interview with Mervyn King, the Governor of the Bank of England - The Telegraph

Mervyn King interview: We prevented a Great Depression... but people have the right to be angry, 4 March 2011, The Telegraph.

(Mervyn King was an academic for 20 years before joining the Bank of England, Wikipedia).

...He loved Cambridge, but economics was too much “harking back” to Keynes. It was in postgraduate work at Harvard that he “learnt that economics could be a serious discipline”. Being a bright young man, he gave “excessive weight” to economic models. “You feel, 'My models will make a big difference.’ As I get older, I give more weight to history...Maths and models should be “aids to thinking, not substitutes for it”

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(Recommends:

a) Lombard Street: A Description of the Money Market (Wiley (April 2, 1999))

b) "Michael Lewis talks about The Big Short", (previously on BizDeansTalk))

VoxEu - promoting research-based policy analysis and commentary by leading scholars.

VoxEU.org is a policy portal set up by the Centre for Economic Policy Research (www.CEPR.org) in conjunction with a consortium of national sites. Vox aims to promote research-based policy analysis and commentary by leading scholars. The intended audience is economists in governments, international organisations, academia and the private sector as well as journalists specializing in economics, finance and business.