M.E.R.C. Blog

An interesting discussion has sprouted from the rich output of the Third Annual GBSN Conference in Nairobi about what distinguishes African business school needs from those in the "North".  In order to further capture and encourage this discussion, we have posted the threads on our blog.  We invite you to join this virtual conversation by posting on this blog.

Thank you,

Guy Pfeffermann, CEO

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Guy,

Thanks for sending along the review of the Nairobi session*. Having spent (maybe misspent) 25-odd years in university business schools, I recall sitting in maybe 100 meetings of this kind and, believe it or not, many were interesting.

There’s always been a tension in business schools embedded within universities between orienting toward the outside community, typically represented by the business community, or toward the academic community represented by the rest of the university. Business often (by no means always) wants more pragmatic stuff to be taught, in your meeting signified perhaps by the statement that African B-schools should produce graduates with "fire in their bellies." In the U.S., it’s more likely to be a bit more sophisticated than that, but not much: "Your graduates can’t hit the ground running, so we have to spend a lot of time further training them." etc.

The university, on the other hand, wants B-schools, if they are to exist at all, to be properly academic, subject to rigorous standards both in the classroom and in research output. Thus, B-schools are not to "train" people for jobs, but to explain how business fits into the broader society, what societal problems are created by business operations, how excesses can be remedied, etc. Sure, it’s alright to teach some basic accounting or finance, because it’s fundamental to understanding the functioning of any business enterprise and, indeed, any public enterprise. But, such courses as "Sales Management," "Small Business Management," and, today, perhaps "Entrepreneurialism" have no place in a university curriculum.

Thus, university B-schools range across a spectrum from quite academic: Chicago, Northwestern, Wharton (graduate), etc. to much more applied: Thunderbird, possibly HBS, Darden and many, many state schools. Thunderbird gets away with it because it’s not embedded in a university and HBS is, even now, really not accepted by much of the university (for example, it is not allowed to offer a Ph.D., the university’s doctoral degree, but rather must be happy with a DBA, an HBS degree).

In the US, academics and some businesspeople respect the Chicago’s of the world, while business people mostly go for the HBS-like schools. However, my suspicion all along has been that African schools would be better off at this stage with a much more practical approach. And, this approach is not really the specialty of, say, Wharton. Thus, the schools that might be more appropriate for helping with African programs might well be some of the lesser known ones, and ones less likely to be posturing to become "research institutions."

Anyway, thanks for sending me the review.

Robert Miller

*You can find the review of the 3rd Annual GBSN Conference here. 

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Yes, I agree with Bob. Have found the HBS model most useful, but have been astonished at how far some of the European schools that one might expect to be more applied have bought in entirely to the research excellence model. And have detected quite a strong trend in that direction at HBS too.

It is unfortunate, however, when this is set up as a competition between the research model and the applied model (as I think has happened). As someone said, there is nothing quite as practical as a good theory; and similarly good practice absolutely needs excellent research bases. And good management / business research should at least be inspired by questions of practice.

African schools need a focus on practice (hence TPM), but we also very deeply need better research, and in particularly need to find out how to (and gain the confidence for) research that charts the way forward towards business success in Africa by Africans.

It would be very helpful if a group of wise senior faculty could help us formulate an approach to our brave but tentative idea of creating a TPM-like course called "Researching the Practice of Management" that transcended that dichotomy and helped us develop research excellence for application in management excellence.

I have some ideas about this, but would really welcome help with it. It needs going beyond current conventional global wisdom and practices about research in business schools if we are not going to waste our energy arguing between two non-viable alternatives - academic research divorced from management practice because the researchers are pursuing discipline-specific recognition in A-grade specialist journals, and weak anecdotal stuff that masquerades as research because the protagonists are ill-equipped or too lazy to do the proper stuff.

Neither sounds appropriate.

I think there is a better alternative that would not be too difficult to define if we trusted each other enough not to defend the extremes!

Jonathan Cook
Senior Lecturer, Gordon Institute of Business Science

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Wonderful conversation!

Wow, Jonathan I need to know these good schools in Europe that are doing a fine job of traversing the rigorous academic path and the practical ‘applied’ path.

Were you thinking of LBS [London Business School] or Oxford "Said Business School"? If so I think there is some truth in it. Said actually followed a similar path to that of GIBS.

Regardless, I think there is a solution to business schools in Africa being more practical while retaining a research academic path and I hope we can research this according to your proposal.

I think this lies somewhere between a good MBA and good executive short  programmes tailor made for industry. The MBA has to impart a global perspective of issues while executive programmes have to be multi-disciplinary and application focused.

George Njenga

Dean, Strathmore Business School 

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Dear GBSN Committee Members:

We are exploring the possibility of University of Cape Town Graduate School of Business (http://www.gsb.uct.ac.za/ gsbwebb/home.asp)

hosting the next annual meeting. I spoke to Frank Horwitz, the outgoing Dean, who is to move to Cranfield (UK) early next year. His successor is to be named soon for a smooth transition. GSB is a member of the Association of African Business Schools, as is USIU, Nairobi, which hosted this year’s meeting.

The choice of Cape Town makes sense for several reasons. It is a relatively inexpensive place for African participants to travel to, and we would likely be staying at the School’s lodge . I have been in communication with the World Economic Forum; they will be running their Africa Summit in Cape Town June 10-12, and may once again waive fees for senior AABS/ GBSN participants. We could time the GBSN meeting back-to-back if WEF decides to weave us into their program. Last but not least, UCT’s Enterpreneurship Center is benefiting from one of Goldman Sachs’s "10,000 Women" programs, and GS may, as in Nairobi, help out with some sponsoring, and perhaps also a complementary do involving some of their local clients.

I should be grateful if you would give some thought to the agenda.  Perhaps the easiest way to proceed is for each of you in a first round to let me (and the others) know which topic you prefer to offer thoughts about, and so we will be able to share the preparation work.

I also suggest that we schedule a meeting of the GBSN Committee in Cape Town before the opening of the broader annual meeting.

Kindly let me have your suggestions.

With best regards,

Guy Pfeffermann, CEO 

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I think that one of the more interesting discussions last July concerned the differences one is likely to find - or would want to find - between mentored African business schools and the mentoring Western schools. There is an instinctive inclination to imagine that the mentoring schools should be the model and that the mentors’ advice should be concerned with how the mentored schools can mimic it. Yet I don’t think this is necessarily correct.

What I am suggesting is that part of the agenda for Cape Town be addressed to desirable differences. For example:

1. How would faculty profiles differ? (This is the question Javier addressed in his recent e-mail.)

2. How would the program portfolios differ? Would short courses on entrepreneurship and small business management for young people (i.e., younger than MBA/exec types) make sense?

3. One or two-year MBA program? (This is likely to be contentious, but I think it’s important.)

4. How should curriculum and curriculum materials differ? Pedagogy?

5. What kind of research should African business school faculty conduct? The same as that of the top Western faculty? If not, then what?

6. What is the career objective that African schools plan for their PhD graduates?

Incidentally, I think the choice of Cape Town is excellent.

Best wishes,
Landis Gabel, INSEAD

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A comment on this.   We now have had over 200 faculty from China, Korea, Singapore spend a semester with us at MIT/Sloan.   In the early days of our China activity in particular, the Chinese Faculty wanted to copy what we were doing but we very explicitly asked them not to do this.   We asked them to observe what we do and to modify our approaches to their own country/culture context.  This was tough sledding in the early years, but works very well now and they sometime develop materials which enrich our curricula. The most challenging aspect of our collaborations is not academic content, but approaches to teaching and we spend a lot of time on teaching workshops, arranging for them to attend the excellent HBS teaching and case writing seminars, etc.

Alan White, MIT

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