Director, Stellenbosch Business School
The 3rd summit of the Responsible Research in Business and Management (RRBM) marks the coming of age of an initiative that has its roots in a presentation by Anne Tsui almost ten years ago — she questioned the purpose of research in business schools. A small group of scholars recognised that business schools had an…
It is essential for an organization to be firmly anchored in its ecosystem – not least a business school, since supporting organisational performance is part of the raison d’être. In the context of the COVID-19 crisis, there is an opportunity for business schools aiming for a real impact among their stakeholders. An opportunity to demonstrate…
For many years, business schools have sought an appropriate balance of rigour and relevance in relation to their activities and the impact upon their stakeholders. Concern over impact has helped spawn a number of systems of research assessment aiming to incorporate and measure that elusive impact. Meanwhile Accreditation and Rankings bodies have tended to focus…
In most languages there is a phrase like ‘the children of cobblers have the worst shoes’ or ‘doctors don’t take their own medicine‘. Whichever the phrase, the message is that experts are either too busy or too expert to take their own advice and practice what they preach. Can we say the same about business schools not…
The rise of the #metoo movement combined with regular media cases of sexism and discrimination underline that gender equality is far from being achieved. Yet while many inequalities persist, the pressure for equality is undimmed. Many push for equality from a moral or human rights perspective yet there is also a ‘business case’ for a…
Look around and business schools are making grand claims to be working responsibly, sustainability, ethically, for society and even for humanity. While the criticism levelled at business schools after the financial scandals of the early 2000s and the 2008 Financial Crisis lead to soul searching for the sector these can seem like quite ambitious claims. Yet…