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| New
Opportunities |
| Bologna
Accord ushers in sweeping changes
for the European higher education
landscape |
 Mike
Page currently serves as dean
and director of the Rotterdam
School of Management (RSM)
Foundation, the Business School
at Erasmus University in the
Netherlands. A founding member
of the Global Executive OneMBA,
Page has published and presented
papers internationally in both
finance and marketing. He
is frequently invited to speak
on the latest trends and developments
in management education at
industry meetings and continues
to consult with fund management
firms.
Also
an honorary professor of the
University of Cape Town at
the Graduate School of Business,
Page holds appointments at
Henley Management College (UK)
and Stellenbosch Business School
(SA). Page received his B.Sc.
from Natal University and his
MBA and Ph.D. from the University
of Cape Town.
RSM
educates current and future
business leaders to understand
and address the far-reaching
changes that affect the world.
The school actively engages
business and industry in a
targeted, dynamic, and productive
way with its most cutting-edge,
research-driven knowledge.
It has achieved an international
reputation for its research,
teaching, and academic achievement.
The 2004 Financial Times ranks
the RSM 22nd in the world.
In this article, Page offers
his perspectives on the impact
of the Bologna Accord. Signed
by 29 European countries, the
Bologna Accord introduces the
bachelor’s/master’s
system instead of the master's-only
system, thus reducing the time
that students spend at European
universities. The system, already
in place in many countries
and universities, will be implemented
throughout Europe by 2010.
Bachelor’s graduates
can either continue their studies
or go directly into employment.
Is
the Bologna Accord a positive
step for European higher education?
The
Bologna Accord provides a common
framework for the bachelor/master
system and harmonizes the educational
system across Europe, which
does bring scale benefits.
It is the first step in Europe
in really reflecting on its
intellectual competitive position.
My view is that mobility will
bring enormous potential advantages
for “institutions of
excellence,” which will
become attractive venues for
the brightest and the best,
particularly at the master
and higher education level.
What
is the biggest change that
the Bologna Accord will entail?
The
Bologna Accord is about the
transformation of universities
in an increasingly competitive
higher education landscape.
This means that universities
need to recognize the power
of the market.
Institutions
that had previously offered
a single master’s-level
degree will not only be competing
for excellent students, but
will have to fight to retain
those students – the
brightest and the best – after
three years. They must accept
that some will leave, and that
they will need to market to
try and recruit master’s-level
students from other institutions.
The greater the freedom among
students to decide where to
continue their studies and
the more transferability of
qualification and credit, the
more universities will have
to look at the total service
quality package they offer.
In other words, they will need
to examine the quality of the
peripheral services that they
provide, which may range from
housing and career advice,
to personal development elements
and so forth, as well as sustain
their quality of education
and research.
Some countries
have expressed concern
that their academic traditions
will be compromised by
European harmonization.
How do you see this issue?
First,
I would argue that good
traditions are surprisingly
robust. I genuinely believe
that if there’s a just
cause for your traditions and
if they’ve evolved over
time then the traditions are
almost Darwinian in the reason
for their survival. However,
traditions are not written
in stone. Our practices in
our countries, our cultural
sensitivities, are evolving
continuously.
Second, I feel
that tradition and value are
sustained by exposure – by
being exposed to the outside
world and by the outside world
being exposed to you. As dean
of a truly international business
school, I see multicultural
management as understanding
the amazing richness and potential
inherent in diversity. European
harmonization will hopefully
bring greater clarity without
sacrificing the benefits of
diversity.
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What
other consequences do you foresee for
business schools?
Initially, an explosive demand
for specialist master’s programs may
create a crisis of excessive
opportunity. Institutions will need to
define very clearly where and how we want
to be excellent. If we do not do this,
we may become guilty of supplying a myriad
of "products" and not
concentrating sufficiently on the task
of developing reflective people with the
capacity to truly serve our societies.
Within the business education arena, it
is possible that the post-experience education
market and the MBA demand will grow, while
the M.Sc. market may shrink for some universities,
unless they have excellent research records.
If
MBAs will be in such demand, how can you
guarantee the quality?
My view,
of course, is that markets are very discriminating.
The more MBAs start coming into the marketplace,
the more commercial institutions seeking
to recruit MBAs will discriminate about
where they go. Questions will be increasingly
asked about whether the MBA is a brand
or whether the institution from which you
received your MBA is the brand. More and
more the institution from which you obtain
your degree will define the brand of your
qualification, rather than the three letters "MBA.”
We
need to keep that in mind that MBA programs
are not just about learning management
techniques. Universities are about critical
thinking, about stimulating self-reflection
rather than teaching “tools.” The
world is so dynamic that the “tools” you
receive today will be of little use tomorrow.
It’s only your capacity to innovate
and mold your set of "tools" to
evolving circumstances throughout your
professional life that enables you to sustain
your competitive advantage.
Critical thinking,
the ability to deal with others, to understand
the dynamics of how people think and work,
represents only part of the solution. The
much more important element is about understanding
how you yourself think and work so that
you can effectively engage with others.
This is the kind of reflective head start
that will enable you to maximize your
leadership and managerial potential. Universities
have a head start in this education regard.
The question is whether they can leverage
it adequately.
What do you
mean by teaching MBA participants to “make
their own tools?”
At
the heart of research is the inquiring
mind. Understanding context is what research
seeks to do. The old legacy perspective
that there is a dichotomy between the academic
world and the practical one is nonsense.
I believe there’s nothing as practical
as a good theory! If you want to use a
conceptual tool you need to have sufficient
critical thinking capacity to understand
the base assumptions that led to its development.
To a child with a hammer everything is
a nail. An institution of excellence tries
to teach its MBA participants about the
context. Is it a nail you’re dealing
with? Fine, then use the hammer. It’s
perfect! If it’s not a nail, you
will have to find, make, or invent another “tool.”
Will
the Bologna Accord affect the relationship
between business and business schools?
Yes,
new, more symbiotic relationships with
the corporate world will ensue, especially
regarding research and funding.
First,
researchers gain the seeds of their ideas
from businesses that, by their very existence,
put questions to them for investigation.
Academics engage with the real world through
their research, but also because the real
world enters the classroom. It enters the
classroom with executive students; it enters
the classroom in the continuous development
of employees in the executive education
domain; and it enters the world of research
when it has questions that require a fresh
perspective.
Second, institutions are going
to have to seek multiple sources of funding
for higher education and management education.
From a funding perspective the state needs
to be engaged, and to define very clearly
the resource implications for providing
appropriate education for the country’s
citizens. The private sector needs to top
up, and our competitive game dictates that
the topping up will be skewed toward centers
of excellence. This in turn lays down the
gauntlet for universities.
Why
would the corporate world be involved in
funding higher education?
Business
schools can lead the charge by building
relationships with companies through their
graduates and research and then converting
these relationships into partnerships.
I would define partnerships as finding
conduits for mutual benefit, in the sense
of management education and of business
effectiveness.
Once this is achieved, it
is possible to ask the wealthier partner
to contribute to the poorer partner. If
you haven’t
gone through the sequence of building the
relationships and turning them into partnerships
for mutual benefit, you’re just going
out with a begging bowl. You haven’t
provided the motivation for why companies
and individuals that are paying such high
taxes should now fork out more money.
Do
you see the Bologna Accord as an opportunity
for the RSM?
It is a wonderful
opportunity for RSM because this institution,
along with a few others in Europe, is ahead
of the curve in understanding the market
dynamics. It’s
an opportunity because our engine is more
fine tuned than our competitors’ engines.
That gives us a head start. Whether we
grasp it with both hands determines whether
we can sustain it. Bologna could result
in 10 to 15 business schools in Europe
that will compete in size and scope with
the big players in North America. I think
Erasmus University and the Rotterdam School
of Management, considering its unparalleled
internationalism and outstanding array
of MBA, post-graduate, and post-experience
programs, have every expectation of being
one of these dominant players in Europe.
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