We have impact
Nov 8th 2011, 16:23 by J.L.H.D | ATLANTA
As marketing brochures go, a recent publication by the Thunderbird School of Global Management has an intriguing premise: it is a “Global Impact Report”.
It makes one wonder how to get a better grip on that mushy concept, “impact”. Business schools would love to understand how they affect the world around them. But it is a tricky thing to measure. Part of the problem is that impact and reputation, while related, are not the same thing. A lesser-known school, for example, might churn out interesting ideas on the quiet, while a well-known one could contribute less, but more loudly. Equally, star professors can have a small effect on many individuals, through their books, while their junior peers do more teaching and thus have a larger effect on students. Even faculty contribution can be a thorny topic. Which contributes more to Thunderbird’s impact: a textbook written by a professor at the school, or the Twitter feed of school president, Ángel Cabrera?
Also not the same thing: impact and effort. Thunderbird includes investment seminars in Vietnam and programmes aimed at women entrepreneurs in Pakistan and Afghanistan in its report. These are good initiatives for prospective students to know about, but the programmes’ actual impact is hard to measure when the graduates haven’t yet had time to start businesses.
Context matters, too. Thunderbird is trying to measure its global impact. But local impact might be a little easier to determine, by surveying local employers and counting the revenue of alumni startups. This will also depend on how much the locals need MBAs. Over the last two decades the various Indian Institutes of Management can probably claim a greater impact than most of their more prestigious European counterparts.
Finally, impact is not necessarily positive. Remember the impact of Harvard Business School alumnus Jeffrey Skilling?
Thus, Thunderbird’s report is not brimming with value. When evaluating schools’ impact, prospective MBAs would be better focusing on the narrow issues which affect them: what does it add to the particular industry or location in which they intend to work. In such cases, schools should be able to point to strong evidence impact, in the form of job placement percentages, stories of successful alumni careers and promising employers making regular appearances on campus.
The other approach is to treat the MBA as akin to a liberal-arts education; a way to broaden general business knowledge, in which every piece contributes to the whole. Here, the impact of the students in the wider world would be less important than good teachers, interesting classmates and the opportunity to study a variety of subjects. Including, perhaps, the best way to market a business school.
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Excellent post. In my opinion Business Schools, in an effort to reach more prospective MBAs, sometimes fail to communicate their programs and activities for what they are. Efforts are just that, and the "impact" will vary in "X" number of ways depending on the stakeholder.
Now, more than ever, it's critical that Business Schools address the content of their programs. Business megatrends require leaders with a new set of competencies and the wrongly named "soft skills". The economic crisis proved that companies are in need of responsible leadership to guide them into the next stage of globalization. Social Entrepreneurship needs an influx of ethic, responsible, "business-minded" MBA graduates. In business today, people are questioning leadership as issues like unethical sourcing, insider trading, environment destruction, just to name some manifest themselves. As a result, employee confidence in leaders and managers is low. Following the thought of the post, that could be perceived as bad impact.
I can sincerely say that my MBA experience(at IE Business) was enhanced by an internship experience in South Africa (Emzingo Group). That no elective course could ever provide the knowledge, experience and transformative "impact" that Emzingo, the NGO (where I interned as a consultant) and Johannesburg provided. I acquired an edge, a broader vision of things, and the responsibility to use that extra knowledge to make a change and a difference. That's an impact, yet the measurement of the "impact" will very very subjective depending to what stakeholder you address.
Correction: that last line in my previous post should read: That's an impact, yet the measurement of the "impact" will be very subjective depending to what stakeholder you address.
I suggest that the mongrel institutions well below the elites on the celebrity league tables have the lasting impact. The super stars impacts tend to be ephemeral. The impact of the mongrel teaching institution is manifested in the individual successes of its students which take years to incubate. Their aggregate entrepreneurship is the backbone of the economy. The stars may receive the glory but it is the individual graduates that generate the gold.
Thank you for the great article!
I think "Impact" should clearly focus on one stakeholder---the student--who incidentally happens to be the end customer of B-schools.
The clear message should be:
"What you get by joining us".
Everything will fall into place if the proverbial label on the packet accurately describes the contents . Else neither Entrepreneurship not Leadership can emerge when there is a mismatch between the needs and the services of the institutions.
About the Asian B-Schools, I would request you to elaborate your point about the context and the need of the locals.
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