Should Media Shape the Business School Agenda?
Podcast
AACSB’s executive vice president of EMEA and chief thought leadership officer, Eileen McAuliffe, talks with Financial Times editor Andrew Jack about the role—and responsibility—of the media in business education. With the backdrop of AACSB's Research Impact Conference, they discuss whether rankings measure what really matters and how to reach a broader set of institutions when assessing impact. They explore three big questions:
- Media organizations have enormous influence over how business schools define success. What responsibility do you think they have in shaping the future priorities of business education?
- The recent changes to the FT50 journal list sparked debate across business schools. Can you share what updates were made and the reasons for the updates?
- What should meaningful impact look like in business schools today?
Transcript
[00:00] Intro: Welcome to AACSB Pulse, the podcast that tackles critical topics in global business education today, three questions at a time. We talk with deans, industry leaders, and other big thinkers about the trends reshaping education, leadership, and the future of work. AACSB Pulse brings these topics and more into sharp focus. AACSB Pulse: Three big questions. Bold answers. Better business schools.
[00:26] Eileen McAuliffe: Welcome to AACSB Pulse. Today I have the distinct pleasure of talking with Andrew Jack, global education editor at the Financial Times, and a name that many of our listeners will recognize. Andrew writes and speaks extensively on topics shaping business education, from rankings and research impact to the evolving role of business schools in society.
Andrew, let me warmly welcome you to this episode, and I look forward to a thoroughly lively conversation with you.
[00:55] Andrew Jack: Thanks very much, Eileen. Great to be here. Very good to chat.
Question 1
[00:58] Eileen McAuliffe: Yeah, great. So, as listeners know, we structure each episode around three big questions, typically, and for our first one, I wanted to start at quite a high level before we get into recent conversations around rankings.
So this is around kind of media organizations, including FT. They have huge influence, right, over how business schools define success, for good or bad. What responsibility do you think they have in shaping future priorities of business education?
[01:31] Andrew Jack: The role of the media in general, in all sorts of areas, not least in education and business schools, you know, has multiple functions. One is to clearly inform and observe what’s going on, you know, a second is to analyze. A third is to drive accountability, if you like, to hold, you know, the feet to the fire of different organizations and identify when there’s perhaps things that aren’t going as well as they ought to.
I certainly think education in general and business education in particular has an important role in society. I also think that, you know, frankly, there are huge costs involved, as we know—both opportunity costs of people, for example, stopping work or working part-time, and balancing family life to study, and particularly in postgraduate master’s level and beyond business degrees, a very substantial tuition cost normally.
[02:24] Andrew Jack: So with all of those costs, I think it’s absolutely right and necessary that media organizations scrutinize that process and try to differentiate between different schools and try to explain, first and foremost, perhaps to, if you like, the prospective students as the potential clients, as it were, of the product, what they’re getting into, what the pros and cons, whether and where they should study for a business degree if they’re to do so.
And then, of course, to employers, whether as recruiters of that pipeline of future talent or engaged through executive education, or hopefully to some degree as recipients, beneficiaries of the best insights and research coming out of business schools.
With all of those costs, I think it’s absolutely right and necessary that media organizations scrutinize that process and try to differentiate between different schools.
[03:08] Andrew Jack: So I think that whole ecosystem deserves scrutiny and assessment, whether it’s through rankings or general reporting or in-depth insights into, but also trying to surface, as we do, the insights and thoughts of business school faculty on the world outside the classroom.
[03:26] Eileen McAuliffe: Yeah, I mean, I really appreciate how you described that kind of function or your place in our community as business schools. If one were at any dinner party, the one thing that comes up persistently is rankings. And a criticism I hear all the time in my role with AACSB is that ranking methodologies, not specifically FT, they rely quite heavily on graduate salaries as a primary metric.
What do you think about this shift, this generational shift we’re seeing, where young people entering the workforce are less motivated by very high salaries but more motivated, perhaps, by the impact that they can contribute, which in some ways sort of undermines a little bit that calculation of graduate salaries, and feeding that into the ranking methodologies.
[04:20] Andrew Jack: Well, first of all, I hope all your dinner party conversations aren’t dominated by the rankings. You do hear it.
[04:26] Eileen McAuliffe: Only with business school deans.
[04:27] Andrew Jack: Good, glad to hear it. And I have to say, you know, and I say that flippantly, but also because there’s an awful lot we do beyond rankings, you know, so there’s the quantitative aspect, but then there’s the qualitative context, you know, and around each of our rankings we publish a whole series of articles surfacing insights, talking about the student experience, thinking about trends on recruitment and employment, and so on. So it’s much, much broader.
I’d also sort of make the distinction, you know, there are, of course, multiple rankings. They all have different methodologies. I would say ours is, you know, long-established. It’s very transparent in the methodology. There’s a sort of generally a significant amount of continuity between years. And I’d like to say it’s based on primarily hard data and figures.
[05:17] Andrew Jack: And yeah, if there’s a priority, perhaps, and it also distinguishes from some of the other rankings, it’s very much on outcomes. And that’s why salary, and particularly in our case, as you know, we look at salary three years after graduating. So what’s the subsequent progress of alumni? You know, to a point where, on the one hand, they’re close enough still to their experience that you can sort of tie in a little bit what’s happening to hopefully what they benefited from at the university.
But it’s also not the first job where, you know, obviously all sorts of things might change and be uncertain. Now, you know, are there other factors motivating students and that therefore we should focus on? Well, as you know, our ranking contains a whole series of metrics. We also split those down on our website.
[06:07] Andrew Jack: People can download the dataset, or they can play around and re-rank according to whatever their priorities might be. So we’ve long had a sort of multivariate approach, if you like. So yeah, if you’re interested in salaries, salary increase, absolute salary three years out, that’s there. But so is the research ranking, so is information on, for example, the gender split of students or faculty, so, increasingly, to your point, are data points around environmental issues and societal impact, all of which we’re trying to build out.
All of that said, you know, we poll our alumni and others every year as part of the data collection exercise, and we ask them what matters to them. And I have to tell you, salary outcome comes top of the range.
[06:52] Andrew Jack: And I’ve talked to, for example, some others who’ve, you know, tried to develop specialist rankings or build up rankings of rankings and again with that sort of flexibility for you to mix and match to identify what you want, and the same thing—the reality is, most of the people using those rankings look first and foremost almost at salary.
And that’s a structural issue, partly, because, clearly, as we’ve said, there’s big opportunity costs and financial costs of the training. Are students finally, to your point, becoming more focused on that wider societal impact? Well, I think, I certainly would like to hope so. And I’d say the FT’s broader mission statement, if I could put it that way, is “planet and people alongside profit.” So we’re certainly not focused on profit maximization, let’s say.
The reality is, most of the people using those rankings look first and foremost at salary.
[07:39] Andrew Jack: But one, we have to be respectful of the information needs of our readers, in this case, the students looking for returns, amongst other things. Two, of course, some of those other factors are quite difficult, one, to measure, and two, to attribute to, you know, the value add, if you like, the experience of what happens while they’re in business school.
The other thing I’d say is, I think there’s a little bit of a sentiment, you know, yes, if you are students, they say they’d like to do something with purpose and meaning and perhaps helping, you know, sustainability, fighting climate change, whatever. But they also want very often, frankly, a high salary to go with it. And you know, there’s a bit of a disconnect both in terms of, I think, their aspirations and also, frankly, the job opportunities that are available subsequently.
[08:28] Andrew Jack: So, you know, it’s a bit of a mixed picture.
[08:30] Eileen McAuliffe: Yeah, indeed, so just moving the dial along a bit. One thing that strikes me is, while you see a little bit of movement in some of the rankings of programs, in terms of best school for an MBA, for example, you do see a little bit of a shift here and there. But when it comes to schools’ rankings and year to year, you do tend to see the same schools mentioned, might be plus or minus or one or two points, but they’re mostly the same things.
How do we reach the other schools? And do the current methodologies, do they in some ways favor those, kind of, top-top schools? But is there a case to be had that we should also be looking at the good parts of other schools, as well, and in some ways elevating those?
[09:20] Andrew Jack: Well, I mean, it’s true that, you know, a lot of the familiar names do repeat year after year. I would say, nonetheless, there’s a reasonable amount of turnover as well. And we, you know, we do have a lot of emerging schools. One of the reasons the FT began the rankings was, you know, previously they were very U.S.-focused.
And of course you have in our ranking a lot of European schools, but, you know, increasingly, schools across Asia—not just Australia, but, you know, Korea, even Japan periodically, certainly China and Hong Kong and Singapore, you know, some of the emerging nations, some Latin America, some Middle East and Africa. So there is that geographical diversity that’s appearing. But the other thing is, you know, there’s a resource limit.
It’s true that a lot of the familiar names do repeat year after year. I would say, nonetheless, there’s a reasonable amount of turnover as well.
[10:04] Andrew Jack: So our ranking considers typically the top 100 schools, all of which we would consider excellent. They’re all accredited by either EQUIS or AACSB, as you know, or from both. They all meet all the other criteria that we require in terms of consistency and quality and so on.
So, you know, it’s a top slice, and I think, so for us, I think our primary readership is prospective students, and within that, what we’re focusing on is, if you like, students with high talent and who are globally mobile. So we’re looking at schools that, you know, essentially they could be born in America but be looking to study in Asia or vice versa. You know, we’re looking to people who can go into a sort of equivalent range of English-language taught, typically master’s programs around the world.
[10:59] Andrew Jack: So we’re already getting to a small subset, but as I say, one that fluctuates a reasonable amount. As I mentioned, we’ve added various criteria around climate and societal impact, which we hope to continue to expand. We’ve done separate rankings, as you know, for example, around research impact, and then we do a lot of things, some of which are a bit quantitative, some are a bit more qualitative, trying to surface best practices in innovative schools around the world.
So even if a lot of people focus on, let’s say the MBA ranking, there’s a lot more, both quant and qual opportunities for other sorts of innovative schools to emerge. You know, alongside our ranking, we’ve run for four years a Responsible Business Education Award.
[11:44] Andrew Jack: And that’s, if you like, a purely qualitative assessment with a large number of jurors who are drawn from business, philanthropy, government, as well as academia, who are highlighting examples of best practice in societally impactful academic research, innovative teaching, typically around sustainability in student or alumni projects or startups in that space, or sometimes the wider community and other broader activities across the business school overall.
So there are many different outlets and opportunities, both partly in sort of tabular form if you like, numerically, quantitatively, but also so qualitatively through articles and showcases that we write. Of course, you’re right that there are very familiar suspects that often appear.
[12:35] Andrew Jack: And, of course, whenever even a big-name school either disappears periodically or goes from number one to number 10 or whatever, there’s always reader comments about these rankings can’t be serious because, of course, school X, we all know which ones, are number one. Well, you know, the fact that you went to that school, let’s say 30 years ago, does not say it remains the leading school.
But you know, one hears the same critique that the AACSB, you know, obviously also has a template of a classic, typically research-resourced American business school, which is sort of being rolled out to the world. And I think, you know, you in the same way are obviously trying to evolve as you accredit in other parts of the world. But there’s, but there’s a sort of legacy issue which we all have to deal with.
The fact that you went to that school, let’s say 30 years ago, does not say it remains the leading school.
[13:23] Eileen McAuliffe: Yeah, you know, thank you for raising that. But I think, you know, the new standards reflect that shift across, you know, we’re embracing more teaching effectiveness, for example, we included the Pathways to Impact. So there is a shift there.
Eileen McAuliffe sits with Andrew Jack for an interview at AACSB's Research Impact Conference in Dublin.
Question 2
[13:39] Eileen McAuliffe: But let’s move on to the second question. Recent changes to the FT50 journal list: They sparked debate, as expected, I’m guessing, right? We’re both old enough and long enough in this game to know that this is going to trigger some stuff. And for those that are less familiar, could you just share what updates were made and your rationale for those updates?
[13:58] Andrew Jack: Yeah, so first of all, a reminder that the so-called FT50 list, as it now is, the research ranking is 10 percent of the MBA and the EMBA rankings that we do overall. So, it’s certainly not the be-all and end-all of our business school ranking.
What it does reflect is that we do think high-quality research should be reflected, you know, and that a business school ought to be doing the research as well as the teaching and other activities, and within, you know, or at least beyond, the metric of high-quality peer-reviewed journals, we have other elements more broadly in the rankings and ones that we continue to explore and innovate around that will try to capture some of those wider measures of impact beyond a paper that was published in the last three years, typically in RFT50.
The research ranking is 10 percent of the MBA and the EMBA rankings that we do overall. So, it’s certainly not the be-all and end-all of our business school ranking.
[14:53] Andrew Jack: Now, how did we get to where we are? You know, in an ideal world—and this is something I say often to schools—it seems a little surprising, if quite humbling and flattering in some ways, that one would look at any form of bibliometric as a key criterion when thinking about who to hire, who to promote, who to give tenure to, or whatever.
You know, to me, this process should be about getting experts in a field and getting them to actually read the papers or the wider academic outputs of anybody they’re considering. You know, so metrics are a sort of distillation that have this wider purpose of trying to keep a benchmark overall. But you know, to me, those individual academic decisions should be made much more on the actual content.
[15:44] Andrew Jack: And in an ideal world, you know, we would find other ways, not least citations on individual papers, wherever they’re published, to be included. But of course, you know, that also becomes very complex, as we know, it can take quite a number of years to reach a critical stable mass of citations, there’s all sorts of gaming, as we know, that goes on in individual citations, self-citation, citation of other articles from a similar journal where you’re trying to get published, and so on.
So it’s far from perfect. So I mean the attempt is to say, OK, here, at least, is a sort of business-schoolwide standard—the journals that the schools themselves consider to be high value, relevant, important that we will use.
[16:29] Andrew Jack: So the FT—used to be 40, became 45, is now, for 10 years, 50—it seemed time, after a decade, to start to kind of look at some fresh reflections on that.
And so what do we do? We polled the 200-plus business schools that appear in a number of our rankings in recent years and asked them not to provide lots of individual opinions because we get thousands, literally, of lobbying from individual journal review boards about why their journals should be included.
But we said, the leadership of the school, in consultation with their full faculties, should be giving us their assessment of the journals they consider important.
[17:10] Andrew Jack: And as a result of that process, there were three that we decided—based largely on that assessment, if you like, but also looking at some other benchmarks of quality of journals and the extent to which academics from leading schools write in the different journals—we would remove three and we’d add another three that were voted as particularly significant and important.
We said the leadership of the school, in consultation with their full faculties, should be giving us their assessment of the journals they consider important.
So that’s where we’re at. It’s the starting point of a broader debate. You know, I’m very sensitive and aware to some of the short-term pain that provides. But I think it’s also necessary that, from time to time, we do reflect on, you know, the content and how the academy overall is considering what matters to them in their referencing.
[17:54] Eileen McAuliffe: Yeah, and I think as you said, the recent list was 10 years old. It’s unfathomable, isn’t it, going forward, that we would leave something in its stasis for 10 years—it’s too long to see, to completely see the benefit of that. But do you see there’s a tension between the alignment of publishing in top journals and contributing to societal impact?
[18:17] Andrew Jack: Look, I think there’s a tension in that translation to any form of impact. We had a discussion earlier about, actually, should impact be considered whether it’s good or bad? Should impact be considered whether it’s, let’s say, purely economic or corporate as opposed to having the wider impact on society? So there are all those different levels.
But in any of those cases, I think there is a big structural challenge going from using, if you like, journals or articles as the unit of analysis through to actual final impact. And, incidentally, in the awards that we discussed earlier, we very explicitly said in the category for submitting academic articles or research with impact, we said impact does not mean published in a high-impact journal.
[19:07] Andrew Jack: It means, Did it actually change policy or practice?—you know, ultimate impact at the final user end, if you like. And I think that’s a huge structural challenge. I mean, as I said earlier in the discussion here, you know, I think people are speaking two different languages.
You know, academics are arguably increasingly, and certainly in some of these fields and in social sciences, sort of talking a little bit to themselves and using very esoteric language and concepts and largely trying to advance the field through advancing theory.
[19:45] Andrew Jack: And, you know, if you think of a time-pressed business person, as we heard here, for example, in discussions, even to look at the titles, to have the time to read through, to try to understand it, and then, actually, in terms of the underlying insights, if you like, there’s a vast gap.
You know, it’s ironic and tragic, actually, to me that if you look at all sorts of academic fields, you know, engineering, science, health, you name it, most of them are much more applied. You know, business and management, you would think, ought to be very focused on impacting business and management. But actually, it feels further removed from the actual field of practice than many other academic disciplines.
So I think, you know, there’s one challenge, which is the nature of academia and how it sort of turned in on itself almost. But then, you know, also just that the whole promotion and incentive structures, which are fundamentally different.
[20:44] Andrew Jack: So I think to realign, to have true impact, we need to reprioritize issues that matter to the world beyond universities. But we also need to recognize that there need to be translation mechanisms in place. And so, probably a journal article is not going to be widely read, disseminated, implemented directly. But at least if we can start to shift the spotlight a little bit to efforts to disseminate some of the more practical ideas outside the academic community, that’s a good start.
To realign, to have true impact, we need to reprioritize issues that matter to the world beyond universities.
[21:14] Eileen McAuliffe: Yes, so I think that leads us on to our third question. But before we do, if we reflect on the last sort of 48 hours that we’ve spent together at the Research Impact Conference, I think an important point was made yesterday in the debate session that you took part in, which was that, love them or hate them, rankings are here, journal rankings are here. It’s a start, it’s a base, and they can do some good. So let’s not throw them out completely, right? I think you just want to make that point, really.
[21:43] Andrew Jack: No, I mean, of course, I would agree. You know, as I say, it’s only part of what we do and others do. But the fact is, what’s the alternative? You know, are we just going to have a free-for-all with, you know, and you said, rankings are only a reflection or a subset of, for example, impact factors. You know, we know there’s a hierarchy of certain prestige journals and also sorts of competition and so on.
But for those within as well as those outside the business school context, I think the value of some external forms of accountability and benchmarking has a value—and arguably, I think as more of, as we were trying to argue yesterday, is more of a benefit than a hindrance, albeit with inevitable limitations.
Question 3
[22:25] Eileen McAuliffe: Yes, exactly. And I think, just to step back to the second question, when we started to talk about meaningful impact, the Research Impact Framework argues that, and accepts that, you know, the current system is valuable in a way, but what we’re asking for is that broadening of other dimensions of measuring impact.
And with that in mind, for the final question, what do you think meaningful impact should look like in business school research today?
[22:58] Andrew Jack: Well, I think it begins with the whole process of hiring and promotion. And I think we need a lot more diversity in, you know, the nature of the skills and characteristics of those within faculties. That should include, in my mind, not just people who’ve, you know, gone through a PhD academic track, but it should include people who’ve come from different parts of society and both have become transfused full-time in but also bringing in professors of practice, clinical adjuncts, and so on.
[23:30] Andrew Jack: And importantly, you know, to me, they should have an equal voice. You know, they shouldn’t be a sort of second-class set of citizens, and it’s the tenured academic research faculty who dominate appointments.
The greatest single impact I think most business schools and academics can have is on their students.
I think, you know, therefore there’s also a need for a re-examination of all sorts of incentives because, to me, you know, yes, research is important; that research, at least in part, should be applicable and valuable to the wider societal purposes. But, you know, there should also be academics who are great and passionate teachers because, probably, the greatest single impact I think most business schools and academics can have is on their students.
[24:09] Eileen McAuliffe: In the classroom, or in research projects, or yeah.
[24:12] Andrew Jack: So we need, you know, one, very high-quality teachers, but we also need that internal transmission mechanism from research and ideas into practice. And I think a lot of that again should come through actual projects with, whether it’s business, government, nonprofits, you know, during the educational experience.
So I think that’s a really key structural part of it. Now, what else could business schools do? Well, I mean, you know, as you know, for its many limitations, the U.K. Ref every few years has highlighted the value particularly of the contribution of the business school to their local community.
[24:49] Andrew Jack: You know, so engaging with nonprofit groups, with government, with businesses and so on around them, with indeed, incidentally, working with and demonstrating a high level of ethical standards with their own staff, employees, administrators—not just the academics—you know, the catering staff, the administrators, and so on, but also that wider ecosystem.
And then, of course, many of the schools we’re talking about have a big global reach. So there are those wider obligations. And incidentally, again, going back to the issue of students as a core point of impact, I do think there’s a little hypocrisy in that, there’ll be often a lot of focus by schools on a socially diverse, economically varied range of students coming domestically, but, frankly, a lot of international students they largely treat as a very lucrative high full-fee-paying group.
[25:44] Andrew Jack: And so therefore they can appear to be quite diverse in their student body, but actually most of those from overseas, you know, are coming from a much narrower, higher-income, higher-social-class background. And therefore, if they’re really trying to contribute to wider insight and education and improvement in society, they need to think about that much broader range of diversity. So that’s on the education and the teaching side.
And then, as we’ve discussed, their overall engagement—it can be partly through research, and there, I think, it’s about co-curation, it’s about bringing in outside actors and trying to work with them to identify the issues that they need solving and to work alongside them, partnered in designing, doing the research, and looking at the implementation of it. I think that’s fundamentally important.
[26:35] Andrew Jack: And then, it’s that wider building of that ecosystem. So yes, sort of academics serving on advisory boards on being involved in consultations on policy with government, on being active in the community in different ways and applying their insights and leveraging their knowledge and that of colleagues to actually have research into action.
Yeah, I mean there’s obviously core, as it were, corporate and business objectives, but there should also be, in my view, a greater mindfulness of the wider societal impacts and benefits that they should be delivering on.
[27:10] Eileen McAuliffe: Just a couple of follow-up questions. So media organizations, if I call it that, like Financial Times, should it play a larger role or an increased role or a partnership role with business schools or with organizations like AACSB in disseminating and translating academic research for broader audiences? I mean, readership is your bread and butter.
[27:33] Andrew Jack: Yes, I mean, I think we’re all for engaging. I mean obviously we have to keep a certain, you know, to maintain our editorial independence, we have to make sure there’s also a kind of, a certain respect for distance. But you know, to work together around, amongst other things, as you say, both, you know, the accountability and the overall assessments of the schools, but also surfacing interesting ideas and disseminating them to our audience, which is primarily decision-makers, is absolutely key.
I’m less interested in [academics’] views on how to reform business education. I’m much more interested in their insights on the world outside the classroom.
You know, that’s why, for example, we launched a weekly business school newsletter, which surfaces links and summaries to academic research that we think could be of interest to a wider audience. And then, you know, periodically we will, of course, we will cite researchers when their expertise aligns with whatever’s in the news to try and provide useful context.
[28:26] Andrew Jack: And then, you know, throughout each of our reports and magazines, we will tend to ask at least one academic to write an opinion piece leveraging their insights. And there, actually I’m less interested in their sort of views on how to reform business education. I’m much more interested in their insights on the world outside the classroom and what they could be bringing to our readers as they would hopefully to their students about, you know, whatever the sector, the theme is that they are experts on.
[28:57] Eileen McAuliffe: You know, we have multiple rankings agencies, and schools are juggling, as they do, with accreditations, perhaps, they’re juggling all these different rankings bodies trying to satisfy all and progress through the rankings.
I mean, is there an argument that if you guys all got together and produced one ranking, would that be a sensible approach, do you think?
[29:18] Andrew Jack: Well, I mean, I’m sure as somebody involved in business, you wouldn’t want a monopoly. I think competition is healthy. I think, you know, as I say, first and foremost, each of us has to make an assessment of what our readers are and what our priorities are but also to leave room for innovation. And you know, rankings are a part of that.
I stress that we are not a rankings or ratings agency. We’re not a Moody’s or a Standard and Poor’s. We’re a very small team. We are journalists. Our rankings are editorially led and are part of a wider package of, you know, all of that sort of reporting and journalism more generally.
So what I do think there could be is, if you like, some greater pre-competitive work, and I bore on about that all the time.
[30:03] Andrew Jack: But, you know, for example, if only we had certain common metrics around identifying individual academics, the so-called ORCID number, ensuring that publications, whether journals or indeed white papers, had a unique identifier, a DOI, so called in the journal world, and were very clear in the affiliation—very important because often you see, you know, professor from a university; it doesn’t identify that they’re at a business school. Now, we are looking at business schools because, you know, that’s the unit where the student typically goes or the business or the recruiter engages with.
We are journalists. Our rankings are editorially led and are part of a wider package of reporting and journalism more generally.
[30:43] Andrew Jack: So, we need those key three elements to allow us to track, in a systematic and comprehensive way, as widely as possible, and I very much welcome cooperation from others doing rankings but also the business schools, the academic world, the journal publishers—I think they’ve all got a role to play in that.
And then, you know, I mean, events like this conference that bring together different parts of the ecosystem and to debate what other methods could be used and how to engage and potential metrics, I think is all very desirable.
[31:11] Eileen McAuliffe: Great. There’s just one final thought that I’d love for you to share with listeners, which is, I mean, you’ve had a long career in journalism, but particularly your focus and love almost has been business education, covering business education globally.
What gives you the most optimism about where the industry of business and management education is headed?
[31:35] Andrew Jack: I mean, I think it always begins with the students themselves. And when you talk to them and you meet them, you know, there’s an extraordinary level of energy, optimism, as you say, very often a sort of desire for purpose and meaning. So, on the one hand, I have a lot of sympathy because, of course, it’s a hugely disruptive time at the moment—job market uncertainty, AI disrupting everything.
But I do think that, you know, as a cohort overall, and a lot of the students I talk to, you know, I feel very positive about. And then certainly when I talk to, not everyone, but many both academic leaders and individual academics, there is a real commitment, perhaps increasingly, hopefully, towards this idea of broader societal impact.
When you talk to [students] and you meet them, there’s an extraordinary level of energy, optimism—very often a sort of desire for purpose and meaning.
[32:17] Andrew Jack: So, you know, and they’re plotting out paths and they’re demonstrating, as we’ve shown in our awards and others, including yours, you know, that there is some great work being done that can actually translate into practice.
[32:29] Eileen McAuliffe: Yeah, excellent. I mean, Andrew, it’s been enlightening, as always. I mean, I’ve been privileged enough to spend the last couple of days with you, and it’s been great. And I’m really looking forward to seeing how we can move forward the needle towards greater societal impact. So thank you for taking the time. I know you’ve got a busy day ahead of you, but thank you for taking the time and sharing your insights with us today.
[32:52] Andrew Jack: No, it’s been great to be here. I enjoy the conversation and, you know, best of luck. I think, as I say, this conference, the background and momentum towards it, you know, the efforts that you’re trying to make with your standards and so on, are all pointing in a very positive direction.
[33:05] Eileen McAuliffe: To our listeners: If you enjoyed this conversation, be sure to follow AACSB Pulse on AACSB Insights, Apple, Podbean, or Spotify. We’ve got more great episodes coming up on the biggest issues shaping global business education today.
About AACSB Pulse
A podcast produced by AACSB International, AACSB Pulse explores current topics impacting global business education—three questions at a time—with business school deans, industry leaders, and other big thinkers of today.
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