Interview with Simon L Dolan on Building Ethical Organizations
August 2009 - By Dr. Nagendra V Chowdary

Prof. Simon L Dolan
Professor of Human Resource Management and International Organizational Behaviour, Esade Business School.

• HBS has pioneered the case method and became highly successful in exporting it to rest of the world. Any updates on this? Do you think it has overlived its life?
  The advantages and disadvantages of case vs. non-case teaching has been debated for a long time. HbS and its faculty did a fantastic job in using cases, and thus they succeeded. Other schools developed other methods, but also succeeded. I think that there is a room for the continued use of cases, but these can be substituted with other methods including innovative simulations, dynamic cases, etc. I personally believe that each school should detect the preference and the competences of its faculty and let them use whatever they select as the most effective for delivering to their classes and impacting students. I do not believe in imposing a case or any othermethod as a panacea to teaching success.

• What is the importance of alumni in enriching and upholding the legacy of a business school?
  Critical. A good and active alumni can prolong the relationships, can act as good ambassadors and can help the school develop a real credible brand. Good and active alumni association is an asset and is very important.

• How do you see the next few decades for MBA program across the globe? Do you think there is toomuch of proliferation of business schools and therefore dilution in the delivery?
  Yes. I already mentioned that themba is getting diluted every day. Nonetheless, there is an mba for different tastes and different individuals. I think, however, that the employers will become smarter, and they will be able to detect (over time) and distinguish worthy mbas and unworthy ones. This has happened in other fields and will now rub off the mba. I also think that students are smarter and they will calculate very carefully the kind of mba that will be worthwhile for them to invest in. Mba is not a god-given degree to become effective managers, some mbas have shown to cause more damage than good. My former colleague at mcgill university in canada, henry mintzberg, is highly cricital of the vast majority of mba programs. With his typical sense of provocation, he even calls for the abolition of the degree i.e., read his interesting book … ceos not mbas. I do not go to this extreme, but i totally concur with henry when he says that in any profession we need to develop a passion for the profession, for the sector, etc., because degree without passion will not develop competent and successful managers. So, the real challenge of the mba school is also to awaken the passion in the mba graduates and not merely the instrumentality of the degree to find a good job.

• Professor, how do you measure the success of a business school? What parameters would you use to assess the performance and potential of a business school?
  This is the million dollar or euro question. It is complex. But, i think that a successful business school is one that satisfies simultaneously all its stakeholders. First, employers need to be content with the graduates of the school; then students who had graduated will feel loyal, thankful and pleased with the way education was delivered (i believe in enjoyable experiences). I also believe that professors and personnel need to be satisfied during the delivery of the classes. For example, professors should be asked to teach only programs and classes that they really like and feel a passion for teaching. Business schools also need to satisfy the scholarly and professional community. They need from time to time to generate new knowledge, but not at the expense of not delivering to the professional markets. Innovations in teaching, in research and close ties with the professional community should be the last criteria.

• Are the business school rankings a proof of the quality of a business school?
  Yes and no. There is no perfect method of ranking the business school. We scholars know enough about the weaknesses of most ranking methods. So all methods have their biases. Ranking should not be interpreted literally but should be used as proxy. Unfortunately, there are smart schools and school administrators who know the different systems, and know how to work around the system to their advantage. I will give only one example without naming the school. The financial times ranking has, as one of its criteria, the research production of the faculty. This school has decided systematically to ‘buy’ faculty with curriculum just in order to get a better ranking in the feat. I think that this is wrong, because the said professor does not do research in the institution nor is he teaching there... yet he is collecting a hefty salary, knowing that his cv helps the ranking and the branding of the school. So, the system can be abused. I hope that this example is an outlier. But one has to understand that getting into the ranking game can be profitable, but also dangerous.