Issue link: http://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/124472
Regional AACSB Events Explore local perspectives with a global mindset. Each part of the world brings its own unique challenges and opportunities to education, and AACSB strives to bring together experts who can uncover the strategies that benefit b-schools the most in their particular region. Join your peers at your own regional event to discuss challenges and opportunities or visit another region to learn more about management education trends in other markets. *Latin America Annual Conference August 26–27, 2013 Mexico City, Mexico *Middle East and Africa Conference October 2013 Dubai, United Arab Emirates Europe Annual Conference October 17–19, 2013 Copenhagen, Denmark Learn more about these and other AACSB conferences: www.aacsb.edu/conferences * denotes new event. competitors, and society. Another school might choose to integrate on a smaller scale, perhaps by tucking a memo-writing assignment into an accounting course taught jointly by an accounting professor and a communications consultant. Or a school might have finance and journalism professors team-teach a multiperspective topic such as public disclosure or corporate governance. Ideally, integrated programs will turn out MBA students who don't distinguish between human and business behavior, but see them as one and the same. 3. Recruit more faculty who have both business experience and human relations/communication knowledge. This may be the toughest nut to crack for b-school administrators: finding MBA faculty with the desired mix of skills in business and social sciences. Most of the ones we know are semi-retired public relations executives and business journalists who relish mixing it up with bright MBA students. But we believe there are more candidates who would be open to teaching such courses if they were asked, so deans need to get the word out. One recent development that might make it easier for MBA programs to find the right faculty and curricula is the MBA Initiative sponsored by the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA). This pending pilot program will involve Dartmouth College and four other schools. PRSA will supply those MBA programs with a turnkey curriculum and accompanying course materials, presumably adaptable to varying formats and deliverable by faculty across disciplines. Relationships, Always To Doyle Williams and Richard Anderson, it is a fundamental truth of business life today that nothing is more crucial to an organization's prospects—or a leader's effectiveness—than rock-solid relationships with key stakeholders. For far too long, far too many b-school leaders have ignored this truth or allowed it to hide in their blind spots. Today, fortunately, more corporate and b-school leaders are seeing leadership for what it truly is. They might have taken a lesson from Mike Krzyzewski, heralded head basketball coach at Duke University and a card-carrying member of the Williams-Anderson School of Leadership. In his 2001 book Leading with the Heart, he writes, "Almost everything in leadership comes back to relationships." Indeed. It comes back to relationships, always. J. David Pincus is an executive coach and former MBA program director and professor in the Sam M. Walton College of Business at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville. Harold E. Rudnick is an independent management consultant and former senior vice president of purchasing and merchandising with Vons Grocery Company, a West Coast retailer. BizEd May/June 2013 47