Sunday Posts

I was out at the RSA again this morning to listen to a panel discussion on Corporate Ethics. The panel represented an interesting combination - Wendy Harrison, Programme Director Ethics and Compliance, Shell International, Dan Currell , Executive Director of Corporate Executive Board, Matthew Gwyther , editor, Management Today, and Patrick Donovan, Chief Ethics and Compliance Officer of Airbus and Chandrasekhar Krishnan, Executive Director of Transparency International - and the discussions were effectively steered by Matthew Taylor , RSA's Chief Executive. The background of the discussion was research undertaken by the Corporate Executive Board , covering more than 30 countries and over half a million executives. Ably presented by Dan Currell, the research explored various issues around corporate ethics, including what makes people tolerate bad behaviour and what may be the effect of corporate corruption on shareholder value. The essential point made was integrity is good

Dr. Kendall, the Programme Director of the MBA programme in a management college in the city, was recently advised by the accrediting university that the ‘student experience’ in the course must improve. During a recent conversation, the students told the University representatives that there was very little interaction outside the classroom hours between the tutors and themselves, and often they felt that they had been rushed through the programme. They also indicated that they felt that there wasn’t enough library resources, and they were not sure that the programme was preparing them adequately for a career in business. There wasn’t a straightforward solution available to Dr. Kendall. First of all, his was a Higher Education programme in the midst of a Professional Training college, where most tutors were adjunct and they would not commit extra hours outside the contracted time for student contact. Library resources were hard to come by, as this wasn’t something the colle

Background This essay intends to explore the issue of educational quality in the context of a For-Profit Business School based in London. This is a privately owned business, which offers a Master of Business Administration (MBA) programme validated by a British university, and caters to mostly students coming from overseas. The school has no degree awarding power and has to follow the academic regulations of the validating university. The MBA degree is awarded by the validating university after the students successfully complete 8 taught modules and a dissertation. The Business School had to undergo an extensive review of its financial and academic capabilities to achieve validation to deliver the MBA programme. The validation was achieved following a well-defined university process. The university took great care to look at the financial records and management practices of the institution, as part of their initial vetting visit, and following this, the course, pro