Assessment Report by Department of Management, Politics and Philosophy

REPORT FROM THE EVALUATION COMMITTEE OF MPP, COPENHAGEN BUSINESS SCHOOL. DECEMBER 2010

Paris, York and Uppsala in January 2011

Romain Laufer, Teresa da Silva Lopes, and Kerstin Sahlin 1

This evaluation report of the research of the Department of Management, Philosophy and Politics (MPP) at Copenhagen Business School (CBS) is based on the MPP self assessment report, submitted articles and books and finally a site visit on 8 and 9 of December 2010. The evaluation committee comprised of Romain Laufer (HEC, Paris), Teresa da Silva Lopes (University of York, UK), and Kerstin Sahlin (Uppsala University). Even if the focus of the evaluation is the research of the department, this is integrated in teaching as well as in the development of the school as a whole. For this reason, the evaluation exercise is not restricted to research only, but does comment also on teaching, structure of the department and how the department relates to the development and strategy of the school as a whole. The self assessment report and the site visit also took this broad approach to contextualize the research at the department. During the site visit, the evaluation team met researchers at the department to discuss the context of MPP research, teaching and its links to research, research strategies and existing synergies for each of the 4 groups within the department (philosophy, political sciences, management and business history) and for the MPP department as a whole, the doctoral programme and doctoral research, and links between existing research projects and practice/policy making. The evaluation committee appreciated the quality of the Self Assessment report, the documentation, articles and books it had the opportunity to read, the quality of the organization of the site visit and the inspiring discussions throughout the site visit. In this report we first summarize our general impressions. We continue by commenting on the research relative to some major trends in the international world of business and business schools. We suggest a few points where the department can further build on and strengthen some aspects, both internally and in relation to other departments in the school, to the school as a whole and to the broader international research community, in order to further develop and make use of the department strengths and quality. Finally, we summarize our recommendations in a list of possible action points.

General impression The research quality of MPP is high. In addition we find the research to be original, innovative, and of relevance for society. The reputation of MPP is highly recognised internationally. Taken together the research in the department clearly bridges the conventional and the unconventional. The research is largely, but not exclusively, experimental with a focus on new and emerging areas of knowledge. MPP imports research in the humanities and social sciences into a business school and business context. It largely serves as a translator of new areas of humanistic and social knowledge into a Danish societal and organizational context. This unique quality of the department can be further strengthened if the connections and synergies among the four research groups of the department are strengthened. MPP plays a vital role in importing humanistic and more general social science theories and perspectives into a business context and thus acts as an incubator for new business research topics and as a translator of humanistic ideas into the business world. This strength could be developed even further seen from a research and knowledge development perspective. Despite the fact that business plays such vital roles in global society, business organizations and their impact on society are remarkably absent in most social science and humanistic theories. Seen from this perspective research at MPP has an enormous potential not only to import and translate knowledge from the broader fields of humanities and social sciences into a business 2

school context, but also to contribute with research and knowledge on business in society to the broader fields of humanities and social sciences. The assessment team’s overall view is that MPP has a central role in the future strategy of CBS in becoming a ‘Business University’. The research at the department develops knowledge around the big questions concerning business in society. Through its base in humanistic and social science fields of knowledge the department research forms a broad knowledge base for research and teaching throughout the school. The staff his highly flexible in terms of teaching. Several of the researchers are internationally well known and linked to a large and broad international network. The department has an important role for the school as a whole as an incubator and translator of new areas of knowledge, perspectives and ideas. In order to maintain and further develop this role of the department it needs to maintain a considerable freedom of space, combined with a support for its legitimacy from the school.

Business in Society and the global system of Business Education: A defining moment in the history of MPP To understand the meaning and to evaluate the strategy of MPP within CBS it is necessary to relate it to the context in which it develops. From this point of view it may be useful to refer to what must be one of the very first academic articles devoted to the science of administration written by Woodrow Wilson, the same who was to become President of the United States of America. This article was published in the second issue of the Political Science Quarterly in 1887 and started with the following words: I suppose that no practical science is ever studied where there is no need to know it. The very fact, therefore, that the eminently practical science of administration is finding its way into college courses in this country would prove that this country needs to know more about administration, where such proof of the fact required making out a case. If the curriculum of universities is the place where one can find the signs of the existence of a practical need for some specific kind of academic knowledge, then we must acknowledge that the need for the study of administration has never stopped being felt since Woodrow Wilson wrote these lines. Business Schools have developed all over the world, undergraduate studies in business administration represents a growing share of all undergraduate education, MBA’s have been created which attract an ever more important number of students, doctoral programs have emerged to provide these schools and these students with professors, high quality academic journals have proliferated which contain the knowledge developed by doctoral students and their professors. For the most part the academic recognition of business education since the end of the 1950’s has resulted from following the recommendation of the Carnegie and Ford foundations reports complaining of the excessively vocational character of business school at that time and pleading for the development of a more scientific approach and especially for a greater use of analytic thinking and methods. This has led to the development of a great number of specialized scientific journals and of global systems of rankings and ratings which tends to organize the global market of business education both from the point of view of the flows of students and the recruitment of professors.

If this historical development is to be considered as the reflexion of the state of society then one should not be surprised on the one hand that globalization of the economy would lead ultimately to similar systems of business education and on the other hand that the establishment of this dominant system of business education would take different path and different forms according to the institutional and cultural characteristics of each nation. To give a few examples: the USA can only be deeply attached to a system it has established and it still dominates, China engaged in a process of radical reforms inspired by the west devotes its utmost energy to the creation of academic institutions that be able to compete as soon as possible with those of the West. The ultimate triumph of the global system of business education finally occurred in England, which for very long considered vocational training as contrary to the traditions of its elite academic institutions, when Oxford and Cambridge gave up this prejudice giving full recognition to the presence of business schools within their walls: in Cambridge in 1996 by solemn inauguration by the Queen of the Judge Institute of Management Studies and the very same year the Said School of business was established at Oxford. Considered from that point of view the creation and further development of MPP by CBS, at the very moment when it recognise the need to internationalize itself as is shown by the active part it played in the development of the CEMS, may be considered as an expression of the Danish national character which is reflected in the first statement of the “Business in society” strategic platform which states that CBS must develop “Global reach grounded in the Copenhagen Metropolitan region”. Thus the very existence of MPP which represents a creative approach to business education corresponds to the tradition and the needs expressed by the society in which it develops. If this allows to understand the meaning and the importance of the development of MPP within CBS it allows also to consider the advantage and the difficulties which it faces. The advantage lies in the fact that with the creation and development of MPP CBS may be considered as bringing to global business education the type of innovative approach which the future of its development require for in spite of its remarkable success the dominant “mainstream” model has given rise to a growing movement of dissatisfaction both in the area of research and teaching. It shouldn´t come as a surprise that the uncertainties of our times express themselves in the growing number of questions, objections and critiques addressed to the role played by business schools in this conjecture. These critics are addressed both to the relevance of the teaching and the research developed in these schools as well as to their potential responsibility in the development of the present global crisis be it because of the dominant models of management which have come to be developed and promoted with a minimum amount of caveat or because of the way in which it failed to develop adequate ethical standards in an economic world which tended to be evermore dominated by the mere obsession of monetary gains. Actually the dissatisfaction is such, as the self-assessment report notes rightfully, that the same Carnegie Foundation which was at the origin of the “analytic turn” of business education, in the late 1950’s, has been insisting recently on the need for a new orientation of business studies, an orientation giving more importance to practical and social relevance and, for that end, giving humanities a more important role in the development of teaching and research in management. This corresponds precisely to the orientation given to business research and education by the MPP department. The difficulties lies in the fact that the development of MPP is confronted to a global model of teaching and research which tends to dominate the field it organizes through a wellestablished system of ratings and rankings of institutions and academic journals . This system 4

is so powerful that it tends to impede or neutralize all efforts made within “mainstream” institutions to give a reasonable answer to the numerous criticisms which are addressed to it. The challenge which MPP faces in its development must not be minimized but should be considered in relations to the very high stakes which depends on its success, for the originality and innovativeness of the development of CBS, does not correspond only to the needs of its local context but also to a global demand for a deep transformation of business education. This is why it is looked at with a deep interest, and sometimes envy, in many international business education institutions. If positive attitudes toward humanistic approaches in management have developed lately all over the world, including in the publications of the Carnegie Foundation, it is, as Woodrow Wilson told us because of a need for such approaches. This need results from the deep changes which have affected the process of globalization between 1995, a moment of euphoria when MPP was officially founded as a department of CBS, and our days when dissatisfaction with the dominant model of teaching and research in management are criticized by those very authorities which originated it. To measure the importance of the shift which has taken place since 1995 from Euphoria to a more cautious understanding of the tremendous transformations which are affecting the world economy, in the appendix, we list a number of fundamental beliefs underlying the dominant model of business education. We do not think that the beliefs which underlie the dominant model have to be discarded. But in order to tackle the grand strategic theme of CBS namely, “Business in Society” the beliefs should instead be considered as issues that must be raised and challenged when creatively considering developments of new businesses in future society.

MPP research and new challenges to business education The Management Research group and the challenges of innovation and creation Be it for the future of growth and prosperity, for the ability to compete in a globalized economy or to face the externalities resulting from these processes, the major challenge faced by management is the ability to foster innovations. This corresponds exactly to the “research and objectives” defined by the management research group: they centre on entrepreneurs and artists , two major figures of innovators, agents who dare confront the challenges of uncertainty directly This manner of linking the entrepreneur and the artist is a good example of what is at stake when one pleads for the role the humanities should play in business education if the manager is to exert the type of leadership which the times require: the entrepreneur can learn from the artist in matter of creation in the same way as the artist may learn from the entrepreneur in terms of the ability to provide the conditions required by the development of innovations.

Public and political management research group Globalization is not only the name of a solution to economic development but also the name of as many problems which are raised by the way in which is tends to destabilize the major symbolic distinctions on which the institutional national and international order had been established . In such a context what is required is for the manager to learn to act in such a

complex environment. That corresponds precisely to the way in which the Public and Politic research group has group has defined its focus and objectives: “What is our focus is not a given set of organizations but how boundaries between logics and fields are challenged …” (public/private, governance/citizen, organization/employee, work/play, or public/volunteer)“

The Business History and Management Philosophy research groups To show how the important production of the Business History Research Group and the Management Philosophy Research Group address very concretely the challenges raised by the transformation of world economy it might be sufficient to quote two examples - one from each group. For history, the project on Nation Branding illustrates the way in which the process of globalization and the confusion between the public and the private determine the context in which national economic development can be promoted. Similarly for philosophy the work on self management, power and trust allows to analyse the way in which people may face the tensions and uncertainty of present business environment. However to understand the full value of relying on philosophy and history to develop a new paradigm of business education it might be useful to consider it from the point of view of the way in which globalization tends to transform the fields of social sciences. It is possible to distinguish two types of social sciences: those which are defined by an object of study, such as economics, sociology, psychology, and those that are defined by the knowledge required by a category of agents such as politicians or managers. Traditionally the scope of political authorities was determined by the limits of national borders, administrative sciences by the limits of the organizations, administrative power being supposed to be subordinated to an authority derived either from national political process or from the distribution of property rights. The new configuration of political and business authorities is well described by public and politic research group when they write: “Our field subject is, so to speak, constituted by boundaries to be challenge. Our focus is on continuously making and remaking the discursive conditions of management and how changes of these conditions at the same time put fundamental societal values into play.” P 39” If we take this description seriously it means that the distinction between political authorities and business authorities is not anymore defined by clear borders and frontiers and that similarly the limits which were supposed to separate the sphere of the exercise of political and strategic power from the realm of administrative power is becoming fuzzy. Thus globalization corresponds to a deep transformation of the relationship between the political and the managerial: henceforth management may be considered as the new political science. Globalization is not the solution to all problems, but the dominant context of economic action, a context which requires a permanent effort to reconcile business with the needs of society. From that point of view history and philosophy play a central role to understand the processes which have led to the present situation, the practical and ethical challenges which confront society and the principles required to legitimize managerial actions in such a context 6

Future developments: promoting the identity of MPP What is at stake with the future of MPP is nothing less than the question of knowing how an alternative model of business education, better adapted to the actual economic social and cultural transformations of the world, can survive and find its place in front of an ever more globalized system of business education, a system inherited from the early Ford and Carnegie reports, a system which remains dominated by quantitative indicators such as ratings and rankings. To succeed MPP must reconcile the need to develop a strategy compatible with 1) the major forces of the market and 2) the need to protect and promote a truly humanistic approach to management. To satisfy the first requirement it needs to be able to make its existence recognized internationally through signals that go beyond today’s dominant systems of ratings and ranking which would impose a regression to a somewhat out-dated “mainstream” model. To satisfy the second requirement it must strengthen its internal feeling of identity so as to be able to face the tensions that may result from a more direct confrontation with this “mainstream” model. Both challenges may be addressed as problems of communication: one concerning the inside of the department and between its research groups the other one concerning communication processes between the department and the outside world.

Inside MPP In spite of the quantity and quality of cooperation that has developed around research or education projects there remains a feeling that communication between the four research groups could be improved by intellectually supporting cross-group activities using the rationale indicated above. It seems that this goal could easily be reached just by increasing the selfawareness of all the members of the department of the coherence of their past common accomplishments and the nature of the common challenges they are to face in the future. On this issue three remarks can be made: 1) The coherence of their common accomplishment is easily interpreted and made obvious in the light of two themes traceable throughout all the production of the four research group: uncertainty (linked with the notion of entrepreneurship, creativity, innovation, knowledge creation, artistic imagination…) and communication (through notions such as rhetoric, storytelling, play, argumentation…). 2) Self-awareness in the group could probably be improved if two of the major notions which structure the work of the department, i.e. the very notion of management and the notion of society, would be discussed explicitly instead of remaining the implicit common ground which everyone is studying in its own manner. This does not imply any modification in the research orientations developed but simply the creations of occasions (common departmental seminars, team teaching and joint cross-group projects) for discussing these notions which no doubt play an essential but hitherto almost hidden role in the work of all the members and groups of the department. 7

3) One important topic which could constitute a strong link between the four research group seems to be little explored: i.e. the study of law. This theme is directly linked to the notions of Society (as the modern notion of sovereignty is attached to the notion of legal state), history (as it allows to follows the transformation of society through the modification of notions such as the public/private divide), philosophy (as the notion of jurisprudence as it is taught in American universities corresponds to the notion of philosophy of law or theory of law) and modern management (as the uncertainties related to the development of technological innovations, issues of governance and market regulations transform deeply the institutional context of managerial action). To these three points it may be useful to add the two following remarks one relative to history and the other to philosophy: A great number of the books and articles we have been able to read contains regularly formulas which indicate that a deep shift in the phenomenon studied has been felt “since 1980” or some other neighbouring date. Taken together these statements clearly indicate the presence of an historical turning point and one might regret that this common historical reference would not be discussed more explicitly. A similar point could be made about philosophy. Most of the time, the concepts and the methods are borrowed from or developed after the work of a major figure of contemporary philosophy. While this is perfectly legitimate and leads to both rigorous and meaningful productions, this does not necessarily favour the communication either between the various philosophical approaches or with the other research groups. From that point of view links could be found either by considering how the history of philosophy or the philosophy of history could allow to establish some connections between the variety of approaches developed within MPP. In the list of suggested action points below we recommend that internal communications between research groups could be improved by the organization of a common groupoverarching seminar. An important task for such a seminar would be to deal with these various questions and heads-on tackling notions still remaining implicit. This should lead to a clearer self-representation of MPP that should help in its communication with the outside world both within and without CBS.

MPP, CBS and the outside world However much one is convinced of the importance of establishing a new model of business education in the global scene one must not underestimate the challenge it represents. Whatever be the critiques addressed to the “mainstream” model and the increasing flow of recommendations coming from all quarters, including the Carnegie Foundation, insisting on the importance of developing a more humanistic approach to management and of addressing seriously issues such as ethics and sustainability, the systems of ratings and ranking to which business schools all over the world are increasingly subjected tend to sterilize the efforts they may develop to produce more relevant and meaningful research. MPP has already reached a meaningful degree of international recognition, however to succeed in promoting a new, humanistic, approach to business education, MPP must develop a strategy compatible with the major forces of a globalized market i.e. it needs to make its 8

existence increasingly internationally recognized through signals other than the dominant systems of ratings and ranking which would impose a regression to the so-called “mainstream” model. To achieve this goal it must adopt a strategy which brands business education internationally, using an alternative proposition rooted in the careful study, articulation, reflection and scrutiny of the belief system of the global dominating model following routes indicated above. To do this it is necessary to build a system of alliances with multiple stakeholders – with businesses and other institutions, with other universities, with other departments within CBS, within MPP to develop these networks it is possible to rely on the existence of the CEMS networks. These conditions should allow MPP to develop fully its competitive advantage and in this manner to participate to the success of Business in Society developed by Copenhagen Business University promoting “Global reach grounded in the Copenhagen Metropolitan region” and focusing “on knowledge and talent that impact organizations and businesses”.

Suggested actions for the future While we find the research to be of high quality and the department to be a very innovative and quality driven context for research, based on the evaluation carried out, this report addresses key areas which could be improved as a way to further develop the strengths and to reinforce MPP’s central role in the future strategy and development of CBS. The suggested improvements also aims to strengthen MPP’s reputation as a leading department in business as well as the humanities and social sciences internationally. We have given the main rationales for such improvements above. The main areas of our focus are here summarized under four points. 1) The need to solve the tension that currently exists in the strategy set by the school which impacts on departmental level (MPP) – of aiming to be a global player and at the same time contributing to advance the Copenhagen Metropolitan region. 2) The advantages that may arise from strengthening MPP’s existing networks of collaboration, and from extending those networks to all levels of operation and on a global scale - with businesses and other institutions (public and private), with other universities (in Denmark and overseas), with other departments within CBS, and between groups within MPP. 3) The benefits of move towards a clearer strategy of ‘publish high quality or perish’, which clearly prioritises quality in relation to quantity. 4) The need to address a number of contextual factors and operational weaknesses, ranging from issues relating to the level of centralisation of decision taking at CBS, gender and career paths, workloads, PhD recruitment, and availability of data. The reasoning behind the need to intervene in each of these areas follows from the previous chapters of the report and is further clarified below. Specific action points are suggested under each point.

1. Relation to CBS strategy At the moment CBS positions itself strategically within the landscape of higher education moving towards a broad scope and a ‘global mindset’. The move towards clarifying its role as a business university is clearly a move towards taking advantage of the unique and internationally well known features of CBS, with its size and its broad range of disciplines, educational programmes and research programmes. This strategy is also, as further described above, well in line with current developments in the world of business where issues of business in society are both crucial and in need of a more solid knowledge base. We have noted above that MPP can play a very important and central role in the furthering of this strategy. However, we find that this school strategy may need some clarifications before it can inform the actions and context of MPP in a constructive way. The new CBS strategy and its implied scope of activity is still somewhat unclearly defined as it is presented in the documents given to us. According to these documents, CBS aims to becoming a ‘Business University’, and yet the arrow on the displayed figure points slightly to the left, indicating a trajectory moving towards a ‘narrow scope’ of operation, more in line with becoming a more main stream kind of ‘business school’. If we do a similar exercise using MPP’s four groups (management, philosophy, political sciences and business history) positioning them on the same Figure, we find that they fall on the right hand side of Figure 1 (moving towards the ‘broad scope’). Again this suggests the important role of MPP in the strengthening of CBS as a business university with a central research platform on business in society. According to the new CBS strategy the aim is to develop a more global mindset and a global reach. In the strategy, however, this global reach aims at being grounded in the Copenhagen Metropolitan Region. Apparently, CBS wants to act both globally and locally. This contemporary focus on the global and the local is not without tensions and if the aim is to develop and more global mindset generally, issues concerning funding, publication, data and relations with various parts of the business world need to be addressed. We will briefly comment on how this development can be supported when it comes to MPP. MPP is, as we have emphasized above, already today well known internationally. Researchers are integrated in global research networks and much of the research deals with international or global issues. However, the research groups in the department differ somewhat along the dimension of global and local mindsets. In two of the groups (business history and management) a ‘global mindset’ is already dominating, while the other two groups (philosophy and political sciences) appear to be dominated still by a ‘local mindset’. We were told, during the site visit, that one important reason for focusing to such a large extent on Denmark and even on the Copenhagen region rather than using more global data and developing more global mindsets has to do with funding. A large part of the external funding is given with the qualification that the empirical questions should concern Denmark and that results should be directly relevant for Danish society. The current composition of external sources of funding clearly limits the possibilities of developing the department research to become increasingly international and global.

 Action points •

All groups of MPP need to move in the direction of having a ‘global mindset’. More collaboration at multiple levels (see point 2), and the production of research more targeted to appeal to an international audience (eg. more comparative and international, or providing a clear international context even when focused on Denmark) would greatly influence that positioning. Having more publications written in English in high quality academic journals and other media would also reinforce that path (see point 3 below). This need for moving towards a ‘global mindset’ also impacts on the hiring strategy, which should take into account the fact that the best experts in certain academic areas might be based in other countries. In terms of teaching there are clear advantages in developing more programmes in English language, in particular at postgraduate level, as they will enable foreign students to apply for such programmes. This will subsequently act as a mechanism to reinforce the global reputation of MPP/CBS and also former students might become future funders of research projects. As noted above, research funding also seems to currently limit the development of a global mindset. Hence, we suggest that the portfolio of external funding should be looked at with a clear aim at searching for more international funding possibilities, or alternatively funding possibilities that do not limit data and results to Denmark, but instead allows for more internationally oriented research. European Union is obviously an important funding source. Since information, application and reporting relative to such funding is quite burdensome for individual researchers or research groups central initiative at the school (such as setting up a grants office) could be considered in order to support and increase in European applications and funding. This could spur the development of more international research and the development of a global mindset.

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It is important to clarify whether the aim of CBS is really to become a ‘Business University’. This means pointing the arrow in the displayed figure in the strategy slides to the top right quadrant (where universities are characterized by a ‘broad scope’ and ‘global mindset’), rather than the top left quadrant (where business schools are more focused on a niche, characterised by a ‘narrow scope’ and ‘global mindset’). A more detailed assessment of competition in each of these quadrants and what they do in terms of research and teaching would help clarify in what position CBS really wants to be. This analysis could also be used in the selection of possible partners for collaboration (see point 2).

2. The need to strengthen global networks and extend collaboration at all levels of operation This collaboration totally conforms with the spirit of the 7th pillar of CBS wisdom of having a commitment to synergy, flexibility and innovation and can be achieved at various levels: 2.1 With businesses and other institutions Collaboration with businesses and other institutions is already a key area of strengths of MPP. The department has multiple links with businesses and other private and public institutions, both at the level of teaching and research. However, research networks tend to be mainly with Danish firms and other domestic institutions. And a great part of these institutions are publicly owned. The types of collaboration and the sources of research funding have created ideal 11

conditions for CBS to thrive as a key teaching and research institution in Scandinavian humanities and social sciences. That explains why research at MPP relies extensively on Denmark, Danish businesses and institutions, and also on Danish entrepreneurs, as sources of empirical evidence. There is the potential to do more international and comparative research by developing new collaborative networks with Non Danish firms based in Denmark, such as subsidiaries of leading multinationals. Comparative research could allow to communicate to the world the specificities of the Danish, and beyond, of the Scandinavian model of development and of management. There is also an opportunity to create new networks of collaboration with domestic, privately owned firms and other institutions, as the substantial part of the existing research at MPP is publicly funded. 2.2 With other universities – domestically and globally The strengthening and creation of new networks of collaboration with other universities, both at the level of teaching and research, would greatly help strengthen MPP’s distinctive capabilities as a world leading institution in the humanities and social sciences. We described such forming and strengthening of networks as vital for the development of MPP. In Denmark MPP has already started developing collaborations with design and art schools, to develop joint research and education programmes in design and art management. At an international level we especially emphasized that new and strengthened collaborations should be selective, taking into account the need to choose the best partners – in terms of enhancing MPP’s global reputation, and in terms of the joint capacity of the institutions involved to work together in the medium-long term. They should have similar or complementary capabilities and levels of global reputation. Some of these new partners should also have a strong interest in teaching and research on topics related to the three strategic themes chosen by CBS for development in the medium term: sustainability and technology, creative enterprise and design, and publicprivate. These international collaborative alliances would also help fulfil the necessary requirements for large research grants application near international organisations such as the European Union, or OECD.

2.3 With other departments Within CBS there are clear synergies that can be obtained from collaboration between different departments – either involving groups working on similar topics but using a different angle of analysis (such as the various groups at CBS working on innovation, and on branding), or from different disciplines but with complementary skills (such as economics and management, law and history, or law and philosophy). These synergies should be further explored to enhance CBS’s international reputation in teaching and research. In terms of teaching – MPP is already contributing to the exploitation of those synergies, with its members of staff teaching in management and international business courses, and other highly successful programmes within CBS, where the teaching is shared among several departments.

In terms of research these interdepartmental links can be very important in obtaining grants otherwise not achievable by the individual parties. However it is important that there is a careful selection of the ‘partners in the alliance’ as they are coming from different fields of specialisation, and yet they need to have similar purposes and be able to understand each other’s language and contribution to the project.

2.4 Within MPP It is important to strengthen the collaboration between the 4 groups (business history, management, philosophy and political sciences), to enable knowledge transfer; to provide the motivation to those researchers who already produce excellent work but mainly disseminating it in Danish language, to liaise, and in some cases, to work with colleagues that have more experience in publishing internationally. By creating an environment where academics from different but related disciplines meet, researchers will also be able to target more diversified portfolios of academic journals and broader audiences, as a result of joint, interdisciplinary research. In addition we have pointed out above that such strengthened collaboration across the groups should form a means of clarifying and illuminating the basic concepts on which much of the MPP research leans. Such conceptual clarifications are not only relevant for the local researchers, but as argued above, of central importance in the globalized business and business school landscapes. Some groups and individuals within MPP have an established reputation internationally for combining unconventional with conventional research topics on business and society, and also for emphasising practical impact. However, some are yet to internationalise, currently only focusing in disseminating their research within Denmark and the rest of Scandinavia. Increasing the interaction among the groups would potentially help develop some underresearched areas within MPP, and also help conceptualising further basic concepts. There is also great potential for developing new teaching programmes based on the strengths of the groups.

 Action points •

To find one or 2 key universities in Europe or other continents with similar or complementary capabilities, committed to building international joint programmes, namely at the postgraduate level and in areas of strength of MPP and of strategic importance for CBS. To find possible new programmes which relate to the three themes in which CBS wants to expand and create an international reputation. Within such alliances, joint educational and research programmes can preferably be developed. In Denmark MPP should continue working on developing alliances with institutions which fit their own profile in management and creativity and also the CBS business in Society platform for ‘Creative Enterprise Design’.

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The creation of an ‘MPP seminar series’ (with a few seminars per term, involving both members of staff and also some key external speakers on topics related to for the 4 subject groups) which would be compulsory for all members of staff and would act as an enabler for knowledge transfer, dialogue, and joint collaboration. An MPP seminar series would also contribute to tackling the problem that there exists at the moment, 13

where, despite being a minority, female colleagues’ research, is not really well known and acknowledged by other members of staff. Such a joint seminar would also form an important basis for doctoral students to meet and talk about their research with members of staff from the different groups at MPP. Doctoral students are already today interacting across groups, but with a seminar such collaborations could be strengthened. •

An increased collaboration among PhD students across the four groups can clearly add both to the quality of advising of students today and to furthering better collaboration across the four groups. As a means of supporting such increased collaboration we suggest that, when appropriate, the department could develop a principle of joint supervision of PhD students across groups. As a rule, each PhD student could be assigned at least one second supervisor from one other research group within the department in addition to the main supervisor from the research group in which the PhD student has been hired.

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The creation of new programmes such as ‘Politics, Philosophy, Economics and Management’ would contribute to strengthening MPP’s central role in CBS. Taking the Oxford University undergraduate degree in ‘Politics, Philosophy and Economics’ as an illustration, one sees that this is considered one of the most prestigious and high profile degrees in the United Kingdom, with very high demand and little competition, feeding graduates to distinguished positions in society, including politics.

3. ‘Publish high quality or perish’  Action points •

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To develop research that is relevant to an international audience. This does not mean moving away from doing research on Danish topics. But it rather means paying more attention to providing a broad context in studies conducted on Denmark or Danish industries, or entrepreneurs. Alternatively it means using Denmark in international comparative studies as a way of providing greater basis for generalisations and creating more impact internationally. Further collaboration between groups in the departments is a good way of creating synergies at the level of research grant application and targeting wider academic and institutional audiences with the outputs produced. To invest in publishing high quality outputs, even if that means less quantity.

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To maintain a good balance of publications written in English and in Danish. Even if the funding comes from Danish institutions and the school is committed to developing the Copenhagen Metropolitan area, the move towards a global business university, requires academics to invest on building a global reputation. This means reaching wider audiences, and English is the natural language for doing so.

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The publication record at MPP is impressive. There are several good publications widely distributed and cited both in Denmark and internationally. In this perspective it is somewhat surprising that there are no available statistics about such publications – journals and books. More systematized data on funding, citations etc. could be clearly presented as a way of demonstrating the high quality of MPP research. Such data could 14

also help in keeping track of development in the department. We noticed, during our site visit, some scepticism relative to the widely spread measures used for publication, citation etc. We agree that all these measures should be read with quite a lot of scepticism and we do not recommend that they be used as basis for resource allocation. However, as part of a more general strategic discussion and assessment of research quality we find such statistics to be relevant. The collection of such publication data could also be of value for the school as a whole.

4. Other operational areas that need attention 4.1 Centralization We noted above that the department has an important role for the school as a whole as an incubator and translator of new areas of knowledge, perspectives and ideas and as a centre for developing a more humanistic approach in business research and education. In order to maintain and further develop this role of the department it needs to maintain a considerable freedom of space, combined with a support for its legitimacy from the school. From this perspective there is a risk that standardizing and regulating measures taken by the government or by the central administration of the school may hinder entrepreneurial initiatives at the departmental level. The government in Denmark is very interventionist at the university level, leading to delays at various decision taking levels, which can range from appointments, to introducing new programmes. These delays create a ‘maybe’ problem, which acts as a barrier to entrepreneurial initiatives. In order to maintain the entrepreneurial spirit of the department and of CBS as a whole it appears to be extremely important that the centre of CBS acts will not be seen from a departmental level as a second layer of bureaucracy for implementing decisions and taking action, but rather as a supporting structure for developing research and education, for seeking funding and alliances and for developing the quality and internationalization of the school.

4.2 Gender and career paths The proportion of female academics working in the MPP department is very low. It is to be commended though that the management of CBS acknowledges this is an issue, and has recently appointed a new member of staff specialising in equal opportunities, and also that it has arranged a meeting for the evaluation team to meet up for a lunch with the female academics of MPP and learn about their concerns. It is also not clear for some groups within MPP what their career paths are. This is particularly true for female academics and for temporary research staff. A clarification of career patterns, extended collaboration across research groups, and central support – in the form of a grant office, seed money etc. – would also give a more stabile base for the female researchers, who now appear to a large degree to be have a less stable base for there engagement in the department.

4.3 Workload – balance teaching research In some groups the very large teaching loads and the pressures that exist for applications for research grants leave limited time for academics to do research. The management group is an example of that situation. Having an officer to help and advise on research grants would greatly help deal with this issue.

4.4 PhD recruitment of international students The department offers very attractive PhD grants to doctoral students, both in financial terms and in the amount and quality of training and supervision that they get. PhD students at MPP are also encouraged to create international networks and have an international exposure of their work at conferences and workshops, at early stages in their dissertation. There is however a conflict between the way the current PhD programme is set up and CBS’s strategy of becoming a global player. Currently students can only do a PhD if they have studied before for 5 years (3 years + 2 years), or if they studied for 4 years and are willing to do one year masters programme at CBS as part of the doctoral programme. This is particular to the Danish academic system and does not apply to many countries. It basically means that a foreign student wanting to apply for a PhD scholarship at CBS cannot do it as he/she does not have the right qualifications to do so. Additionally most of the grants are provided by CBS jointly with Danish businesses and other institutions, which tend to sponsor particular topics, essentially related to Denmark, or Danish business or entrepreneurs.

4.5 Lack of statistics When conducting this assessment of research evaluation team found that there was a lack of statistics about topics such as employee turnover, recruitment, promotion, percentage of foreign staff, salaries, differences between MPP and other departments at CBS, and gender differences in terms of all these criteria.

 Action points •

Centralization – it is difficult to change the level of centralization and bureaucracy imposed externally by the government. However, better communication links between the centre and the departments at CBS, and a constant concern that unnecessary centralization should be avoided, might help deal with this ‘maybe’ barrier which hinders entrepreneurial behaviour.

•

Gender and career paths – the establishment of clear policies and procedures in terms of what people need to do to be promoted and what career paths are available seems necessary. It is important to note, however, that this is a sensitive area in the sense that sometimes the creation of procedures relating to career paths can be a source of bureaucracy, without necessarily leading to benefits for employees. When recruiting new academic staff MPP needs to take into consideration the need to hire female academics as a way to move towards an environment which provides equal opportunities to all its employees. 16

•

Workload – the time spent working on research applications should be included as a separate item in the workload, distinctive from the teaching time and the actual time spend on research. For instance, as an example, 15% of current total teaching workload could be devoted to fundraising, research applications, and development of research based modules, making better connections between research and education. Alternatively, a small amount of seed money to be used for financing the writing of applications which appear to be of crucial importance for the department and the school, could be considered.

•

PhD recruitment – It is important to find a way of bridging the year gap in terms of funding for students coming from abroad and wanting to do a PhD without a Danish education. It is also important to spread the sources of funding to non-Danish companies so that PhD applicants have the option of choosing other topics of research which do not necessarily involve collecting evidence based in Denmark.

•

Statistics - need to build a bank of data which will help assess possible weaknesses at CBS in terms of recruitment, promotion, retention of staff, gender difference. It would have been useful to the evaluation team to have comparative figure between MPP and other departments.

Final comments The action points suggested above aim to further support and improve the development of what we believe is a well managed department, producing excellent research and contributing with high quality teaching to CBS programmes. Finally, we would like to commend the academic as well as the administrative staff at MPP for the way the evaluation process was prepared and conducted, providing a very complete package of information for the evaluation team, a very thorough self assessment document, and conducting a very relevant and well organized on site visit.

Paris, York and Uppsala in January 2011 Romain Laufer, Teresa da Silva Lopes, and Kerstin Sahlin

Appendix : Current challenges to some of the fundamental beliefs underlying the dominant model of business education Positive attitudes toward humanistic approaches in management which have developed lately may be associated with a series of event which have taken place since 1995 which have led to the development of a more sober and complex approach of some of the fundamental beliefs underlying the dominant model of business education as can be seen in the following examples of the way in which such beliefs have been challenged. 1) The universal recognition of the superiority if the American model of development based on leading to a global, unified, deregulated market for good and services. 1995 corresponds to the replacement of the GATT by the WTO in charge of creating a global unified market,. The Doha Development Round which started in 2001 faced in 2008 the difficulty of reconciling the points of view developed nations (such a the USA and EU) and developing nations such as Brazil, China and India. 2) which opens an unlimited horizon of economic growth corresponding to a shift from an economy based on industrial products to an economy based on services. Enron one of the largest US energy distributors developed a strategy where by most material dimensions of the business are outsourced concentrating on its service dimensions i.e. commerce and finance. In 2001 it faces bankruptcy and caused the fall of one of the â&#x20AC;&#x153;big fiveâ&#x20AC;? auditing companies, Arthur Anderson. 3) made possible by telecommunications.

development

new

technologies

especially

the realm of

1995- 2002 see the development of the dot-com industry. In 2002 the dot-com bubble burst as a result of the exuberance of the market 4/ technologies which allow the full development of the potential of analytic and mathematical modelling as guides to efficient business decisions. In 1997 the Nobel Prize in Economics is given to Robert Merton, Professor of Finance at the Harvard Business School and to Myron Scholes Professor of Finance at the Stanford Business School for applying mathematical modelling to financial asset pricing and derivative pricing models. There knowledge had been instrumental in the development of the business model of LTCM (Long Term Capital Management) established in 1994 by John Meriwether ( a former member of Salomon Brothers who held himself an MBA from the University of Chicago), and they became members of its board. In the fall of 1998 LTCM the situation was such that it had to be bailed out in emergency by the Federal reserve board for fear or a systemic financial meltdown. 5) Financial market play an essential role in the development of global economic growth by the way in which it allows optimal allocation of resources and create incentive to risk taking especially through the availability of Credit Default Swap (CDS). The domination of the finance industry led to the constitution of bubble in the housing market resulting in the subprime crisis in 2009, the worst global crisis since 1929.

6) all this resulting at the political level to a general triumph of democratic societies In 1992, Francis Fukuyama publishes The End of History and the Last Man where he describes a unified world completely dominated by the American democratic model of society. In 1996 he publishes a book on trust where he states that High trust countries such as the United States and Japan, are more likely to develop more competitive and efficient economy than low trust countries such as China and Korea. At that time the example of China with its economic reforms, the development of private property, massive privatisation of state owned companies, and development of a financial market seemed to correspond to this outlook. More recently the world is witnessing a deep shift in the balance of economic and financial power which expresses itself in processes of deindustrialisation and de-localisation of production from developed to less developed countries leading to the accumulation of financial surpluses in China and of public deficit in the western destabilizing world monetary equilibrium. 7) and a world able to face collectively the challenges raised by economic development In 1997 the importance of the issue of the recognized with the Kyoto Protocol

sustainability of economic growth is officially

In 2006 the success of A1 Goreâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Inconvenient Truth and the Nobel Prize awarded to the GIEC signal the recognition of global warming as a global threat. In 2009 the Copenhagen Conference fails to lead to a positive agreement while doors remain open for future negotiations.