How business schools are starting to work together

For years, business schools have been saying they will work together to meet South Africa’s burgeoning education needs, but is anything actually happening on the ground?

Quite a lot, it appears, with at least one local business school going so far as to claim that collaboration is “a cornerstone of its strategy”. But some of the smaller schools feel that while there is far more collaborative interest from big schools these days, progress is still too slow.

“At Gibs [the Gordon Institute of Business Science], collaboration is not just a word, it’s a fundamental principle that drives our mission to make businesses healthier,” says Pravashen Pillay, the school’s managing executive: value creation.

“Through our strategic partnerships and alliances, we continuously strive to enhance our educational impact and contribute to the development of South Africa’s business leaders.”

Internationally, Gibs has established strategic relationships with the Harvard and Wharton business schools in the US, the Cambridge Institute of Sustainability Leadership in the UK, as well as multiple business schools across Africa and as far afield as China.

“This type of collaboration allows our participants to benefit from world-class faculty from every corner of the world and cutting-edge research without necessarily having to travel abroad,” says Pillay.

Locally, Gibs also collaborates with industry bodies and leading corporations, including the Gautrain Management Agency, for which it provides executive training in partnership with Wits Business School (WBS).

WBS’s Leoni Grobler says she is excited to be joining forces with Gibs, leveraging their collective strengths rather than competing as rivals.

Rhodes Business School, meanwhile, has an established partnership with the Joburg campus of Duke Corporate Education (Duke CE), a US provider, which allows them to make the most of their complementary skills and resources to deliver the best possible learning experience to clients.

“Rhodes Business School brings a local context, excellent faculty and accredited certificates,” says director Owen Skae. “Duke CE brings an international profile, access to top-class faculty and immersive experiences that are exceptional in their offerings.”

This type of collaboration allows our participants to benefit from world-class faculty from every corner of the world and cutting-edge research without necessarily having to travel abroad

—  Pravashen Pillay

Henley Africa’s dean and director Jon Foster-Pedley believes that collaboration should be a priority for all business schools and is an important way of growing their skills and abilities.

“Not all collaboration has to bring you revenue,” he says, “but it has to bring you something — be that skills, capabilities, a growing network, or something else that you need to grow and improve.”

The South African Business Schools Association (Sabsa) and the Association of African Business Schools (AABS) actively foster collaboration among South Africa’s leading business schools. But it wasn’t always the case.

Kobus Jonker, director of the Tshwane School for Business & Society, says that for many years there was virtually no collaborative interest from big schools, which didn’t seem to want to “mix” with the “small fry”.

However, he believes this has changed dramatically in recent years, largely through the efforts of Sabsa under GM Anne Wilson, who has fostered joint skills development and pushed the message that a strong higher education sector is good for everyone.

“Sabsa has helped change old attitudes,” says Jonker. “Nowadays, business schools are sharing 500% more than they used to. I think the mindset is changing.”

Randall Carolissen, dean of the Johannesburg Business School, agrees that the Sabsa narrative has shifted to collaboration but says there is still much more work to be done.

“The acceptance is there but not the action,” he says. “Collaboration is slow because of competition, [and] it requires a lot of maturity. You can’t have six top schools and the others amble along. There is sufficient space for us all to complement each other.”

Foster-Pedley sees the AABS as a great conduit for collaboration: “In the case of Africa, this means carefully leveraging both intra-Africa and global relationships without giving precedence to one over another and with the confidence to promote African ideas on the world stage.”

What it means: Business schools are collaborating far more than in the past, but there is still more work to be done

—  What it means:

On the research front, Henley relies on collaboration with consultants, practitioners and academics from other universities, as well as a variety of funding partners, to broaden its reach and impact. It believes that by welcoming a broader pool of researchers into its orbit, and providing them with the right support, it’s helping to build the pipeline of researchers that the continent so urgently needs.

Henley also collaborates on the delivery of programmes. A standout example is the pan-African #unTAP strategic leadership programme that was co-created by Henley Africa and Gibs for the Standard Bank Group.

Eleven executive educators from Gibs and Henley took part in the design process, melding Standard Bank’s business ethos and challenges, as well as the delegates’ needs, into a 10-day programme. It required delegates to undertake a variety of tasks, from peer coaching to each initiating a passion project.

“Delivery was also a collaborative affair, with Gibs managing one deliverable and Henley the next, using joint reporting and governance structures,” explains Henley director of executive education Linda Buckley. “The bank enjoyed a single point of communication so that all reports and feedback were delivered in one voice.”

Since 2018, the Graduate School of Business (GSB) at the University of Cape Town has also delivered a pan-African leadership programme — in its case with HEC Paris and the University Mohammed VI Polytechnic in Morocco.

“The partnership acknowledges that individually each school cannot make the impact required, but through partnering and sharing of resources and capabilities we can achieve meaningful impact at scale,” says GSB business development director Rayner Canning.

He concedes, however, that these arrangements can be complex, and require commitment and open, transparent conversations to be successful.