Moving on with Generation Next
AUTHOR: Mike Butler DATE: 06.09.07 ISSUE 1, 2007
The Australian School of Business has enhanced capabilities across its postgraduate portfolio to meet the new millennium demands of industry and Generation Y.
The ever-shifting face of business and the emergence of Generation Y are arguably the two most pressing challenges facing business schools globally, according to Professor Chris Adam, Associate Dean of Postgraduate Programs and Director of AGSM at the Australian School of Business.
In the past, business schools have focused almost exclusively on delivering knowledge in functional areas, however the demands of business and the new generation of students are changing.
| "What we teach may not be greatly different but how we deliver it will change," says Professor Chris Adam, Associate Dean of Postgraduate Programs and Director of AGSM at the Australian School of Business. |
“The fundamentals are still essential,” emphasises Professor Adam. “But postgraduates now need an intellectual agility to prepare them for the pace of business today. Providing them with the skills to enable them to work cross-functionally and to be effective team players and leaders is becoming increasingly important.
"While our programs are tailored to students' particular needs and expectations, providing them with ‘soft’ skills is a particular goal of the School because this is what employers demand and, as a result, our students do too," he says.
With no fewer than 13 Masters programs across the professional spectrum, the new Australian School of Business has become a powerhouse of postgraduate business learning for managers and executives.
Professor Adam says there are four types of postgraduate students at the School:
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The School is a new, powerful force to deliver the mix of knowledge and the agility required for the post-millennium era, Professor Adam says. “We now draw on a far larger group, and a far greater capability in both research and teaching – and that is a big difference.” Some quick examples of this new strength in particular are in the School of Banking and Finance – “with 35 full time staff, it is the strongest in the country” – and the recent ranking of the School of Accounting as “the top accounting department in the world for the quality of its research".
An advantage of the acumen of the Australian School of Business is its ability to offer greater flexibility for mixing between course streams and a growing number of combined degrees to mirror the developing demands of business.
“CFOs, for example, do not solely focus on finance today,” Professor Adam points out. “On any given day, they’ll be dealing with strategy, marketing, HR and all manner of things, as well as finance. The new School provides the ability to study across different areas. Fundamentally that is good news for us because what we deliver must be finely tuned to the needs of managers and business.
“Now we can offer programs beyond a single Masters content for those who are looking for extra strength in marketing, finance or whatever area will give them that little bit more than the next person.”
Increasingly, the programs are being designed to cut across disciplines, says Professor Adam. “Let’s consider marketing financial services. It isn’t purely economics, marketing or finance but cuts across these disciplines. It is an area that managers and executives want to know how to manage. More and more areas such as health administration, sustainability and social responsibility, are cropping up which are not neat disciplines.”
Generation Y or why not?
The other great challenge is the emergence Generation Y, the popular terminology for the age group of the majority of undergraduate students who are imminently approaching postgraduate level.
While being more tech savvy than previous generations, a less obvious difference is that “they are also less individualistic and more comfortable interacting in groups than their predecessors five or 10 years ago,” says Professor Adam.
This less-individualistic bent is a strength. “At the core of business is the concept that the group is good and we reflect this in our programs. For example, the AGSM MBA program has placed a high reliance on group work for many years. While many of the MBA students are more individual-driven Generation Xers, most have a lot of workplace experience and realise that groups are how things get done in the working world. Using this team and group emphasis is how we best prepare our students for long-term success.”
Members of Generation Y present new requirements because they rely heavily on interaction with peers for their educational experience. |
The School’s emphasis on constructive group learning throughout its Masters programs is a strength that will become more important as Generation Y starts moving into the postgraduate programs, says Professor Adam.
“What we teach may not be greatly different but how we deliver it will change,” he says. Technical subjects that have been traditionally taught on an individualistic basis may actually benefit from a change in delivery, he suggests. “If they’re learning more successfully in a group-learning program we will adapt to meet the students’ needs.”
A benefit for the Australian School of Business postgraduate programs is flowing from the School’s undergraduate courses. “There is some true originality coming out of them,” Professor Adam says. “One example is the increased use of competitive strategy and business plan games. Our undergraduates participate in competitions run by organisations that provide really sophisticated simulations technology. And they compete nationally. That’s a fantastic learning process and we are building on this collaboration with business.”
A case in point was the recent business plan game led by UBS in which the bank gave undergraduates from the Australian School of Business an afternoon to prepare a plan for an evening presentation. The School’s undergraduate team outperformed postgraduate students from other universities and won the national finals of the competition.
A challenge for universities everywhere is in recruiting student talent. Members of Generation Y present new requirements because they rely heavily on interaction with peers for their educational experience.
However, the School has an inherent advantage due to the very bright people already in its undergraduate ranks, Professor Adam observes. The student body itself is a powerful attraction. “Generation Y is very, very clever,” he observes. “It’s an educational challenge that the Australian School of Business is well equipped to face.”