Advice for effective teaching in higher education in emerging markets

Earlier in the month we held a professional development workshop at the Academy of Management in Philadelphia. The title of the workshop was "Contextualization of Learning about Innovation Management and Entrepreneurship in Emerging Markets" and we were first up on the first day - Session 29 of nearly 2,000 sessions... (read the blog post for the first part of the workshop here: Contextualizing Learning

Aside from the five cases of best practises from Africa, the Middle East, India and Russia we asked for each of our panelists to provide their advice for effective teaching in the Middle East. The following is a list of their advice:

Stephen Mezias (INSEAD):

• Each class/session needs to begin with a list of goals and what will be done with learners, so that we do not impose our Western ways of thinking.

Kathy Shen (University of Wollongong in Dubai):

• Don't take contextualisation and the differences between genders [e.g. in gender segregated classrooms] for granted - students in Dubai behave much the same way as students in Hong Kong.

Amitaksha Nag (Frametrics Consulting):

• Defining problems well is critical - metaphors are cross-cultural, but can be viewed in many different ways. 

Alexander Fliaster (University of Bamberg):

• An educator's role is to help teach the importance of context within organisations, and that innovation and entrepreneurship are about interactions between collaborations.

Victor Huang (Zayed University, Abu Dhabi):

• Today's Generation V learners benefit from social media platforms where they can learn and share with fellow learners.

Finally, from the audience was a closing remark - in our search for contextualization and bespoke education we cannot forget that there are universal values and concepts that are valuable to keep in mind when teaching any group, on any continent. 

Teaching entrepreneurship and innovation management in emerging markets: some best practices

Earlier in the month we held a professional development workshop at the Academy of Management in Philadelphia. We were first up on the first day - Session 29 of nearly 2,000 sessions... and we still managed to draw a crowd.

The workshop was intended to help bridge a gap between the understanding that we need to contextualize research and a seeming acceptance that textbooks and teaching cases do not need to be put into context to be understood by our students.

Florian began the workshop with a brief overview of the pros and cons of contextualization - while it may be costly there is an argument to be made to develop contextualized language and learning in management education.

Dr. Florian Schloderer (INSEAD) presenting the agenda for the PDW

The first speaker, Prof. Stephen Mezias (INSEAD) spoke of the general context of emerging markets and the opportunities and challenges that institutional voids present - as they can both spur and hamper innovation.

This was followed by our "devil's advocate" Dr. Kathy Shen (U. of Wollongong in Dubai) who pointed out that it is important not to get to far away from the original concepts and theory that we are trying to represent and teach. The danger of over-contextualization is that our students are trying to construct their own knowledge of the concept, and if there is too much "context" the learner might not be able to apply her new knowledge in a new situation. Dr. Kathy suggested that it could be best to deliver the abstract knowledge first, which then could be followed by "contextualized" learning experiences.

This valuable introduction, looking at different aspects of contextualization, was followed by five case studies from emerging markets. What tools and techniques have been developed to encourage active learning by students in Africa, India, the UAE and Russia?

Pavan Soni (Indian Institute of Management Bangalore) began his presentation speaking of how Indians have traditionally been known as frugal innovators - solving immediate problems at hand with workable and ad hoc solutions. But the challenge is turning these problem solving skills into capabilities that can scale up solutions and create more dynamic and competitive organisations.

Pavan speaking about his research into the Indian pharmaceutical industry and innovation

In his research in the Pharmaceutical industry Pavan has traced how innovation processes have adjusted to National level institutional changes from imitation to improvisation to innovation and how the evolving context of formal and informal institutions has to be considered when researching and developing teaching cases on innovation management.

Following this Florian presented the Gulf Con simulation "game" which guides students through the set-up of a performance management system. In this simulation there is contextualization at three levels - this in addition to the fact that learning through play fits with the learning culture of the Middle East. However, although there have been positive results and feedback there is currently no evidence of whether this contextualization has led or will lead to sustainable change within the students' respective organizations.

Dr. Victor Huang (Zayed University, Abu Dhabi) then presented his experience using an online social media platform he used when teaching undergraduate students a course on entrepreneurship. Generation "V" (V for virtual) use social media to communicate, to learn, to stretch their entrepreneurial legs and at the moment management education is still discovering the best ways to incorporate social media tools. Teacher involvement is key to "directing" and developing incentives to encourage positive exchanges on Yammer (a free social media tool) and also a guiding hand is needed to take the student's culture and context into account when designing assignments and projects.

Amitaksha Nag(Frametrics Consulting) described his positive results teaching the importance of social networks in managing innovation processes in different communities in Africa. He uses simple games with simple tools and inexpensive material to create interactive, dynamic and fun learning experiences for students. Using this action learning tool Amitaksha helps abstract concepts become concrete through a social, visual and hands-on game.

Network designed by students

Dr. Alexander Fliaster (University of Bamberg) wrapped up the best practices section of the workshop by discussing his experiences in Russia with management simulations to teach collaboration. In management in collaboration for innovation, many of the issues and problems that come up along the process are due to cultural issues - so contextualization is key to effective research and learning.  Dr. Alex said that "our biases as Western educated teachers of what constitutes common knowledge can negatively impact our effectiveness". However, when games or simulations start with objectives, and then incorporate student examples and local scenarios they can see how they can apply their new knowledge in situations that are familiar to them.

Finally we had a panel discussion on the "take ways" of the workshop. Dr. Kathy underlined the need for more research and more "local" knowledge as to what is "different" in emerging markets and what is the "same" - and the cognitive consequences of contextualizing these theories for students.

The panel

It was a great workshop and it underlined the "sameness" and differences of teaching management in different contexts and in different cultures. While we must understand the context we must also keep in mind that some things remain the same across organisations and continents.

Developing Emirati Leaders - a presentation at the AOM Annual Meeting 2013

Yesterday I attended the discussion paper session "Do Leaders Matter" as a participating author. It was a great session with great participants. Positive feedback and genuine interest shown by all to improve the presented papers and get them ready for publication in a journal.

The Chair (Gina Grandy; Mount Allison U in red), an author and attendees interested in leadership.

The Chair again, more authors and some more attendees. 

Of the four papers presented, ours was the only one to use qualitative methods... but that was OK :) The presented papers, associated authors and abstracts were (copied from the AOM Program website):

OMT: Bean Counter or Co-Leader? A Contingency Perspective on Leadership Delegation to the CFO
Author: Malte Schulmeyer; RWTH Aachen U.;
Author: Malte Brettel; RWTH Aachen U.;

Recently, scholars started to draw attention on forms of co-leadership. Studies so far focused on the CEO/COO duo. We use contingency and power theory to assess, for the first time, factors influencing the CFO’s co-leader role. Specifically, we argue that under conditions of high industry dynamism, organizational complexity, and limited personal experiences CEOs delegate leadership to the CFO which in turn increases CFO power due to higher influence on resource allocation and strategic decision making in the TMT. Using a 6-year pooled sample of 94 German firms we find evidence showing that the CEO’s experiences as well as complexity arising from the firm’s diversification strategy affect leadership delegation to the CFO and CFO power. In addition, we find a positive main effect of the presence of a powerful co-leader CFO on firm performance.


OMT: How Much Do Leaders Matter? Ownership and Governance as Constraints on CEO Discretion
Author: Jonathan Clark; Pennsylvania State U.;
Author: Chad Murphy; Pennsylvania State U.;
Author: Sara J. Singer; Harvard U.;

Leadership and strategic management research suggests that the extent to which CEOs influence performance largely depends on the presence or absence of certain factors. This research suggests that CEO effects may be constrained by the task at hand, subordinates, the organization itself or by the external environment. A fundamental source of constraint that has received little empirical attention is an organization’s ownership and governance structure—that is, who owns and monitors the organization. In this paper, we outline how different ownership and governance structures can constrain leader influence and empirically examine the extent to which leader effects depend on these structures. Examining organizations in the same industry, but with different ownership and governance structures, our results suggest that these structures are closely aligned with the degree to which CEOs influence firm performance. Our findings support the notion that leaders matter most when institutional logics are weak or ambiguous, contributing new insight into the organizational factors that can constrain leader discretion and limit CEO effects on firm performance.


OMT: The Impact of Founder CEOs on Firm Leadership and External Constituents
Author: Nikolaos Kavadis; Erasmus U. Rotterdam;

This paper draws from theory on authority and prior research on founder-CEOs to explain why founder-CEOs are inclined to centralize decision-making authority, and how they materialize such preference. Further, I propose that founder-CEOs have a positive effect to external constituents with whom they closely interact and the source of legitimacy of their authority become most apparent. Based on a panel of large, publicly-traded firms, the results support the paper’s model.

OMT: Developing a Leader-Apprentice Framework Using Grounded Theory in the United Arab Emirates
Author: Sarah Abdulla Alhaj; National Cybersecurity Authority (NCSA);
Author: Constance Van Horne; Zayed U.;

Using grounded theory, this article looks at the role lived-experiences play in developing leaders, as opposed to formal interventions, as well this study seeks to explore the underlying factors that enable young Emiratis to learn how to lead. The findings are illustrated in a Leader Apprenticeship Framework which consists of experiencing influential encounters, dealing and learning from difficult events, and transforming at the heels of a formal-training programme.

This was a discussion paper session, which means that each author (or team of authors) presents a paper that is not their own and suggests ways to improve it so that it will be ready to send to a journal. Often a conference is the first step to present research results to the wider academic community, to get feedback and constructive advice so that when the researcher returns home, he or she or they can work on the paper to improve the chances of publication. (Yes, it is a long process, but it is a process that has developed over centuries and it seems to work!)

In another blog post I will provide a snap-shot of our article (but I can send you a copy if you email me).... I have many notes to go over with Sarah when I get back to Abu Dhabi, and en'shallah we find the time to get it ready for a journal.

The Academy of Management Meeting is not just about getting a line on your CV, it is about the research process and making our research in academia more robust - and hopefully more helpful to one another and for the communities we belong to.

Research and Teaching Collaborations with Colleagues in Underrepresented Nations: a blogpost

So yesterday was a big day. After our PDW (will blog about later today) I attended a session organized by Dr. Charles Wankel and his colleagues. It was held in a ballroom because there were lots of us!

As the title of the blog post suggests, it was a workshop to get people who are attending the Academy from nations and countries that are not represented at the AOM to as great a degree as Americans and American universities. You can find a full list of participants here (I am not on the list, but I attended anyways).

First, I think we have to define what the Academy of Management means for the global management research community – well, in short the association defines the “global research community”, in that, if your research is published at the Academy or in one of the Academy’s journals there is a big stamp of approval on it. You might not be aware, but the peer review process, even in Management Sciences, is vital – and if active Academy members agree that your research is valid and robust and interesting (at least after a few rounds of corrections) – then the rest of the world can “trust” that it is valid, robust and interesting.

So, the Academy and the Annual Meeting are important – but, it has been dominated by North America… but that is changing to add diversity of topics, diversity of findings and diversity of attendees J

Enough background, the session started with over 200 participants – we all were directed to tables with people we might not know (OK, I might have gone to a table with some people I know and it ended up with 5 of us from the UAE and 4 from Abu Dhabi). Dr. Charles introduced the session and then gave us (the participants at each table) our assignments – talk with one another, see what are commonalities and how you can research together and what are your outcomes – then come back and tell us all in a three minute summary. Well, that was how I interpreted the assignment, I am sure as good academics we all interpreted it in different ways!

My table was diverse and interesting and we represented many “underrepresented nations”. Here are a list of first names and countries we represent:

Alvaro – Mexico

Xu – China – Finland and UAE

Payal – India

Nadia – Greece and England (Manchester for the Abu Dhabi remote link)

Kathy – China, UAE (Dubai)

Florian – Germany, UAE (Abu Dhabi)

Fuazia – India and UAE (Abu Dhabi)

Me – Canada/Quebec and UAE (Abu Dhabi)

We started our discussions with a general introduction around the table and then we said well – what do we talk about. One of our members suggested we “figure out how to change the world”. Remember, we are academics and this is not as outlandish a topic as all that – but we agreed it might be a bit presumptuous and we only had a limited time – so we decided on another subject to guide our discussions.

Someone suggested: “What role can the AOM playing in bridging the gap between underrepresented countries and regions and the global research community?” (yes, I might have had a hand in this suggestions J).

So we started thinking and telling our stories. The first suggestion was to encourage/support/reward West and East/South collaborations as PDW, paper or symposium submissions. This would mean that there could be extra room in the schedule for groups that “fit” this criteria.

Then we really started talking about the “accepted” subjects or the “hot topics” which always seem to guide accepted research – well, these topics which are “hot” in the US or Western Europe are not necessarily important to the local or regional contexts of our universities. Maybe there could be a “stretch” of topics to include more industry specific or local context specific work…

In our local universities, as many of us switch from a teaching focus to a research and teaching focus – local context matters – we, as educators and scholars, need to “matter” to local companies and organizations. Our research needs to be more applied – there is VERY little (if any) funding for fundamental or basic research with practical results in maybe 10 or 20 or 40 years. These underrepresented nations are not underrepresented at the global level because we were not working – we were teaching a heavy course load and many academics use consulting to make ends meet in developing countries – no time for fundamental research.

We then talked about our role as scholars and the debate on whether research follows industry practice or is research meant to guide industry practice – and the tricky balancing act we play to balance being relevant with research.

One example was given from Estonia – Estonian companies have basically adopted Western style HR practices – transferred from Nordic companies (through FDI) and learned from Western trained professors and American textbooks – and it seems to have “worked” – e.g. there are accepted rules that even small companies follow that provide a structure and norms.

We then talked about the importance of bringing our research back into our classrooms – using case studies and practical local research results to bring the book theory to life in a local context (you can read the rest of my blogposts to see what I do in this regard).

Then we ran out of time – and each table presented. I presented for my table and tried to keep it short – there were many commonalities amongst the groups and it was interesting to see how we each interpreted our assignment. It was a wonderful way to spend an afternoon – thank you Dr. Charles for organizing this – I hope to attend another of your sessions next year.

Then I was off to the entrepreneurship social – which was held on the 50^th floor of the Prudential Centre – and that is another post J