teaching note. what companies want

Teaching note

July 2010

“What Companies Want”

Graduate education needs in a global labour market

BIANCHI Paolo ANDERSEN Solveig

GAGLIARDI Marcello GUERIN Julia

VLEUGELS Jenneth

TEACHING NOTE LUISS BUSINESS SCHOOL, JULY 2010 2

CASE DESCRIPTION

Lots of changes are taking place in the world. Economic development, globalization, demography,

technology and corporate social responsibility with its increasing importance, are tremendously

modifying the global scenario.

This case describes the challenges Luiss Business School (LBS) faces willing to adapt to the changing

external factors. As a consequence of the recent events and trends in the external environment

surrounding the organizations, executives and managers are searching for new routes to value

creation and growth; at the same time companies are experiencing new requirements in terms of

managerial competencies.

Since the companies are the direct clients of LBS, as employers for LBS´s students, LBS needs to adapt

to their changing needs.

LBS is aimed at offering managerial education to variously sized companies, whose needs in terms of

managerial competencies are changing, so LBS needs to understand exactly what these new needs

are, in order to adapt its educational offer.

Therefore there is a main research question for this case, and a practical task to be accomplished.

The research question is the following:

“What are companies’ needs, influenced by the global changing environment, in terms of present and

future managerial competencies?”

The practical task is to provide recommendations for the ideal MBA program.

STUDENTS ASSIGNMENTS

Students can compare different methods in order to analyze the needs of the companies and give

recommendations for the LBS’ MBA program. We suggest one method in the following paragraphs,

but others may be developed as well.

An analysis of literature and the conduction of semi structured interviews with real managers could

be performed by the students. A survey may be conducted as well, using web-based questionnaires.


The analysis of the literature could provide a first insight into the global changes in the environment

surrounding companies nowadays, and provide also the basis for the construction of an interview

guide to be used with managers and/or a questionnaire for a web based survey.

If the time given to the students to solve the case is compatible with conducting interviews and/or a

quick survey (a couple of weeks or a month), the students could prepare an interview guide and/or a

questionnaire, identify a list of managers to be contacted, conduct interviews or a survey with them

and analyze the interviews and/or the results of the survey afterwards.

If the time given to the students to work on the case is just a day or two, they should just use the

interview summaries in appendix one: then they should analyze the new competencies and skills

that are mentioned by interviewees.

When the results of the analysis of the interviews (conducted by students or from appendix one), as

well as the results of the survey (if performed), become available, students could produce a first

output consisting of a list of competencies and skills that nowadays companies expect their

managers to have: “what companies want”. The next step could be to compare the outcome with

the structure of the present MBA (see appendix 2) at LBS, in order to assess if the competencies

managers should have are being developed during this program or an intervention is required.

A consistent final output, along with the list of competencies “companies want”, should be a list of

recommendations for the new MBA program, in terms of competencies that need to be developed,

suggestions about how to develop them and new subjects to be taught. Students could recommend

to LBS , for instance, to foster group working or increase the frontal tuition as well; to organize

business competitions/simulations; to introduce more case studies, etc.

TEACHING OBJECTIVES

- Provide students with a better insight into the changes in the global external environment

affecting companies.

- Provide human resource management students with practical knowledge about the changing

needs of the companies in terms of managerial competencies. This could be useful for two

reasons: firstly, it might be relevant for their future careers, when they will be asked to select

and recruit the right people (managers) for the right positions, keeping an eye on the future

needs of the companies. Secondly, it might be relevant in their own process of becoming


ready for the labor market. Students can indirectly get an insight into the managerial

competences needed by companies, so that they can reflect on the competencies they

possess as well, performing a form of self-assessment.

- Improve the information processing capability of students; improve their analytical skills in

skimming relevant information from non-relevant ones.

- Give students the opportunity to gather more knowledge and experience in performing both

qualitative and quantitative research.

- Improve students’ networking and soft skills, allowing them to contact managers to arrange

and conduct the interviews, so that they can interact with the interviewees and build

relationships which might be useful for them in the future.

ANALYSIS

In order to get an insight into all the aspects of the research question, different research aims can be

identified:

Investigate the main changing environmental factors

Understand how the environmental factors affect the companies

Explore new companies needs as regard future managers´ competencies

After having identified these aims, students can analyze them in different ways.

The first aim can be analyzed doing a literature review about the main important changes in the

external environment. In order to do so, students can use several literature databases and search for

the following terms: economic development, globalization, entrepreneurial thinking, corporate social

responsibility, demography and technology. More specific issues can be investigated as well: cultural

mediation, global understanding , cultural awareness may be some of them.

To structure such a literature review and therefore achieve a complete understanding of what is

going on in the world, students may refer to factors taken from analytical approaches such as the

PESTLE (political, economical, social, technological and legal factors).

The understanding of how these environmental factors affect companies, the second aim, can be

achieved referring to the literature review already performed.


Besides the analyzing techniques used to get answers about all the aims of the research, students

can get more deeply and more thorough into the existing features and characteristics of LBS, in order

to understand which of the gained information can be relevant for LBS. Hence, identifying

companies’ new needs which LBS could never adapt to, would be useless for LBS (even if it might be

interesting for the student to know).

Third aim: firstly, students can analyze the summaries of the three interviews reported in the

appendix to the case study. By doing so, they will get a first insight and something to build their

further research on. Besides, to get much more insight into the dependent variable in the research

question (the managerial competencies) students can investigate what managerial competencies

might be important for companies now and in the future. Existing data can be used for this purpose,

such as lists of competencies1 commonly used for assessment procedures. An interesting source

might also be job advertisements by multinational companies. These companies need to adapt to

worldwide changes and developments, and these advertisements would provide a very clear insight

into what they might need and expect from their future managers.

In order to understand what will be different in the future (the different expected competencies) a

more thorough analysis might be needed. Conducting interviews can be helpful in order to

understand the relationship between the influence of the changing needs of companies influencing

their expected needs of managers.

As already written above, if the time given to the students in order to solve the case is limited, this

last part can be ignored.

THEORY

PESTLE

As explained in the paragraph concerning the suggested analysis methods, to conduct a PESTLE

analysis might be useful to structure the investigation about the external environment. Therefore the

following model might be helpful for students to be used:

1 Bauman (1998)


Factor Likely to include

Political What are the key political drivers of relevance?

Worldwide, European and Government directives, funding council policies, national and local organisations' requirements, institutional policy

Economic What are the important economic factors?

Funding mechanisms and streams, business and enterprise directives, internal funding models, budgetary restrictions, income generation targets

Social What are the main societal and cultural aspects?

Societal attitudes to education, particularly in relation to government directives and employment opportunities. Also general lifestyle changes, changes in populations, distributions and demographics and the impact of different mixes of cultures

Technological What are current technology imperatives, changes and innovations?

Major current and emerging technologies of relevance for teaching, research or administration

Legal Current and impending legislation affecting the role

European and national proposed and passed legislation

Environmental What are the environmental considerations, locally and further afield?

Local, national and international environmental impacts, outcomes of political and social factors

Source: http://www.jiscinfonet.ac.uk/tools/pestle-swot

Weick’s Sensemaking model

Furthermore, in order to use the information gained from the explorative interviews put in the

appendix of the case study, students can use Weick’s Sensemaking model.

http://www.jiscinfonet.ac.uk/tools/pestle-swot


This model explains why the task of interpreting an environment is a highly ambiguous one. Weick

states that managers, in order to maintain a stable level of performance within the companies, must

decide whether the changes in environment are important enough to deserve some adaption in the

organization’s strategy or design2. The main point that can be taken from the model is that

managers, in order to understand the environment, need to scan, analyze and interpret the

environment3.

This model can be used in two ways. Firstly, it can be used to interpret the data from the explorative

interviews. In this way some sensitivity needs to be added to the conclusions drawn from this data.

As in all the phases highlighted by Weick there will be elements of human judgment involved,

students also need to be sensitive in generalizing the results from the interviews. Hence, there will be

data belonging to only three interviews, and it will be based on human (managerial) judgment.

Secondly, the model can be used by students to understand their own process of interpreting the

environment, especially when researching the first aim of the research.

2 Weick (1987)

3 Daft & Weick (1984)


Mintzberg's Ten Management Roles

Source: http://www.lmcuk.com/management-tool/mintzberg-s-ten-management-roles

This model represents a categorization of different roles a manager should fulfill in order to be

successful. Thanks to this model, students can be oriented in considering the general needs of

companies in terms of managerial competencies. Some guidance in the investigation is provided: for

example the ´interpersonal role` in the model could imply the need for managers to have soft skills,

such as: taking care of relationships, be communicative etc. This deliver to the students the idea that

managers having soft skills is important for companies.

ADDITIONAL READINGS

The case and its references can be supported by many different readings about the external

environment, with all its changes and features. In the case study this part is divided into the following

factors: economic development, globalization, entrepreneurial thinking, corporate social

responsibility, demography. Since the case-study provides some general facts about what is

happening in these areas, and the provided information on some factors is quite limited, additional

information might be useful.

http://www.lmcuk.com/management-tool/mintzberg-s-ten-management-roles


Therefore, for increasing understanding in the factor globalization and also corporate social

responsibility, the following articles might provide a better insight:

- Bauman, Z. (1998). Globalization. The human consequences. Polity Press-Blackwell Publishers

Ltd., Cambridge-Oxford.

- Markovic, M. (2008). Managing the organizational change and culture in the age of

globalization. Journal of Business Economics and Management, Serbia and Akamai

University, USA.

In these articles the influence of globalization on companies is explained, as well as its consequences

for society, in terms of how companies are reshaping communities. In this way the influence of

globalization and CSR are linked as well as the increased importance of CSR is explained.

To get a better insight into Luiss Business School as a company, the website of Luiss Guido Carli

University could be uesefull: (www.Luiss.it).

Additional information can be found in several articles, but also the website of OXFORD University.

http://www.luiss.it/


REFERENCES

Bauman, Z. (1998). Globalization. The human consequences. Polity Press-Blackwell Publishers Ltd.,

Cambridge-Oxford.

Daft, R., & Weick, K. (1984). “Toward a model of organizations as interpretation systems”. Academy

of Management review, 9, 284-295.

Weick, K. (1987). “Organizational culture and high reliability”. California Management Review, 29,

112-127.

PESTEL analysis of the macro-environment source: http://www.jiscinfonet.ac.uk/tools/pestle-swot

Mintzberg’s 10 Management Roles, source: http://www.lmcuk.com/management-tool/mintzberg-s-

ten-management-roles

http://www.jiscinfonet.ac.uk/tools/pestle-swot

