DSign4.education: Fostering innovation and ...

30 May 2016

DSign4.education: Fostering innovation and engagement in management education Lee SCHLENKER Groupe ESC Pau 3 rue Saint-John Perse Pau, 64000 France [email protected]

SYNOPSIS

1 We discuss in this contribution how the DSign4Education framework has been introduced inside a business school to stimulate student and faculty engagement, review the nature of the subsequent projects that offer circumstantial evidence of innovation, and suggest a framework for gauging the nature and extent of student engagement in the future. Keywords: Service Innovation, Management Education, Pedagogy, Learning Technologies

I.

Introduction

How can we define innovation in management education? In the context of higher education, innovation implies translating an idea into a service that creates measurable value for the institutional stakeholders. Business schools have rarely been cited as hotbeds of innovation: the accreditation process, the reliance on the case study methodology, and the division of business education into the disciplinary silos have largely discouraged innovation on any level (Mintzberg, 2004). The DSign4Education framework proposes an integrative conceptual framework designed to spur innovation not only for in class, but in the application of its principles to real world business problems. The framework focuses attention on how institutional processes, norms and culture impact the institution, its use of information technologies, individual decision-making processes and work practices. This application of design thinking is evaluated here using the Business Value Matrix in an attempt to better understand the perceptions of value that result from changes in organizational technologies, culture and norms. We have initiated a number of school projects within this framework this year, both in class and out, to demonstrate the practical value of this vision. The cases are presented as examples of potential innovation in reshaping the learning place, diversifying the use of information platforms, influencing decision making process, and developing management education. For each case, we will present the challenge we at addressing, the resulting value proposition, and the evaluation metrics proposed to measure its impact on innovation. Web links are provided for each project for those that would like to study the projects in more detail.

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30 May 2016

II.

Innovation in the context of higher education

One fundamental challenge to innovation in higher education lies in understanding the nature of the value proposition universities and business schools pitch to their students and corporate customers. Pine and Gilmore (1999) have argued that value in modern economies has progressively evolved from that based on products, to that associated with services on to that perceived through customer experiences. Proponents of the Experience Economy would suggest that the perceived value of higher education is in neither the diploma, the research publications, nor the course content, but in the university experience itself. Faculty and professors are less key organizational resources than they are actors using digital props to relate drama (or comedy) to their students and corporate clients. In this light, innovation in management education is tied to degree to which our audience engages with the organization rather than the quality of our research or our pedagogy. Innovation doesn’t happen in a vacuum; it is conditioned by the context in which organizations evolve. This concept of adjacent possibilities has been suggested by Kauffman (1996) to explain why incremental, proximal changes in eco-systems are more like to produce favorable results than the introduction of radical new ideas, technologies or cultures. Johnson (2010) argues along the same lines in his survey of innovation: social systems produce innovation when they combine existing ideas, products and services in new contexts. Much like in a sporting event, each new play is conditioned by the players, past moves, and the rules of the game. In the ivory tower of higher education, innovation is continuously bound by technology, culture and norms – only a limited number of new initiatives can produce fundamental changes in how the institution works. What roles do learning technologies play in innovation? Information technologies have traditionally provided students and corporations with a more or less distorted mirror of what higher education is all about. A great deal of the literature, as well as institutional marketing, suggests that information technology can play a fundamental role in innovation in higher education. Professors and Institutions integrate education technologies today to support the learning process, replace traditional courses, and in certain cases redesign the university. The result has been myriad of learning management systems, MOOCs, and virtual universities that may or may not have contributed to innovation. The major concern in accessing these initiatives is whether or not they have significantly changed the way students and faculty learn about business. a. The DSign4.education framework

Several observations tend to confirm the contention that is difficult to isolate innovation in the classroom from that of the institution itself. On one hand, institutional norms, objectives, and resources condition what can and cannot be done in class. On the other, the students’ take away from higher education is rarely limited to their class notes. Moreover, there are few in the 2016 EDiNEB Conference, 8-10 June 2016

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educational community today that would associate learning with “work” – concerns with developing pertinent competencies have led to propositions for action learning, serious games, flipped classrooms, and experiential learning. We have argued previously that higher education is defined less by the presence of walls or computers than the nature of the experience that is nurtured in a learning place (Schlenker, 2016). DSign4Education borrows from the foundations of social geography in encouraging the construction of learning places around a clear vision, planned events, desired outcomes, identifiable actors, and bridges with the with the real world. The vision corresponds to specific learning objectives, the events and the outcomes designed to reach these objectives, the identifiable actors who participate in these events, and the bridges of experience between learning places and professional and leisure time activities. Class content is a mix of structured and unstructured data, and of explicit and implicit information. Reading lists and presentation decks in class are similar to project briefs at work: both are necessary but often incomplete in understanding what needs to be known to tackle any given business problem. If MOOCs (Massive open on-line courses) have proven more and more popular with school administrations, they tend to reduce learning to watching canned videos and “participating” in on-line discussions. DSign4Education proposes a different direction: students are stimulated to explore actively what information is available, on the Web and off, from primary sources within business community to academic research and discussions. What does it mean for a student to "work" at school? Our students’ responses to this question vary greatly each year: for some it's doing the class readings, for others it's participating in class, and for the vast majority it’s handing in the class assignments. DSign4Education suggests that the ultimate goal of management education is not "spreading the good word" but helping the students transform data and information into managerial action. Our vision of DSign4.education implies that the learning outcomes depend upon helping each student understand how they use information to develop their managerial capabilities. Work in management studies involves identifying the right problems to solve, ideating the different potential solutions, building an environment conducive to experimentation, and testing the proposed solutions in the real world environment Practices are methods and/or techniques that consistently provide pertinent responses to 2016 EDiNEB Conference, 8-10 June 2016

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market demands. DSign4Education suggests that developing business practices, much like developing better managers, are part of both part of the challenge and the solution of management education. As Sinofsky (2013) suggests, productivity in a business school cannot be measured in its product or service offer, but in the capacity of faculty and students to provide pertinent responses to external demands. We take good note, and fully assume, the potential contradiction of our vision with certain accreditation procedures. For all of these reasons, introducing new ideas and designs for higher education doesn’t necessarily lead to innovation in either the classroom or the institution. If innovation implies changes in organizational practices, we need to focus on individual perceptions of value. What challenges do the students, the faculty, and/or the administration care enough about to want to innovate? Are their perceptions of the problems at hand similar or require individual, contextual responses? Is pedagogical innovation one story or several, an institutional tale or a story told with many voices? b. The Business Value Matrix

The Business Value Matrix™ (BVM) suggests that stakeholder visions on innovation can be analyzed through their views the foundations of organizational value (Schlenker and Matcham, 2005). In exploring their answers to three questions "Where does innovation come from", "Where do you look for proof of value ", and "How do you measure innovation" we can understand the stakeholders’ expectations regarding managerial or institutional innovation. If there is general consensus on the foundations of value the introduction of new technologies, cultures or norms have potential to change organizational practices, if the consensus doesn't exist the initiatives will most probably fail. The first question of BVM centers on the source of innovation with three possible outlooks. In response to the question "Where does innovation come from", certain stakeholders may insist on human potential: they believe insight and creativity are the prerequisites of innovation. Other stakeholders may insist on the need to strengthen organizational norms and processes: the example of the international accreditation processes underline this philosophy of "one best way". Finally, other stakeholders will insist on the technological nature of innovation; more computers, more software, more tools are critical success factors in promoting innovation at school. In questioning stakeholders’ views on the source innovation, we can analyze how they 2016 EDiNEB Conference, 8-10 June 2016

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are framing the problem. A second question suggested by BVM concerns where organizational stakeholders see as proof of value. Once again there are three potential outlooks depending on each stakeholders’ view of the organization. For some they will look for proof in the success of individual students or faculty members - the visions, the process or the technology helped the individual to succeed. For other stakeholders, individual success is less telling that that of how research teams, the student body, or the faculty as a whole enrich the curriculum, partnership opportunities or the school’s reputation. Finally, certain stakeholders look for evidence of innovation in the market itself - a better ranking, larger student numbers, or more corporate contributions are the proof that the school has indeed improved its value proposition. Finally, the Business Value Matrix focuses on stakeholders’ views of how innovation should be measured. For some, the best measure of innovation is in a more efficient organization innovative projects result in cost savings and surplus funds for organizational projects. Others will have a different outlook: a better measure of innovation is how well the organization responds to challenges from its community (effectiveness). Still others will argue that an innovative organization results in a more passionate institution: innovation should lead to a more engaged student body, faculty and administration. Finally, still others may insist on the notion of organizational agility, innovation should contribute to ability of the university to constantly adapt to changing market conditions. III.

Putting theory to practice

Can the implementation of the DSign4.education framework help students and faculty innovate? The framework, forged along the tenants of Design Thinking, offers multiple entry points to test this hypothesis: places, platforms, people, and practices. Each project begins by identifying a problem that the target population really cares about. The framework suggests that each project should focus on developing the skills and competencies necessary to deal with specific challenges in management education. The projects are less examples of one best way than prototypes that can be adapted to differing institutional contexts. Finally, these experiments can help clarify the evaluation metrics to be used to evaluate the project’s contribution to organizational innovation. One of the tenants of DSign4.education is that context matters. In the case of a university or business school, the physical layout of the campus, the departments, and the lecture halls influences how both faculty and students innovate inside class and out. The first initiative concerns a project baptized Pau'se Culture. The problem addressed here is the students' (and faculty's) limited appropriation of the city and the region in learning about French business. Pau'se Culture is a "serious game" modeled as a treasure hunt to discuss local economics, society, and politics. A reward system is offered for photos taken along the way to encourage to get out and chat with the region's personalities and forces vives. Initial circumstantial evidence seems to indicate widespread appreciation of the event among the 2016 EDiNEB Conference, 8-10 June 2016

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several hundred participants, local commerce and the regional press. A second project involves a virtual shopping mall built for the school's alumni community. The challenge has been enhancing the quality of the social and economic relationships between current and former students of the business school. The proposal is based on an open-source virtual gallery to highlight the alumni, as well as their ideas, products and services. The platform is now pitched to the faculty in all disciplines to create class practicums in strategy, marketing, logistics and production using the real challenges and opportunities of the alumni community. The initial experience with a local wine maker (described below) suggests that there the perceived value of extending business education beyond the confines of the classroom. Another tenant of DSign4.education is that innovation is shaped by the information we both consume and produce. If we change the nature of the information platforms used by a school's administration, faculty and students, we can enhance the potential for innovation in the business school experience. Once again two projects have been put in place to attempt to enrich how our school's community produces and consumes information. Pau.Info is a mobile application designed as a tool to navigate across collective experiences in school and out. Rather than relying on institutional communication, the app crowdsources from the students and local community data and information on local professional and leisure time activities. A conscious attempt has been made to enlarge the quality of information proposed: peer qualified, geo-localized, and self-organized, the "tool" is designed to be used differently than a classic web site, blog or SMS. Although there isn't sufficient evidence to date to evaluate the impact of this project; the downloads, use numbers, and recognition by the larger community provide a gauge of its innovative impact. The School Webzine is another attempt to foster richer uses of our information platforms. The challenge here was to go beyond the school's marketing messages to provide a bidirectional communication channel to better appreciate the people, projects and vision associated with the school. Planned over the school year, the webzine's content is designed for reuse in other school supports wherever the target audience can be found. Readership, reader responses, stickiness of the messages, and influence are the metrics used to understand how platform helps shape the business school experience. A third tenant of DSign4.education is the cognitive processes that we use to take business decisions. We propose that in "improving" the decision-making process we can impact the potential for innovation in organizations. Our work in CRM and with Business Analytics are guided by this vision. We have mapped out the profiles, interests, and communication preferences of nearly eight thousand participants of the ESC Community using the dedicated platform NationBuilder. The problems addressed here is how to provide pertinent information corresponding to the various interests of the school community, and how to measure the how this information is appropriated and communicated by the community itself. We can currently engage our 2016 EDiNEB Conference, 8-10 June 2016

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audience in a multichannel (SMS, email, mailings, webzine, portal and or conferences) approach that personalizes content and builds engagement between the school and its internal and external customers. The project is designed to help school decision makers contextualize our product and service offer. An institutional partnership around business analytics with SAS is another example of our commitment to promoting a data based decision-making in school. On the subject level, business analytics is now at the heart of a myriad of subjects ranging from strategy, manufacturing, human resource and customer relationship management, to finance and accounting. The partnership agreement includes access to, and development of, courses, training manuals, and certifications to assist students, faculty, and the administration master specific tools and methodologies in the daily work. The data produced by students, instructors and corporate clients provide a unique opportunity to study the objectives, the motivations and the decisions taken by the differing organizational customers. A final tenant of our vision is modeling business education around business practice. The vision is founded on a vision of integrating "authentic technologies" in the university that mirror the current challenges and opportunities of business today (Schlenker and Mendelson, 1999). Two final proposals, the Enterprise Gateway and Aube2012, have been deployed with his in mind. The aim of the Enterprise Gateway is to privilege the corporate partners who work closely with the school. The challenge is developing public/private partnerships that provide a real return on investment for corporate interests facing increasingly tight operating budgets. The proposal explores how to best broker opportunities for internships and consulting assignments with the best students the school has to offer. Services include dedicated portals, pushing the information to qualified students, and counseling both parties on how to take full advantage of these opportunities. The success of these efforts are measured in increased corporate contributions, co-branding marketing efforts and the quality of proposed employment. Finally, Aube2012 is an experience designed to help students understand the various aspects of innovation in the Economy of Experience. The challenge is in associating the characteristics of the school brand in a luxury product that can be offered to the students, their parents and our corporate partners. Selected third year students have participated in the production and commercialization of a unique vintage wine Aube2012 offered in school events and through the alumni's virtual shopping mall. The students explore different facets of producing the wine, merchandizing the product, and physical and on-line sales. Evaluation metrics for the project include sales of the wine, the notoriety of the brand, and the student engagement in this business practice. I.

A few lessons learned

In this contribution, we have built our arguments around three key propositions covering the nature of innovation, the challenges of providing proof of concept, and concerns with how we measure the added value. 2016 EDiNEB Conference, 8-10 June 2016

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The nature of innovation in higher education is specific to the context in which it evolves. Business schools and universities produce experiences rather than products or services. Innovation in higher education is conditioned by what is adjacency possible: the existing technologies, cultures and norms that define higher education today shape the possibilities of innovation in the foreseeable future. Innovation in the classroom is intimately bound to that of the organization as a whole, classes are but stages in which innovation or may not be played out. Finally, the perceived value of innovative projects can only be measured in the minds of the different stakeholders. Innovation in higher education can be tested in projects that are both visible and measurable. We have used the DSign4.education framework to experiment multiple possibilities for innovation in our own business school. The examples of Pau’se Culture and the virtual shopping mall have been proposed to widen perceptions of class beyond the lecture all to the city itself. The platforms of Pau-info and the Webzine have been undertaken to encourage students and faculty alike to go beyond individual consumption towards the prototypes of social (collaborative) production. The projects of mapping out the school community and investing in business analytics reflect our concerns with encouraging data driven decision-making. Finally, the Enterprise Gateway and Aube2012 have been developed as examples of experiential practices for both our students and corporate customers. Measuring the impact of the framework, as well as projects like these, on innovation will be the focus of our research agenda in the near future. Though most of the initiatives were initiated as pedagogical projects, their value lies in use scenarios embedded in work outside of class and often outside of school. The success of each in changing individual and collective approaches to management education will also depend on contextual factors beyond,the scope of this research. Their impact may indeed prove to be both incremental and cumulative, combined over time in shaping student and faculty perceptions of the value of the business school experience. II.

Selected References

Johnson, S. (2010). Where good ideas come from. London: Allen Lane. Kauffman, S. (1996), 'Investigations: The Nature of Autonomous Agents and the Worlds they Mutually Create', Santa Fe Institute Working Paper 96-08-072, Santa Fe, NM. Mintzberg, H. (2004). Managers not MBA’s: A hard look at the soft practice of management development. San Francisco : Berrett-Koehler. Pine, B. and Gilmore, J. (1999). The experience economy. Boston: Harvard Business School Press. Schlenker, L. and Matcham, A. (2005). The effective organization. Chichester: John Wiley & Sons. Schlenker, L. (2016), DSIgn4Change – 4Ps for improving Management Education, in J. M. Spector, D. Ifenthaler, D. Sampson and P. Isaias, Competencies, Challenges and Changes in Teaching, Learning and Educational Leadership in


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30 May 2016 the Digital Age, Springer. 2016 Sinofsky, S. (2013), Learning by Shipping, 'Continuous Productivity: New Tools And A New Way Of Working For A New Era', [accessed 10 April 2015].

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