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Transformational Change at Babson College Notes From the Firing Line
Abstract
This article describes the transformational change at Babson College in Wellesley, Massachusetts. By any measure, Babson College is a different and dramatically better place than it was 10 years ago. At the heart of the changes are radical curriculum reforms in both the undergraduate and MBA programs, with unusual integration among business subjects and between business and liberal arts; an undergraduate competence-based curriculum; requirements for international experience, more field-based work, an emphasis on team learning and ethical considerations; and other innovations. Instrumental in launching change were a relatively new dean and a new president's initiatives and leadership, but the seeds had been sown several years earlier. Numerous failed attempts to move the faculty in the interim had created frustration among several faculty reformers waiting to be tapped. The evening MBA program became the largest in the greater Boston area. The foundation of liberal arts had been strengthened, and bridges between the liberal arts and business programs were under construction.
... Efforts at organizational change in academic institutions bring their own unique challenges. Cohen (2003) identifies four key factors that are critical to change in any organization: dissatisfaction with the current state, vision for the future, pathways for change, and support from key players. These factors, combined, must outweigh the perceived costs of change in order for the change process to proceed (Basil & Cook, 1974). ...
... The second major pedagogical innovation occurred in the early 1990s. During this time, Babson engaged in another sweeping curricular reform, this time focused on integrated management education (Cohen, 2003). Based on feedback from students and employers, Babson restructured the undergraduate and graduate programs so that core management disciplines would no longer be taught independently as was, and remains, traditional with most business schools (Colby, Ehrlich, Sullivan, & Dolle, 2011). ...
... Individual faculty and staff, not even departments, led a bottom-up change process as they took action to integrate SEERS into their courses. While Cohen (2003) argues that this approach to university change frequently fails, in this case it led to a flurry of actions that did in fact support a campus-wide shift. ...
When colleges commit to responsible management education (RME), they begin a journey of integrating a potentially transformative pedagogy into an established academic culture. This process can be challenging as academic institutions are notoriously difficult to change, particularly when it comes to faculty-led processes such as pedagogy. In this paper, we explore an eight-year period in which one academic institution, Babson College, transitions from signing the PRME to integrating RME into the college's operations and pedagogy. This case study analysis shows that the same factors that facilitated widespread, early adoption of RME have also hindered the college from fully achieving its desired impact on student learning and the broader community. This case contributes to the growing body of research on RME by providing a longitudinal perspective that highlights the complexity of aligning an academic institution with this transformative pedagogy.
https://authors.elsevier.com/a/1VDcs5EuEpEn6Y (avaiable till August 1st with this link)
... Case method An examination of previous studies related to OLS shows the application of case method to illustrate theoretical or empirical insights (Berthoin Antal and Sobczak, 2014;Cohen et al., 2003Cohen et al., , 2003Crossan and Berdrow, 2003;Dierkes et al., 2001;Doherty et al., 2015;Nonet, 2013;Solitander et al., 2012). For example, Argento et al. (2020) studied sustainability integration at a Swedish HEI, using the institutional theory as base for autoethnographic approach. ...
... Case method An examination of previous studies related to OLS shows the application of case method to illustrate theoretical or empirical insights (Berthoin Antal and Sobczak, 2014;Cohen et al., 2003Cohen et al., , 2003Crossan and Berdrow, 2003;Dierkes et al., 2001;Doherty et al., 2015;Nonet, 2013;Solitander et al., 2012). For example, Argento et al. (2020) studied sustainability integration at a Swedish HEI, using the institutional theory as base for autoethnographic approach. ...
Purpose
This study aims to clarify how higher educational institutions (HEI now onwards) can engage in organizational learning process to implementing sustainability initiatives. Through the case study of business school in France, it shows how sustainability integration is a longitudinal process, influenced by contextual factors which facilitate and impede the learning process. It aims to contribute to the literature of sustainability in higher education by bringing in insights from organizational learning theory.
Design/methodology/approach
This research uses the case study method to analyze the sustainability integration over the specific period. To do so, data was compiled by analyzing internal documents, publicly available sustainability reports. Further data was also complimented by the interviews, which gave intra-organizational level insights.
Findings
The case highlights that organizational learning for sustainability is stimulated by deans, faculty and institute of sustainability. It provides insights about how designing and implementing sustainability initiatives within an HEI is not a fixed goal; on the contrary, it is an ongoing learning process. However, this learning is also prone to barriers due to the ambiguous nature of sustainability.
Research limitations/implications
This research was conducted within a specific time, geographical and cultural context; hence, its result may lack generalization. Further comparative research is encouraged to explore similarity and differences within different HEI settings.
Practical implications
This research also gives potential insights for developing contextual awareness to prioritize, design and implement sustainability initiatives. Thus, it may be useful for the HEI administrators such as deans, sustainability managers and faculty members.
Social implications
This case emphasizes that HEI like business schools need to expand their relevance via social responsibility. This could be done so by encouraging leadership to engage with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.
Originality/value
This research uses organizational learning theory to understand determinants of sustainability design and implementation at French HEI. In doing so, this research contributes macro-level process of sustainability integration of an HEI.
... use$ of$ transformational$ leadership$ skills$ enables$ principals,$ as$ the$ formal$ leaders$ of$ schools,$ to$ distribute$ leadership$ responsibilities.$ Hence,$ they$ are$ not$ required$ to$ shoulder$ the$ entire$ responsibility$ for$ the$ success$ or$ failure$ of$ reform$ efforts$ (Cohen,$ 2003).$ School$ stakeholders$ are$ encouraged$ by$ principals$ to$ become$ more$ involved$ and$ committed$ to$ reform$ efforts.$ ...
School librarians are frequently encouraged to be leaders. However, few studies examine how pre-service school librarians can be prepared to be leaders during their librarianship degree programs. Using a mixed-methods research design and Transformational Leadership theory as a theoretical framework, the researcher studied how school district support structures provided for pre-service school librarians enrolled in a distance learning program impacted their self-perceived leadership behaviors.
... The College was one of the first business schools to offer entrepreneurship courses and it hails as a benchmark for curriculum development. 1 The entrepreneurial spirit of the college is evident through our core values of integrity, diversity, innovation, collaboration, and excellence that are manifested in the mission of the college: "Babson College educates men and women to be entrepreneurial leaders in a rapidly changing world. We prepare them to identify opportunities and initiate actions that result in genuine accomplishment." 2 ...
... Like individuals, organizations also seek change, yet struggle to implement it. Reasons organizations initiate change include competitive pressure (Beer, Eisenstat, & Spector, 1990;Meyer, Brooks, & Goes, 1990), external environmental changes (Bayley, Wallace, Spurgeon, Barwell, & Mazelan, 2007), internal policy shifts (Cohen, 2003), cost reduction strategies (Woodward et al., 1999), mergers and acquisitions (Bellou, 2007;Henderson, 2002) and globalization (Fagenson-Eland, Ensher, & Burke, 2004;Peterson et al., 1995). For example, at Pepsi-Cola, in response to approaching competitive market pressures, the soft drink unit president undertook transformational change to ensure greater profits (Dess, Picken, & Lyon, 1998). ...
Employee engagement has gained increasing attention by organizational researchers. A steady decline of engagement levels has been well documented. Lack of engagement has been found to negatively impact various organizational outcomes such as customer satisfaction, loyalty, safety, turnover, profitability, and productivity levels. The current study provides statistical evidence in support of the conceptual framework of Chalofsky and Krishna (2009) regarding the relationships between meaningfulness, intrinsic motivation, and employee engagement. This research also provides a deeper understanding of the relationship between employee engagement and age, specifically focusing on the differences between older and younger workers.
... But if this ambitious agenda is to succeed, some of us in management will need to take the role of champion, as former 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 Academy of Management President Fred Luthans has done (Morey & Luthans, 2013;. We will need to think strategically and set aside our prevailing habits of mind on scholarly work and its assessment (Cohen, 2003). We will need to practice what we preach, and mindfully manage the design and infrastructure for our scholarly activities. ...
Management scholarship is built on a foundation imported from older disciplines, particularly economics, psychology and sociology. Anthropology also once played an important role in the history of management thought, and currently includes many "practicing" anthropologists who work in the private sector. Yet it now has a demonstrably marginal influence. Why is this so? What is the potential for greater collaboration with anthropology? Pursuing these questions, we draw upon recent writings in applied, business, and practicing anthropology. On this basis, we identify eight properties of anthropology that affect the potential for collaboration. These are: (i) expertise about the remote and exotic, (ii) sympathy for the remote and the less powerful, (iii) ethnography as a primary data source, (iv) challenges of fieldwork access, (v) lengthy fieldwork duration, (vi) a tendency to solo authorship, (vii) complex, contextualized findings, and (viii) a higher value placed on monographs than on journal articles. For each property, we consider the extent to which it presents obstacles for management scholars to work together with practicing anthropologists. We find that most impediments can be overcome, with patience and preparation, and offer suggestions for greater collaboration.
Penelitian tentang alih status Prodi Psikologi Islam menjadi Fakultas Psikologi Islam di UIN Imam Bonjol Padang, Sumatera Barat - Indonesia
The purpose of this article is to share our model of a successful curriculum reform process and provide an overview so that it can be replicated by other programs. The process of backward design is commonly used for course design, and here we apply this framework to a program-level revision of student learning outcomes, curriculum, and assessment. Graduates from our Environmental Science program are expected to demonstrate an understanding of the appropriate academic content, to be able to conduct research and develop professional behaviors and dispositions. Our revised program now has clear, assessable student learning outcomes, a set of coursework that is well aligned with these outcomes, and planned assessment that will allow us to evaluate our students and our program. This program revision has been a long, time-consuming process that has been facilitated by the cooperative nature and dedication of the individuals on the Environmental Science committee and by support structures at our institution. We will discuss the methods used by our program to bring about these changes and also the challenges we faced.
We present a new concept called an organizational learning contract. A learning contract creates specific, shared expectations among students, faculty, and educational administrators concerning the learning outcomes, learning environments, and educational assessment system of an institution. Learning contracts can serve as diagnostic tools to help educational Institutions assess their effectiveness; they also can help prepare students for their university training by aligning their expectations with forthcoming experiences. We find little evidence that the main Ideas underpinning learning contracts are being implemented by business education standard-setters, management educators, or leading business programs. We discuss how learning contracts can be used In the diagnosis and redesign of management education.
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