Yale SOM Pleased by Global Network’s Progress: MBA News

Yale SOM (School of Management) is pleased with the progress made by the international alliance of business schools, the Global Network for Advanced Management, of which it is the US’s only member.

Devised as a platform to facilitate interaction between both faculty and students at business schools located in 25 different countries, the network has gone from strength to strength according to Yale SOM’s senior associate dean for executive MBA and global programs, David Bach:

“Collaboration among the schools has become a natural part of our respective roles…there is great alignment on what we’re trying to accomplish and great energy moving forward,” Bach said as Yale SOM reflected on the success of a recent meeting marking three years since the network’s foundation.

Hitotsubashi ICS hosts anniversary meeting

At that meeting – held in Tokyo at Hitotsubashi Graduate School of International Corporate Strategy (Hitotsubashi ICS) – the deans and directors of the Global Network’s 27 members announced the launch of an online magazine that will showcase faculty research and ideas from across the alliance. Global Network Perspectives will, for the time being, fall under the editorial direction of eight of the network’s member schools, including Canada’s Sauder School of Business, HKUST in Hong Kong and Yale SOM.

“We have to focus on our strengths and show that what we offer is unique. Global Network Perspectives is a fresh way of showing the innovation of the network,” explained Kazuo Ichijo, dean of Hitotsubashi ICS, at a meeting in which two existing collaborations were also supplemented. 

One of these initiatives takes place online – on the network’s version of the MOOC format, a place where online courses offered by members can be accessed and taken by MBA students attending any school within the Global Network. These courses – referred to as ‘small network online courses’ or ‘SNOCs’ - are said to have enrolled over 300 students to date.

The other initiative sees MBA students afforded the opportunity to travel across the network as part of designated weeks in which individual schools run classes and programs designed to give visitors an insight into their particular areas of expertise. A total of 18 schools took part in the most recent network week, held in March. Attendees at Hitotsubashi ICS, meanwhile, agreed to increase the number of offerings available through the next two interaction weeks, scheduled for October 2015 and March 2016.