B-Schools Predict What Awaits In 2018

According to Cindy Schipani, a professor at University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business, business can be a force for good, and, as always, it should be at the lead of all things. The problem of staying modern has always been topical.

In Schipani’s opinion, working conditions for women have approved over the years, but there is still much work to be done, as there are not many women in executive positions. According to Poets&Quants, diversity does not only help the company’s revenue, it also lets the business retain the best employees and creates a positive working environment.

For 2018, she prognoses that diversity and disparity will continue to be topical this year, as well as transparency in salary. If all employees know how much everyone earns, it will become easier to address the gender pay gap in companies.

Students wish to make some changes

Jerry Davis, another Michigan Ross professor, believes that while gender diversity is working – there are already 43% female business school students at Ross – the main question for 2018 should be these students’ future career plans. Most of them want to go into consulting, but many are ready to make a social impact.

This desire to change the world will be crucial for business in 2018, Stanford Graduate School of Business associate dean Sarah Soule assures. She believes that social responsibility will be big on the 2018 businesses agenda. Education will also change, with the main focus shifting to practical assignments and international cooperation.

Possible trouble for business schools

Georgetown University McDonough School of Business’s Paul Almeida thinks that smaller business schools will be at considerable risk this year, as they are usually not much favored by economics. It will be difficult for them to compete with larger metropolitan educational institutions. That’s why, Almeida says, smaller schools must consolidate to survive. Some of them will need to close their full-time MBA programs and discover the opportunities of online teaching.

Mind and machine: what comes next?

According to Brian Uzzi and Tom Hubbard, professors from Kellogg School of Management (Northwestern University), machine learning and artificial intelligence will continue disrupting business, albeit in a good way. People and machines will develop relationships that existed previously only between humans. Computers allow employees to put their effort where it’s most needed – creative areas which are yet unreachable for machines.

Social media and its importance in the future

According to Marcus Collins, a Ross Michigan professor, social media will continue to be relied upon this year, and it will undoubtedly affect business education.

The best working social media platforms will be those which keep customers interested enough to stay on, like Facebook, which manages to keep the novelty alive and help networks survive. Instagram with its tools for making photos better and Snapchat with its filters and entertainment behave differently, as the former stays useful, retaining users, while the latter has grown old over time. In Collins’s opinion, Twitter wavers between novelty and utility, which helps it stay alive.

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