5 Evolving Trends in Business Education

• Business schools will need to think beyond multidisciplinary education and collaborate with other fields, schools, institutions, and global regions.
• To meet the diverse needs of students across different stages of life, business educators will need to adapt their curriculum and foster a flexible learning environment.
• Technology integration will remain a critical focus for schools; by incorporating tech into both teaching and learning processes, they can better prepare students for the modern business world.

Transcript

Lily Bi: [0:13] Over the past few months, I had many interactions with our business school deans and our leaders at business schools, and we identified five evolving trends related to business education.

[0:27] The first one is interdisciplinary.

[0:31] That may not be a new word, but it's not necessarily the multidisciplinary within the business school, business education. It's crossing the border of business school with the technology, with engineering, with healthcare, with social science, with many other disciplines within the university and even outside the university to another school, another country.

[0:57] That is interdisciplinary, and we are redefining the business education to be more relevant so the future leader coming out of the business school can truly be impactful to the society and our world.

[1:13] The second trend is interconnected. Business schools exist to support and advance business and society. One of the important elements is being able to connect it with the business.

[1:30] We feel many business schools are doing that. We are not only from education's perspective, we wanted to understand what is the emerging trend, what is the key knowledge and skill, so we can bring that back to the classroom, updating our curriculum, and so we bring the most impactful leader to the society.

Business schools exist to support and advance business and society.

[1:53] Also, from the research side, we bring many real-life, real-world problems to the research world so the research, the knowledge we generated from business schools can be relevant, responsible, and impactful.

[2:08] The third word is intergenerational. That is the word we haven't seen over the past many years, but we will see more. Now we see many people who are lifelong learners, me myself being one. I can be a student at my 10s, my 20s, my 30s, my 40s, and my 50s.

[2:31] Students from various different ages sitting in the same classroom. Our business schools are preparing the classroom for the flexibility that we can meet the needs from the society.

[2:45] The next one is also very important. It is internationalized. We have seen that, over the past multiple decades, many schools welcoming international students, and we do know that international students add the fuel or new energy to the society, create a lot of social impact to the countries. This is beyond the business school.

[3:11] With international students sitting with local students, at many times you could have one classroom, students come from different countries. That multicultural learning and exchange that goes beyond the curriculum, students learn more from other students, and students will be more ready when they go outside to the real world, to working with the global environment.

Our business schools are adapting and being agile to prepare the student, to prepare their research for the business world.

[3:37] The last but not the least, is integrated with technology. Technology is already the core of everything we do in the society, in the business, same for the business education.

[3:52] Our schools are preparing the students to understand technology, being able to apply the technology for their study. At the same time, our teaching mechanisms are also ready, adapting technology.

[4:06] We use the technology, we use the AI to personalize the training so the student can learn faster, learn in their own way. Our business schools are adapting and being agile to prepare the student, to prepare their research for the business world, and we are together changing the world for better.