To Drive Deep Impact, Join Forces

• Business schools must break free from silos and collaborate across disciplines, institutions, and borders to tackle complex challenges effectively.
• Without collaboration, innovative ideas from research and education risk being overlooked or unimplemented.
• The MENA Business Schools Alliance for Sustainability was formed to address region-specific sustainability challenges through joint efforts.

Transcript

Rana Sobh: [00:15] To address societal challenges through our graduates or through business schools in general, we need to collaborate.

[00:23] If you want to do things at a very deep level—I mean, our efforts should not remain at a shallow level—we need to revisit or rethink traditional business models, theories, and assumptions that have for long shaped our business curricula. We need to know how to build regenerative business models that not only minimize the negative impact but also create a positive impact.

[00:50] We need to build the business case for sustainability to ensure our efforts are sustainable and will drive impact at scale. So, this is a task that is too challenging for a single institution to tackle alone.

We need to revisit or rethink traditional business models, theories, and assumptions that have for long shaped our business curricula.

[01:04] This is why I strongly believe that business schools should join forces. We need to break free from silos.

[01:10] We need to lower our walls and collaborate across disciplines, collaborate across institutions, across borders, as well as forge strong relationships or partnerships with the industry. This is the only way forward.

[01:28] When I took on my role as a dean three years ago, I wanted my college to lead sustainability advancement in Qatar in the local context. I wanted to be a role model business school for advocating for sustainable consumption and sustainability in general.

We need to lower our walls and collaborate across disciplines, collaborate across institutions, and across borders.

[01:50] And because, you know, it was obvious to me that our efforts should be at a very deep level, they should be meaningful. This is something that I could not do alone as a college.

[02:05] It was quick for me and my team to realize that we needed to reach out to other business schools in the MENA region because we have unique sustainability challenges. And this is what we did. Around two years ago, we established the MENA Business Schools Alliance for Sustainability (MEBAS), which brings about 15 business schools—AACSB accredited business schools.

[02:27] We wanted together to shape the future of sustainability in the region. Our efforts focus on integrating sustainability topics or responsible business contact topics across the curriculum. But we also wanted to provide knowledge-driven solutions through our joint research.

If we continue to work in silos as teachers or researchers, then we can come up with great ideas, but they will not be embraced.

[02:49] Most importantly, we wanted to also expand our impact ecosystem. This is why we wanted also to collaborate and partner with our stakeholders in respective countries, industries, and policymakers so that whatever we come up with will be implementable. We can scale it. This way, we can generate tangible outcomes.

[03:15] If we continue to work in silos as teachers or researchers, then we can come up with great ideas, but they will not be embraced; they will not be adopted.

[03:24] So this is the whole idea of this alliance and so far we have achieved some significant milestones and there are so many other things that we look forward to achieving together.