Rethinking executive education for the virtual world

Birkinshaw, J (2021) Rethinking executive education for the virtual world. In: Executive Education after the Pandemic. Palgrave Macmillan, Switzerland: Cham, pp. 3-11. ISBN 9783030823436

Abstract

Chapter summary
Julian Birkinshaw draws on the experiences at London Business School to propose reinforcing the three different modes of leadership development through executive education in a hybrid and challenging environment.

Volume summary
Business education and executive development has been one of the most fascinating industries in the world and the fastest growing segment of higher education over the past decades. Today, it is experiencing change on a scale unprecedented since the foundation of the first business schools in the early 20th Century, both due to changes in the corporate environment and also due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic across all industries. In this context how do you create world-class educational and training institutions that can cope with those challenges, and be rigorous, vocationally relevant and suited to the corporate growing needs in this new fluid world? And how do you combine the very best of traditional academic values with new learning technologies to create an educational model that is fit to compete in the global economy, threatened today by populism, nationalism and economic turmoil? Yet, as daunting as it is, some institutions have already made significant progress in the journey.