Zayed University inks alliance with Harvard Business School

DUBAI. KAZINFORM - Zayed University College of Business recently entered a prestigious institutional alliance with the Harvard Business School, of Harvard University - Boston, Massachusetts, in the US, gaining exclusive access to continuously updated curriculum, research and electronic resources, WAM reports.

The new alliance comes as part of the Microeconomics of Competitiveness (MOC) affiliate network that is housed within the Institute of Strategy and Competitiveness (ISC) at HBS.

Recent works led by Prof. Michael Porter on Creating Shared Value, has already been integrated as a brand-new course at Zayed University, under 'Social Entrepreneurship and Shared Value'; a core class in a proposed new Entrepreneurship minor that will be offered by the College of Business.

The MOC faculty lead at the College of Business, Dr Brendan Galbraith, Associate Professor in Entrepreneurship - ZU, represented Zayed University at the recent annual three-day MOC Faculty Workshop at Harvard Business School.

Dr. Galbraith said, "Michael Porter's name has been synonymous with thought leadership in strategy and competitiveness for several decades. I am also particularly excited about Professor Porter's recent work in Creating Shared Value (CSV) as it is clear that more global companies are realizing the strategic imperative and competitive advantages of going beyond corporate social responsibility and are Creating Shared Value. Inspired by Porter's work, Fortune Magazine created a list that recognizes companies that have had a positive social impact through activities as part of their core business strategy."

"I am quite sure that there are many companies in the UAE that are Creating Shared Value but do not use this term, I would love to hear from them in order to translate their activities in a teaching case study for our students and include in our ongoing research in CSV," he added.

Prof. Paul Williams, Dean of the College of Business, Zayed University, said, "We will fully utilize the privileged access we have to the best-in-class HBS curriculum that will be relevant to a range of our courses and a wide constituency of our students across the university. And we will leverage the global MOC network to create further research collaborations and present our own research carried out in the UAE at HBS."

As part of the tie-in with HBS, the College of Business will send additional faculty to the annual MOC Faculty workshop at Harvard, to present research and gain MOC curriculum training to be able to deliver the MOC and Creating Shared Value courses ‘Boston-style'. Faculty will also be trained on conducting the famous Harvard Case Study teaching pedagogy.