������

There are a few international highlights from the past months, and as always, there is also lots in the pipeline to look forward to.

Is the Gen Z work ethic different?

Are younger workers really sitting around at their desks making TikToks all day? Find out how the Gen Z work ethic actually differs — and what businesses should do about it?

‘What Gen Z is asking for is servant leadership. It’s a collective leadership that kind of moves away from this very heroic leadership, where you would have one strong leader, but it's very much sort of a shared activity,’ Rebecca Piekkari, Professor of International Business says. 

According to research conducted by Aalto University, Gen Z wants access to decision-making. This means a more flat-level business structure, somewhat reminiscent of Scandinavian office spaces, where the C-suite is always within view.

‘Gen Z are very aware of the distinction between work and life so they are quite adamant about their right to have free time,’ Rebecca says.

Read the article:

BusinessBecause is an outlet covering the business education sector, read by around 94,000 people per month, including applicants and students at business schools around the world. Its readership is weighted towards younger people, aged between 18-34, and roughly 20 percent of its readers are in India.

**

The niche MBA

With the demand for more generalised MBAs plateauing, business schools are looking to get more sector-specific.

Many specialised management programmes offer flexibility in course selection, allowing students to tailor their education to align with their career goals and interests. Students enrolled on the €30,000, full-time Master’s Programme in International Design Business Management (IDBM) at Aalto University in Finland can take classes in entrepreneurship.

‘Our applications are open to students from all disciplines; we have candidates from accounting and quantum computing, as well as law and fashion,’ stresses Ville Eloranta, the IDBM programme’s director. ‘Our intake of students has increased nearly 40 percent during the last five years.’

Primarily, though, the programme teaches interdisciplinary creative teamwork – which Eloranta says is increasingly needed in the arts and design industries, due to the increasing prevalence of wicked and ill-defined problems generated by sustainability issues, geopolitical tensions and rapidly developing new technologies, such as generative AI.

Read the article:

QS Insights Magazine is the digital publication of QS Quacquarelli Symonds, a global leader in providing insights on the higher and business education sector. QS’ core readership consists of students, alumni, and faculty from many of the world’s top business schools. QS platforms draw a large international readership of around 117,600 per month.

**

Women using business school to unleash their entrepreneurial superpower

Changing perceptions and creating opportunities irrespective of gender was a priority for School of Business alum Katja Toropainen in her native to Finland. She is the founder and CEO of Inklusiiv, a global DEI consultancy, which helps businesses across the world develop more diverse, inclusive, and equitable workplaces.

Katja saw the issues with representation and the pervasive challenges faced by underrepresented groups while working as a chief program director at a start-up and tech event in Helsinki.

She began by starting groups which aimed to kickstart conversations on equality, but quickly found that people and organizations needed more than inspiration, they needed proper equipment, data, tools, goals, and accountability measures to effect real change.

Read the article:

Forbes is a US-based business publication with a truly global reach. Focusing on topics such as business, technology, leadership, and entrepreneurship, Forbes attracts more than 84.4 million readers per month from around the world. Its largest audiences are in the US, Canada, India, and UK.

**

These are the world’s happiest countries to study your master’s degree

Moving from China to study the Master of Information and Service Management at Aalto University School of Business, Yifan Wang has already secured a role as an analyst at Deloitte before graduating. 

Deloitte ranks as one of the best consulting firms to work for in the Vault Ranking 2024.

‘The working culture in Finland definitely attracted me. People are treated equally, respectfully, and there’s a good work-life balance,’ says Yifan. 

An important concept embedded into Finnish culture is ‘sisu’, which means stoic determination, something that Yifan says that he’s absorbed after his time at Aalto. 

Read the article:

**

Consumers need better protection against the cost of environmental regulations

Tighter environmental regulations can boost industry profits and drive up costs for consumers, finds research from Aalto University School of Business.

Professor of Practice Iivo Vehviläinen analysed data on 129 million bids in the Nordic electricity market to reveal the market impact of regulations that protect the biodiversity of river ecosystems but also reduce Finland’s capacity for generating hydropower electricity.

Meeting the EU Biodiversity Strategy target of restoring 25,000km of rivers to a free-flowing state by 2030 would mean closing at most 56 MW of hydropower generation in Finland, he says.

Read the article:

International Releases is a great platform, being a sister publication of Global Banking & Finance Review Magazine which often publishes news on research from business schools around the world.

**

What it’s like to teach in a North Korean business school

In 2016, Ewald Kibler was one of six professors allowed to teach entrepreneurship during what was hailed as the first Startup Week in North Korea.

‘I try to reflect on what I learned from it,' he says. ‘One of the things was that, in all places, there is this kind of universal language. When you laugh together, when you bring in humor and some fun into the classroom, it is a way of breaking the ice, wherever you are.’

Poets&Quants recently talked with Kibler about his latest research paper inside North Korea’s Tech School, his research team, and teaching entrepreneurship inside a dictatorship.

Read the article:

Poets&Quants is a US-based online platform covering the international business education sector, which reaches a global monthly readership of over 300,880 and attracts upwards of 652,800 article views per month. Its largest readerships are in the US and India, comprising around 58% and 14% of its readers respectively. Other key readerships include the UK, Canada, and Germany.

**