Central Saint Martins Opens Dialogue About New Proposed MBA Course

Over the past year, Central Saint Martins has been exploring whether to set up a new kind of MBA (Master of Business Administration) course.

This series of blog posts is where we start taking some of our thinking public and contribute to the important conversation about the role of creativity and design thinking in managing and organising, and in developing new responses to global challenges. At its core, this vision is about creating new opportunities, not problem-solving, by combining creativity with analysis. We’ve been inspired by many other initiatives around the world including:

• The MBA Design Strategy at California College of the Arts
• The d.school at Stanford, which brings together students from different departments to work together on projects
• CSM’s own MA Innovation Management which develops strategic collaborative practitioners who can identify, and develop, innovative business and public sector opportunities
• Non-university learning and collaboration projects such as Makerversity, ImpactHub, THNK and KaosPilots
• And many, many more

Over the past few months we’ve used several different methods to do research and synthesise our findings into a proposition, which we are now testing through an online survey with partners Shift Learning. The sorts of things we have done include:

• Interviewing MBA and MA innovation management graduates from traditional business schools as well as the newer, hybrid courses
• Interviewing employers and entrepreneurs about the knowledge and skills they think the next generation of managers and entrepreneurs need to develop
• Reading research reports and hearing from MBA course directors about
• Trends in management education
• Exposing our emerging proposition to critical friends in Central Saint Martins’ partner network
• Setting up an advisory board of leading practitioners and academics to guide and challenge our thinking

Over the next few weeks we’ll be posting guest blogs by many of the people we’ve been in dialogue with as well by Central Saint Martins members of staff. We’ll share findings from our online survey testing our proposition. Central Saint Martins is taking this dialogue and this research seriously. The findings will shape the post-graduate course it develops. Get in touch to share your thoughts about what managers and entrepreneurs need to develop their skills and knowledge, and what Central Saint Martins should and should not do. We look forward to the conversation. Lucy Kimbell, academic lead, Central Saint Martins MBA @lixindex  

More information:
CSM MBA
California College of the Arts Design MBA Programs
Stanford d.school Innovation Management
Makerversity
ImpactHub
THNK School of Creative Leadership