Take a leaf out of Copenhagen Business School's book

I READ with interest Luke Slattery's ("Great gains for Danes", HES, June 17) account of Danish innovation and its lessons for Australia, for I have recently spent three weeks researching in the Centre for Management Studies of the Building Process at Copenhagen Business School.

This is a centre, funded by the construction industry peak employer body situated in the Department of Organisation, that has a lively pool of research students working on detailed ethnographic studies of aspects of construction design, management and practice.

Copenhagen Business School has recently been accredited as the one of the best business schools in Europe, as No.2, in fact.

When you look at the range of work that is done there, then its imaginative grasp of possibilities drawn from across the social sciences, design and philosophy is an eye-opener for almost any Australian university business school.

What it is not is determinedly instrumental; it is not oriented merely to providing what industry thinks it wants now. Nor is it just business-focused; there is a large and lively research focus on public sector management as well.

As one of the largest schools in Europe, CBS turns out a great many PhDs, not all of whom become academics. Some go into practice of various kinds.

Having smart graduates in powerful places leads to more fruitful collaborations between industry and university, as shown by the Centre for Management Studies of the Building Process.

For too long in Australia, under successive governments, innovation has been seen as something that only proper scientists do, in expensive laboratories. It isn't.

Innovation also comes from the skill-basis of people working in general management positions.

CBS turns out a constant stream of graduates who, rather than being educated as cash cows with an instrumentally oriented curriculum and focused on skills and techniques, are as likely to encounter political philosophy or post-structuralism in the classroom. Treating management education seriously, they treat managers as rounded and well-tempered people, not merely instruments specialising in accounting, finance, human resources and so on.

Australia and Denmark do have a lot in common: a princess who was one of us, and a relaxed, informal and highly egalitarian approach to everyday life and business organisation.

But they also have an outstanding focus on creativity and imagination, not only in their scholarship but in their approach to everyday culture more generally. (Check out Lars von Triers latest imaginative, thoughtful and unsettling film, Anti-Christ).

It is not as apparent that all Australian business schools share these element of boldness and creativity. There are many leaves that Australia may take out of Denmark's book and the most important is that creativity, imagination and innovation are not just the products of big science but are also grown in faculties of business and design, for instance.

As a part of an ongoing strategic conversation about the future direction of the University of Technology, Sydney faculty of business, initiated by dean Roy Green, it is apparent that at least one Australian business school will be emulating some elements of Danish designs. It is to be hoped that Australian business and public sector will support the shift in practice.

Stewart Clegg
Professor and research director
Centre for Management and Organisation Studies
Faculty of business
University of Technology, Sydney
17/07/2009