Business schools in Asia should adopt a “local lens” and quit trying to replicate what their peers in the West do, according to the leader of an institution forged by a partnership between a bank and top US university.
Joseph Cherian, who assumed the role of chief executive and dean of the Asia School of Business (ASB) in Kuala Lumpur last year, said business schools “are shooting themselves in the foot” by failing to adapt to a changing world, and must modernise and transform their curricula and teaching for the digital age.
ASB was established in 2015 as a collaboration between Bank Negara, Malaysia’s central bank, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology – Sloan School of Management. Cherian said the relative novelty of ASB makes it “agile” and “able to come up with new innovative ideas”.
“That’s very important for curriculum development because business schools are becoming less relevant,” he said.
A native Malaysian, Cherian is the first local president of ASB. And yet is he also “a global player”, he said, having spent much of his life abroad, working in financial services in the US and teaching at top institutions such as Cornell University and Boston University.
