MBA Project: Professional Consulting Engagement
An Exploration of Ethical Leadership
Ethical leadership, it’s a hot potato at the best of times. When it comes to global events, ethical behaviour debates heat up. During the course of my MBA it has become clearer that barriers to framing / improving ethical leadership is so ingrained in our respective cultures that there is an opportunity here.
This opportunity is a chance to investigate and build on the work of Hofstede’s cultural dimensions theory, Fukuyama’s work on political power & political decay, Frankl’s & Pasifika’s concept of the “space between”, Daniels' work in International Business, Mintzberg’s work on emerging strategy and personal experience across world views and constructs gained from engagement in UN Agencies, NGOs, Commercial and Consulting.
The focus would be on international and cross cultural leadership with areas of interest in:
Macro-economic factors in strategic decision making
Co-learning opportunities in new entry markets
Leadership in cross cultural digital engagement
Leadership models in global organisations with large imbalances of power
The intent is to craft this into an implementable ethical leadership model that factors in diverse world views and honours the space between.
What is a Professional Consulting Engagement?
The Professional Consulting Engagement (PCE) forms the final part of my MBA and takes place between September 2020 and December 2020. A requirement for all MBA candidates is to to undertake a project for a company or organisation as a final activity to complete their MBA. The project goes beyond research and must be able to deliver value to the company or organisation, as you would typically expect of a consultant / researcher. For more information, here’s a link to the PCE on the University website:
https://www.otago.ac.nz/mba/full-time/electives/consulting/index.html
In today's environment travel is challenging or impossible across most of the world so let’s work together to shape up a remote engagement or some other way to connect so that we can explore these areas together.
Whats Makes you a good PCE Champion?
The key message here is that the Champion shouldn't have the view that they simply sign up a student and then benefit from a report 3 months later.
Both you, the Champion, and I will gain more value if there is regular engagement throughout. You own, or have a vested interest in resolving the problem or you desire the gains from exploring the opportunity.
You have the interest and capacity to provide direction throughout the engagement - particularly around the shaping of what is required.
There will be challenges, your interest and authority will pave the way to navigating these and removing roadblocks.
Together, we can plan for you to encourage stakeholder buy-in to support interviews, survey responses etc…
You have the authority and comfort to share potentially sensitive information in the interest of the research.
Importantly you are available for check-ins throughout. Perhaps 30 minutes once a week, or fortnight. So we can discuss progress and provide an opportunity for comment.
Assessment
As the Champion you need to be available to receive a presentation at the end of the PCE (first two weeks in December 2020), and read the PCE report.
You will also need to answer a student feedback survey, marking the quality / appropriateness of the student's deliverable and how they engaged throughout.
A note on potential funding options
Perhaps you also have some funds available to contribute to this engagement. A funded engagement means that we both have a commitment to the deliverables from our time together. It may be as simple as an agreement to approve and fund any costs incurred during the course of the research or a signed, agreed value contract.
Let’s not make funding a blocker to further discussion though…