A Partnership of Rivals

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A partnership of rivals

By Peter Wise Published: March 8 2010 03:06 | Last updated: March 8 2010 03:06

José Ferreira Machado: the real competition is in the global arena

Fado, the Portuguese folk music with the same raw essence as blues and flamenco, moves with the times. But it fell to Lisbon MBA students to create, as part of their programme, a fado song to address the global financial crisis.

“The Madoff Fado”, written and performed in English by the first cohort of students on the new Lisbon programme, was produced at a “Friday Forum”, an innovation that Belén de Vicente, the course’s executive director, sees as a key distinction from other MBA programmes.

“We determined from the outset to focus on interpersonal skills in a different and more holistic way,” she says. “The way a job candidate has learned to lead, communicate and manage conflicts can make a fundamental difference between two people with an otherwise similar education.”

The weekly, all-day “Friday Forums” seek to instil such skills by immersing students in hands-on experiences, such as devising a perfume marketing campaign or learning the art of writing and singing fado from professional singers.

This innovative approach to teaching “soft” management skills is not all that sets the Lisbon MBA apart as a departure for business education in Portugal.

The country’s top two economics faculties have come together to create a programme thought to be a unique example among European business schools of “co-optition”, or co-operative competition between two rivals.

The catalyst for the joint venture was a partnership with MIT Sloan School of Management. Under the agreement with Sloan, students spend a month in Boston at the school, attending innovation and entrepreneurship courses. Sloan professors also visit Portugal and Lisbon faculty members undertake research in the US. “We found a near-perfect alignment between government, industry and academic institutions in Portugal,” says Susan Hockfield, president of MIT, during a recent visit to Lisbon.

“The Portuguese have set themselves the goal of creating a world-class MBA programme and we’re confident they will succeed.”

The one-year, post-experience English-language programme, which starts in January, is now in its second year. Both years attracted 32 students, more than 40 per cent of them women, with the number of overseas students increasing from 25 per cent in 2009 to 38 per cent this year.

The programme’s directors aim to increase the cohort numbers to a maximum of 50 in the medium term, with a 50-50 balance between the sexes and overseas and Portuguese students seen as the ideal. There is also a two-year, part-time

A centre of excellence “The two areas where Portugal has gained most international recognition are business education and soccer,” says José Ferreira Machado, dean of the economics faculty of Lisbon’s Universidade Nova.

Two of the country’s six business schools, Nova and Universidade Católica, have gained the “triple crown” of accreditation by the international bodies AACSB, Equis and Amba – the same number as in neighbouring Spain, which has three times as many business schools.

Portuguese business students are also high achievers overseas. Cátolica is on a par with Oxford as one of only two universities to have two former students win the Henry Ford II prize for coming top of their class at Insead, one of them being António Horta Osório, now chief executive of Abbey National. António Borges, another Portuguese banker, is a former dean of Insead.

Fátima Barros, dean of the Católica economics faculty, says invitations to join the accreditation boards of Equis and AACSB are further

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programme that began at the same time as the full-time MBA. It also has MIT input and attracts mainly Portuguese students.

Three Portuguese graduates from 2009 have already established a real estate venture – the first company to emerge from the Lisbon MBA – and several overseas graduates have found jobs with the international divisions of big Portuguese companies, keen to tap into their knowledge of foreign markets.

However, the programme had to overcome considerable resistance before it could begin.

The Lisbon government had made creating one of the world’s top 100 MBA programmes an official policy goal and used the incentive of a partnership with Sloan to encourage the country’s two leading business schools to co-operate on the project. But, as long-standing competitors in a small market, the economic faculties of Lisbon’s Universidade Católica and Universidade Nova were initially reluctant to join forces.

recognition of the quality of Portuguese faculty members.

“We have advanced from playing the game to helping define the rules,” she says.

But Portuguese schools recognise they still lack international brand awareness and critical mass, the Cátolica and Nova faculties having fewer than 100 core faculty members between them.

“We still have to build recognition of Portugal as a centre of excellence for business education,” says Prof Barros.

The new Lisbon MBA is seen as an important means of achieving that goal. “I think the programme will have a wide impact on business education in Portugal,” says Prof Ferreira Machado.

“We were concerned that a partnership with another Portuguese school would dilute our brand,” says “Achieving international distinction in an area like Fátima Barros, dean of the Católica business education does economics faculty, the country’s only wonders for the image of the private-sector business school. “Our country as a whole.” students pay five times more in tuition fees and we feared that co-operation on a MBA would damage the status of our undergraduate programmes.”

Universidade Nova was also against the idea until the pressure of international competition eventually brought the two schools together.

“We realised the real competition we were facing was in the global arena,” says José Ferreira Machado, dean of Nova’s economics faculty. “To compete in Europe and particularly with the big business schools in Spain, we needed a strong brand and critical mass.”

Fátima Barros

The two schools ultimately agreed that the Lisbon MBA project could provide both, with the added cachet of the Sloan imprimatur. The MBA is jointly awarded by the two Portuguese universities, but also carries a certificate attesting to the Sloan component.

Stefano Cottignoli, an Italian student sees the chance to study innovation at Sloan as a “unique opportunity”. The “Friday Forums” are also an important attraction.

“Last year’s students said it was the best part of the course and it’s certainly living up to my expectations,” he says.

Sloan played a leading role in defining the core curriculum of the programme, despite being initially sceptical of the ‘soft’ skills component. For Prof Hockfield, the benefits of the partnership are mutual: “Working with the Lisbon MBA provides our faculty and students with opportunities for overseas experience, co-operation and research that is increasingly important in the global economy”.

To ensure co-operation is not affected by their vigorous competition in other areas, Católica and Nova created an external body, the Ulysses Foundation, to run the Lisbon MBA. Seven corporate sponsors currently provide €1.4m a year, with the government committed to funding the programme at 50 per cent of the annual level of private sponsorship.

“We manage the MBA as if it were a company, with strict budgets and scorecards,” says Ms Vicente. As befits a venture in business excellence, she adds: “we even made a small profit in our first year”.

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