The "Be an Elite", a public interest program for workplace, is jointly initiated by emlyon business school and Yicai Foundation. In the form of the “Guru League”, the Program aims at guiding and inspiring the life-cycle capacity building for professionals by integrating the respective strengths of all parties and empowering the workplace talents in a broad sense. The program is tailored to suit China's workplace and elites, review its work ethics, mental state, prospects and workplace environment in order to set examples for future Chinese elites.

Invited by Yicai C+, Dr. William Hua WANG, Associate Dean of emlyon business school, Dean of emlyon business school Asia and French dean of Asia Europe Business School of East China Normal University, expounded again on "what types of elites business schools shall cultivate".

“what types of elites business schools shall cultivate”

The value embodied in talents' intelligence is gaining increasing importance when the principal sectors of economy have evolved from large-scale industrial production to those driven by digitalization, service and creativity. Empowering every talent of the company has become one of the keywords in business practices and among management theorist community. From the perspective of globalization, the inter-regional connectivity of economy has far exceeded that of the Silk Road in history. However, the inter-regional trade frictions have not changed but intensified since the outbreak of global financial crisis in 2008. New challenges to globe-based talents arise from the multi-level cultural collisions. We endeavor to make some holistic thinking about what kind of elites whom business schools shall nurture in order to adapt to the sustainable economic development in the future.

Today's society faces four challenges: digitalization, globalization, aging, personal values and corporate culture. To rise to these challenges, business schools have new talent training missions. According to emlyon business school, the knowledge taught today, which is in a narrow sense, cannot solve the problems in the next few years. Therefore, it is necessary to have a basic judgment on the competency model of future talents and build a corresponding talent training system accordingly.

Future elites need to have at least the competencies as follows: high social skills (including EQ and the ability to impart knowledge to others), ability of active learning (including lifelong learning that advances with the times), creative cognitive skills, and critical thinking (not just the retrieval and possession of data), as well as social responsibility.

emlyon business school provides thinking and practical solutions from the three major dimensions as follows:

The first is the creation of a new knowledge system and competency model, which constitutes an central task for future talents training, including a knowledge system based on artificial intelligence and data, as well as business decision-making ability; the cultivation of inter-disciplinary talents when the business management, humanities and science modules integrate further in the future; the more imperative development of EQ in the age of AI; and the lifelong learning solutions for different careers.

The second is the reconstruction of teaching methods, that is, the combination of traditional and digital teaching. The digital teaching can free professors from imparting the basic knowledge while allowing students to enter an individualized self-study mode, and at the same time elevate the face-to-face teaching to the new height of knowledge co-creation through flipped classroom etc. More importantly, face-to-face teaching will be more focused on the cognition and internalization of social skills.

The third is to apply the social responsibility in all the teaching systems, thus creating a new commercial civilization. Looming behind digitalization, globalization and aging is a crucial challenge: sustainable development and corporate social responsibility. Ethics and the elimination of prejudice have increasingly become a major serious topic in the field of digital economy and artificial intelligence, along with other vital topics for future business managers such as the inclusive economic growth behind globalization, regional economic balance, global environmental protection and labor protection actions. It is also a significant proposition to re-evaluate the economic and social value of the aged people in an economy featuring a large population of senior citizens.

Only a sustainable future is worth expecting. The elite future-builders will generate free and open ideas, naturally accept and embrace technology with an optimistic mindset and a daring spirit to challenge the rigid institution and empty rights. Meanwhile, good business will examine their own values, light up the glory of human nature and bring into full play the potential of people. In China, emlyon business school and Yicai Foundation, along with the leading enterprises in this field, work together vigorously to coach more talents with global vision. Deeply rooted in China, we look far beyond.