Some 300 top business school leaders gathered in Lyon, France, for the annual deans’ and directors-general conference of the European Foundation for Management Development (EFMD), a GBSN partner organization. The agenda ranged from a presentation by the Word Wide Fund for Nature about business education and global sustainability to new sources of innovation opened up by crowd-sourcing. I thank EFMD for this fantastic opportunity for meeting many deans of GBSN member schools, potential members and partner organizations. Click here to view the presentations.

I was struck once again by the almost total absence of research about the impact of business education in development. I believe there is consensus that without enough well-trained local managers, no country can hope to achieve social and economic progress. Yet no serious efforts have been made, to my knowledge, to articulate the link between business education and development. Indeed, the absence of empirical findings may well be one of the major reasons why so little official and philanthropic funding has gone toward investing in human resources in the business schools of developing countries. At the very least, we need compelling testimonials by individuals who created jobs as a result of business education. I invite you to send to us any research and testimonials of value that you come across. I expect our on-going MBA Challenge video contest to generate vivid illustrations of the development benefits of business education. There is still time to participate.