News

We have come a long way from the late 1990s and the first inklings of what the emerging internet might mean for executive education. A model of the efficient transfer of knowledge held sway as delegates were ranged before banks of cathode ray tubes and plugged into programmes of learning. With computers in charge, what could possibly go wrong?

Following the 9/11 attacks in 2001, a raft of legislation was introduced in the UK and in Europe mandating data sharing between the private sector and government. Post Snowden, the appetite for such surveillance waned. However, after the attacks in Paris and Copenhagen earlier in 2015, this appetite seems to have been renewed.

Imagine you could compare the performance of private, public and non-profit providers in fields where they are all competing together – such as hospitals, nursery provision, schools, and residential care for the elderly. What would the results show?  Who is best at running human service organisations? The answer is… none of the above!

Leadership is widely regarded as important and, if you want to develop a career in any organisation, you will certainly be expected to develop and demonstrate leadership skills. Unfortunately, there is much less unanimity about what constitutes good leadership, although many have tried to answer this important question. 

Increasingly leaders need to deal with and manage a range of stakeholders with diverse goals, values and priorities; political astuteness, aka understanding the lay of the land and using it to your advantage, is a valuable tool in influencing and engaging stakeholders. It also helps leaders to understand others and achieve organisational outcomes.

Around the world, governments are predicting serious employment challenges relating to a pending shortage of key skills. What can be done to address this and how does it impact on HR, L&D departments and the companies and institutions that design and deliver development programmes for them?

The OU has been awarded £1.36m of funding over 19 months from the Police Knowledge Fund, a joint initiative between The College of Policing, HEFCE and the Home Office.

The OU’s MBA Business Case Builder has won two industry awards: Gold in the annual Heist Awards in the category of ‘Best use of innovation and creative thinking’ and Silver in the CASE Circle of Excellence Awards in the category of ‘Individual sub-websites’.

The BBC has launched an interactive test to shed light on people’s relationship with money. The test is based on a scientific survey of more than 100,000 people, which looked at their attitudes to money and what financial consequences this could have.

The achievements of outstanding students and alumni have been celebrated in The Open University Business School’s annual Achievement Awards 2014/15 during a special ceremony held in Milton Keynes.