Greece needs a CIBU graduate
Dean of Academic Affairs’ Newsletter – July 2015
When the poet Keats wrote about the beauty and truth of a Grecian urn (a kind of urning power, we might say), he certainly wasn’t thinking about the earning power of Greeks or any beauty and truth in the Greek economy. And of course the Greek situation today is far from beautiful or truthful; it’s downright ugly and evidences profound corruption and deception.
CIBU is not Greece, of course; it is a small educational organization that prepares students to work in business organizations, which are often far from the political machinery of nations and national governments. Nevertheless, to some extent businesses do reflect what happens in nation-states, and the behaviors and practices that appear problematic at the micro level of businesses may well echo behaviors and practices at the macro level of nations or international networks.
In Greece, as numerous commentators agree, we have witnessed behaviors and practices that are highly problematic, and it is such behaviors and practices that we seek to address through the rigor and quality of a CIBU education:
Accumulating debt: CIBU’s programs offer intensive immersion in best practices for effective financial management and accounting. The MBA and MSIM programs, for example, require that students enroll in “Corporate Finance,” “Managerial Accounting,” and “Economic Analysis,” as well as “International Management.”
Similarly, the doctoral program requires enrollment in “International Managerial Finance” and offers electives such as “Corporate Finance,” “Managerial Accounting,” “Economic Analysis,” and “International Business and Commerce,” and the BS requires “International Money and Banking” and “Principles of Financial Management.”
To be sure, a CIBU graduate would not let a business – or a country – slide into the accumulating debt in which Greece finds itself.
Global financial crisis: CIBU’s programs offer courses that promote visionary leadership, forecasting, and strategic management that might well have averted the kind of crisis in which Greece finds itself today and that is affecting the entire globe. The MBA, MSIM, and doctoral programs all provide “Strategic Management,” for example, while the BS offers “Management Information Decision Systems” and “Management Policies and Strategies.”
Falsified data: CIBU places significant emphasis on business ethics and behavior that is honest, transparent, and characterized by integrity. The MBA and MSIM require students to take “Business Ethics,” while all programs emphasize ethical practices in finance, marketing, and management.
Cumbersome, complex regulations: One of CIBU’s distinctive emphases is entrepreneurship and innovative, creative practice that looks beyond the constraints of institutionalized, taken-for-granted behaviors. Courses such as “Entrepreneurship,” “Lifestyle Marketing and Media,” “Creative Advertising,” “Social Media with a Global Perspective,” and “Entrepreneurial Finance” underscore the focus at CIBU on out-of-the-box thinking and practice.
A CIBU graduate might not have transformed the Greek crisis into the kind of beautiful, serene sylvan landscape Keats envisioned, but he or she will almost certainly be able to prevent such a crisis in a business context today.
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