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Grenoble Ecole of Management

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Grenoble Ecole of Management
Grenoble Ecole of Management
 12 rue Pierre Sémard
BP 127
Grenoble Cedex 01, , 38003
France
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Demographic Information

Number of full-time MBA students (2011): 

80

Number of part-time MBA students (2011): 

75

Total duration of full-time MBA program: 

12 months

MBA faculty (Fall 2010): 

587

Females as percent of student body: 

39%
Who Are the Students? See what percentage of the 2010-2011 graduating class came to this MBA program from the private sector, the non-profit sector and government jobs
 
Private Sector (50%)
 
Non-profit (30%)
 
Government (18%)


Description of MBA Program: 

Grenoble Ecole de Management is committed to social, environmental and ethical initiatives to encourage students in actively undertaking and promoting such citizenship responsibilities. Ethics and values related to business, corporate and individual social responsibility are stressed in all areas of the student experience. Not only are they course-embedded, defined in institutionalized charters, rules and regulations, they are also part of the students’ extracurricular activities.


We have a long-term and ongoing commitment to the Six Principles for Responsible Management Education. They are as follows:


The Principles for Responsible Management Education

As institutions of higher education involved in the development of current and future managers we declare our willingness to progress in the implementation, within our Institution, of the following Principles, starting with those that are more relevant to our capacities and mission. We will report on progress to all our stakeholders and exchange effective practices related to these principles with other academic institutions:


Principle 1- Purpose: We will develop the capabilities of students to be future generators of sustainable value for business and society at large and to work for an inclusive and sustainable global economy.


Principle 2- Values: We will incorporate into our academic activities and curricula the values of global social responsibility as portrayed in international initiatives such as the United Nations Global Compact.


Principle 3 - Method: We will create educational frameworks, materials, processes and environments that enable effective learning experiences for responsible leadership.


Principle 4 - Research: We will engage in conceptual and empirical research that advances our understanding about the role, dynamics, and impact of corporations in the creation of sustainable social, environmental and economic value.


Principle 5 - Partnership: We will interact with managers of business corporations to extend our knowledge of their challenges in meeting social and environmental responsibilities and to explore jointly effective approaches to meeting these challenges.


Principle 6 - Dialogue: We will facilitate and support dialog and debate among educators, business, government, consumers, media, civil society organizations and other interested groups and stakeholders on critical issues related to global social responsibility and sustainability.

We understand that our own organizational practices should serve as example of the values and attitudes we convey to our students.


Our work continues, as students continue to ask for concrete responses to their interrogations about the responsibility of business in the current crisis and the subsequent role of their business school in helping them to become a part of the solution.
 



How does the MBA program 'walk the talk' of social and environmental impact?: 

Grenoble was the first city in France to unite an ecologist party and put forward a “green” agenda in the local elections of 1977. Within this local context, Grenoble Ecole de Management has been consciously developing and promoting a culture of social responsibility and sustainability in its activities and programs for many years. The School continues to innovate and progress in integrating the themes of sustainable development, CSR, diversity and ethics into the curriculum transversally across all programs and academic departments. In 2006-2007, the Centre QUID had identified over 36 courses offered at the School in French or in English, and across all programs, which made explicit reference to this dimension in the curriculum in their course titles or course descriptions. A recent search in 2010 of our course catalogue resulted in 70 courses, or a 94% increase, in less than 5 years. Over the past 18 months, our institution has continued to progress and innovate in teaching and research, but even more significantly we have worked to create a system of governance and incorporate the PRME principles transversally into the day-to-day functioning of the School, the School’s mission and the value system of our stakeholders and participants.

We feel today that our contribution has not only widened but has also deepened and that we are able to respond to our students through our teaching, our research and our behaviour as a citizen school.

We are beginning to clearly distinguish the outcomes of our efforts over the past 4 years. We have taken take of our strengths, prioritized what still must be done and begun to apprehend the challenges that we have yet to face.

Key institutional achievements recently include:

• Updating the School’s mission to include the word “responsible”.

• Creation of a transversal steering committee (faculty, administrators and students) to oversee, promote and support institutional initiatives in the areas of CSR and Sustainable Development (SD).

• Creation and adoption of an institutional CSR Charter.

• Creation of a core curriculum dedicated to CSR/SD.

• Continued and significant research production in the area of CSR/SD and continued recruitment of faculty specialized in these areas.

• Internal faculty training programs to help teachers integrate CSR/SD into their courses.

• Participation in a national workgroup to create and improve a sustainable development evaluation grid for institutions of higher learning in France. This strategic autodiagnostic tool aims to be a basis for a national certification label in SD/CSR for French campuses.

• Integrated the notions of CSR/SD in the global purchasing policy of our School’s activities

• Joining of the “Campus Responsable” network and signing of the “Declaration for the Climate” with 18 other schools to encourage an agreement at the UN Copenhagen Climate Summit.
 

Academic Department

Course Name: Business Ethics
Instructor: Patrick O'Sullivan, David Bevan, Caroline Coulombe

The course will cover the following main topics:

Basic concepts and logic of the subject; legality and morality. Company SocialResponsibility: introduction to the idea and arguments about its appropriate scope;

Leading contemporary macro and micro level themes and issues in the subject; Sustainability in its various meanings. Globalisation; ethical issues that relate to the financial sector, corruption in international business etc.

Stakeholder theory; the European Social Model and a comparison of North American, European and Asian perspectives on ethics in business

Leading approaches to moral philosophy which are of relevance to discussions in Business Ethics; comparison of their contrasting implications in relation to selected controversial issues.

Course Name: Creative Management
Instructor: Francesco D'Aprile, Joseph Santora

By participating in our training programme you will acquire the conceptual skills to deal with problems through a different approach, will increase your own individual potential as well the ability to identify and embrace new opportunities; will develop a positive approach to change thinking creatively. cultivating independent thinking, improving learning ability with age, finding opportunity in uncertainty, managing intercultural complexity, improving memory and problem solving, balancing mind and body to reduce stress, nurturing creativity and innovation in the workplace.

Results for participants:

You will be conscious that there could be a new and effective mindset useful to approach things, get ideas and solve problem;

You will test this different mindset and then you will try to adopt new effective solutions and little changes in the organization where you work for;

You will be conscious that change is possible, and new things and innovation can be implemented.

You fill feel new positive energies

You will be the new designer for the new solutions; You will find new and effective ways to improve the changes.

You will learn how to play a positive role on an intercultural scenario, being able to take new and original opportunities.

Course Name: Creative Management
Instructor: Francesco D’Aprile

By participating in our training programme you will acquire the conceptual skills to deal with problems through a different approach, will increase your own individual potential as well the ability to identify and embrace new opportunities; will develop a positive approach to change thinking creatively. cultivating independent thinking, improving learning ability with age, finding opportunity in uncertainty, managing intercultural complexity, improving memory and problem solving, balancing mind and body to reduce stress, nurturing creativity and innovation in the workplace.

Results for participants:

You will be conscious that there could be a new and effective mindset useful to approach things, get ideas and solve problem;

You will test this different mindset and then you will try to adopt new effective solutions and little changes in the organization where you work for;

You will be conscious that change is possible, and new things and innovation can be implemented.

You fill feel new positive energies

You will be the new designer for the new solutions; You will find new and effective ways to improve the changes.

You will learn how to play a positive role on an intercultural scenario, being able to take new and original opportunities.

Course Name: Cross-Cultural Management
Instructor: Sharon Crost

Cross Cultural Management

The Cross Cultural Management sub-module forms part of the International Management module.

The course focuses first on the influence of culture on management practices: organizational structure, strategy, human resources. How do these practices differ and why? The emphasis is also placed on how to manage cultural differences more effectively: how to confront cultural differences, how to learn from them and how to utilize them in order to benefit from the potential added-value.

Three main themes have been selected:

• Culture & organization

• Culture and leadership

• Multicultural teams

Course Name: Information Systems and Knowledge Management
Instructor: Andrew Walker, Roy Butcher

URL link KM : http://el.grenoble-em.com/course/view.php?id=1820 : a critical overview of key km theory, concepts, issues and applications in the context of the emerging digital economy

IS: http://el.grenoble-em.com/course/view.php?id=3602 : a holistic overview of IS, incorporating IT, Info. Management and IS strategy, and the managerial issues, potential and problems

Course Name: Intercultural Management
Instructor: Michelle Mielly

This 15-hour seminar is designed to provide the basics in cross-cultural communication & management and empower students to handle a broad array of cultural differences in increasingly complex work environments. The intensive globalization of international business and trade has created a highly interrelated and interdependent world in which people from various nations and cultures must work together, often in remote teams in different time zones and geographic regions. Individuals, team members and managers working in such an environment must be knowledgeable about other cultures and cultural differences, and must maintain up to date information on relevant international politics and issues of diplomacy.

This seminar covers some of the field’s theoretical findings and practical applications in intercultural management and enables the participants to apply this knowledge in a multicultural and multinational business environment. Active and assertive participation in the class is a critical element of the learning process.

Course Name: International Financial Accounting
Instructor: Isabelle Chaboud, Andy Wright

Part of this International Financial Accounting core course deals with :

- Creative accounting and fraud : definition and difference between creative accounting and fraud. Study of fraud and ethics cases in accounting : Enron, Worldcom, Parmalat, Maxwell communications...We spent most of the time on Enron’s case and show the DVD : Enron, the film from “the smartest guys in the room”. Then it is discussed in class. Students also work on creative accounting exercise and are asked whether they would be inclined to do it.

- Sarbanes –Oxley Act of 2002 (SOX) : overview of the most important elements.

+other regulations or laws : Loi sur la Sécurité Financière in France (2003), Perben Law II on money laundering, market abuse EEC directives... leading to emphasis on Internal Business Controls (right after the big accounting scandals)

- Internal Business controls: History, definition and objectives, components. Study of the 5 necessary components for effective internal controls :

Control environment

Risk assessment

Control activities

Information & communication

Monitoring

Each component is explained, illustrated and discussed with the students with personal input from a former financial audit manager.

Course Name: International Human Resources Management
Instructor: Mark Smith, Patrick Favre

Women, families and Expatriation : Women are often underrepresented among international assignments even though they have been involved as trailing spouses for many years. Now they represent both an underutilised resource that is increasingly being recognised. However, the rise of dual earning families also mean that management in multinational companies can no longer assume an international manager’s spouse will follow in his (or her) footsteps.

Course Name: International Marketing
Instructor: Paul Gaffney, John Sadowsky, Alison Pearce

The International Marketing module will apply many of the concepts studied in the Marketing Management module, with emphasis on the international global context and environment of marketing. Increasing recognition by many international businesses of the world as a potential market has led to the widespread study of international marketing and global marketing strategies, with particular emphasis on –

Creating sustainable competitive advantage in a global context

Implementing strategies to take into account both the convergence and divergence of consumer preferences

Creating global products and brands that have near universal application and appeal, wherever possible

The importance of ethical and social issues in the global marketplace

The aims of this module are to enable students to

Understand the major challenges of international marketing environments

Understand the adaptation which may be required to the international marketing mix for the global context

Apply the marketing concepts to the international environment and

Learn how to implement international marketing operations for maximum effectiveness.

Identify and appreciate the importance of ethical and social issues in the global marketplace and how these impact on international marketing.

Course Name: Managerial accounting
Instructor: Stéphanie Boyer, Feroza Cooper

This is a managerial accounting class focussing on product costing methods and decision making tools such as breakeven, relevant costs…. This course also includes an introduction to management control systems such as the Balanced Scorecard or the Performance prism. These systems include an identification of the main corporate stakeholder’s and strategies needed to meet their wants & needs. These stakeholder’s include environmental agencies, employees etc… so we effectively deal with Corporate Social Responsibility and systems that allow companies to manage their performance in CSR.

Pages

Type of Offering

Save your logo - Conservation and the preservation of biodiversity
Date: May, 2011

Many companies have endangered species as their logo; animals or plants that are in danger of extinction. The aim of the program “Save Your Logo” is to involve organizations in the conservation of global biodiversity and the species that contribute to their brand image. In 2010 Grenoble Ecole de Management was the first school to adhere to the internationally known network of brands such as Lacoste. The school’s mascot and logo is the dolphin. In addition to promoting GEM’s partnership with Save Your Logo, the School will organize a conference on the theme of conservation and the preservation of biodiversity.

Geopolitics festival
Date: May, 2010

To be a globally responsible citizen and manager, geopolitical understanding and awareness is essential. To promote sustainable development globally, one must understand what is at stake. With this challenge in mind, the school has organized an annual Geopolitics Festival. This festival is made up of conferences, debates, workshops, and films and brings together the general public, students, intellectuals, academics, business leaders, politicians, heads of NGOs, civil servants and other public personalities interested in this domain.

An International Geopolitical Alliance was created. This new alliance is an international network of action and reflection dedicated to geopolitical issues and their solutions. GEM will ensure the coordination and management of the Alliance.

Sustainable Development Week
Date: March, 2010

A week long event, organized at Grenoble Ecole de Management, with numerous conferences and activated dedicated to sustainable development awareness.

In 2010, in honor of “Sustainable Development Week,” the library created a new portal featured on both the GEM intranet and library homepages dedicated to “Responsible Management”. As of July 2010, 300 documents were referenced in this portal’s collection.

Film festival of films that
Type: Film Festival and Debate

Films and debates around the theme of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) (films included: The Yes Men, The Corporation, and Blood Diamond). Experts and students then debated and reflected upon CSR.

24-hour challenge for the world
Date: April, 2010

A day around the theme of organic farming with experts discussing with students organic food, organic fertilizers etc. The students also examined the positive environmental impact of organic farming.

Humanitarian Development Forum Debate
Type: Debate
Date: November, 2010

Students, graduates and representatives from NGO's or associations debated on humanitarian development and aid issues.

Ecological Trade Fair Simulation – Create a SD Product or Service
Type: Fair
Date: December, 2010

Teams of students are to create a product or a service that is respectful of the environment and that is targeted at the construction industry. Students then present, explain and sell their product to other students, faculty and staff at GEM. Student projects are then displayed at the School for several weeks.

Blood Drives
Type: Other
Date: December, 2010

Blood Drives are organized two to three times per year by a student association SOS and held at the School. Faculty and staff are encouraged and allowed to give blood during their work hours.

Food Drives
Type: Other
Date: March, 2010

Staff, faculty and students at GEM worked with Danone on a humanitarian project to collect food for the Restaurants du Cœur a nationwide association that distributes meals and food to the needy. The food drive took place in three supermarket locations in the community. In each supermarket a Danone manager joined a team of students and staff from GEM - 2 staff members and 5 students per location. Staff who volunteered were able to do so during their working hours.

Conference on managing and preventing stress
Date: May, 2010

A conference for students, and staff on better managing stress, with talks by key specialists.

Handimanagement Awareness Days
Type: Challenge
Date: November, 2010

Programs sponsored by the Companieros (http://www.companieros.com/) are collaborative training programs organized to build awareness and skills CSR areas. Students in collaboration with the administration faculty, have been successfully organizing Handimanagement Awareness Days and training and the Companieros since 2008. In 2010, students added the Responsible Leadership Label to the training offer. This label ensures that the student has developed a deep awareness of the necessary conditions to be a responsible leader to meet the challenges of Sustainable Development. This label has been recognized by an AFNOR agreement and the validation of a scientific advisory committee made up of key stakeholders.

Fair Trade Week
Type: Week Long Event

A time for reflection, events and debates around the theme of fair trade - the mission is to raise awareness about fair trade and encourage students to act accordingly: teaching them about concrete actions they can undertake in both personal and professional contexts.

Sustainable Habitats: Solar Decathlon Competition
Type: Competition
Date: June, 2010

Students participated in a team made up of students in architecture, engineering and the sciences. The team placed 4th in the world wide competition with their “Armadillo Box”. This competition has four main objectives: To educate the public on renewable energy. To encourage the use of solar technologies and to distribute them more quickly to the market. To raise awareness among the students participating in the competition of the various benefits and possibilities of using renewable energies. To demonstrate that solar houses can be built without sacrificing energy efficiency or comfort, and that they can be both attractive and affordable.

Ethics & the stock market
Date: April, 2010

A conference related to the recent ethical issues in the financial word.

Junk Fest - ‘Fête de la récup’
Date: April, 2010

All students are invited to take part in this event during which they have the opportunity to create work of arts made out of used/second hand objects.

EcoBiz - Sustainable Development Forum
Type: Forum

The school is member of ECOBIZ: a knowledge-sharing community for companies affiliated with the Chamber of Commerce of Grenoble, the school's stakeholders. Faculty members often speak on topics related to their expertise and the school is currently coordinating its Sustainable Development activities with Ecobiz overseen by Professor Charles-Clemens Rüling.

Eco-Conception with EVEA
Date: May, 2009

Conference on all that has to do with eco-conception.

NGO Career Fair

NGO career fair: Every year, dozens of NGO organisations come to Grenoble Ecole de Management's humanitarian recruitment fair to recruit students/graduates interested in careers in that field.

Career Services

Facilitating the training and professional integration of the disabled and assisting businesses in respecting their legal obligations: this is the double objective of a new initiative run by Grenoble Ecole de Management, tagged “Difference is not a disability”. Only 12% of disabled people in France have a higher-education degree. Further to this, businesses find it difficult, despite their desire, to respect the French law which requires businesses to have at least 6% of disabled people in their total workforce.

In answer to this, Grenoble Ecole de Management has established a task force group bringing together businesses and other key institutions such as Microsoft, HP, la Société Générale, BNP Paribas etc. to meet the challenges faced by employers and people with disabilities. In terms of Grenoble Ecole de Management’s involvement:

• Creation of ‘individualised’ study tracks for students with disabilities and executives in all programs in line with their capacities, training needs and future aspirations. Courses will be adapted to meet their needs (change of rhythm, distance learning etc.).

• Training will also be accessible via the ‘validation of knowledge acquired through experience’, notably for employees for whom the disability occurred during their career.

• A coach specifically designated will be in charge of tutoring disabled students and their professors to ensure the best conditions for all involved.

• Five places will be exclusively reserved for candidates with disabilities who have followed the admission post-baccalaureate procedure to enter the Grande Ecole section (alternative entry to the Grande Ecole program).

• Raising awareness of students and staff

The school has already set up several initiatives to raise awareness about disability issues:

1) Since September 2008, students have the opportunity of choosing as their third language a sign language course. Via this 72-hour training, Grenoble Ecole de Management wishes to offer students - future managers - the opportunity to understand the issues of handicap-management and to broaden their perception of intercultural management.

2) Participation of a group of students to the “Handimanagement project”, a French educational project aimed at creating awareness amongst students of the issues surrounding the integration of the disabled in the workplace. The students organise events which include: testimonials; a film festival, sign language courses, ‘eating in the dark’ dinners; handisports etc. The group of students will be assessed for this project which forms part of their curriculum.

In terms of the involvement of Grenoble Ecole de Management’s partners :

Grenoble Ecole de Management’s partners pledge to support the school’s disabled students and executives in all or at least one of the areas below:

• Informing students and their families of the available training at the school

• Informing their employees of training opportunities in executive education at the school, notably for those for whom the disability occurred during their career.

• Internship offers for disabled students

• Coaching

• Tutoring

• Financial aid (scholarships, and other financial assistance).

Thierry Grange, Dean, Grenoble Ecole de Management, said: “Because Grenoble Ecole de Management has always favoured diverse profiles, we have developed original initiatives to allow students, regardless of their health or social background, to pursue management studies. Our new initiative “Difference is not a disability” is yet another gauge of our commitment to diversity.”
Other businesses and institutions involved in this scheme alongside Grenoble Ecole de Management are: Crédit Agricole, Schneider Electric, and institutions involved in assisting the disabled etc.

CSR Charter GEM
Business School Housing? Yes
Number of Faculty: 5
Contact Name: Jaclyn Rosebrook Collignon
Contact Email: jaclyn.rosebrook-collignon@grenoble-em.com

A key strategic action by Charter GEM was the creation and adoption of an institutional CSR Charter. The objective is to communicate internally and externally the values the School seeks to promote through its activities. It also integrates the PRME principles and adapts them to the culture and strategic objectives of the School. This charter was approved by the School’s steering committee on the 17th June 2010. For the moment, the charter has been communicated internally via the intranet and is in the process of being displayed publicly throughout the School next to the School’s mission. The next step is to enable the School’s participants (faculty, staff and students) to officially and voluntarily commit to upholding these principles through a signature process or some other form of official engagement.

An institution of higher education, Grenoble Ecole de Management aims to train responsible and innovative managers who take into account the social, human, economic and environmental consequences of their decisions.

To pursue this aim, GEM pledges to:

• Respect the rights and dignity of each individual;
• Promote both solidarity and diversity;
• Oppose all forms of violence and corruption;
• Reduce and control the environmental impact of our activities;
• Help to make commerce a vector of development, equity and peace.

And encourages its participants and stakeholders to respect and uphold these principles.

Pages

Book Review de 'Sustainability Accounting and Accountability' (J. Unerman, J. Bebbington and B. O'Dwyer (Eds))
Author(s): Patel Taran

There is no abstract for this book review

Journal Title: European Accounting Review Volume: Vol 18, Issue 2 Edition: Page Numbers: pp. 413-420
CEO's reports about internal control: a content analysis
Author(s): Gumb Bernard

This article is about internal control as perceived by CEOs of French firms listed in the CAC 40 index. While the American regulator recommends COSO, French law prescribes no particular framework for the required report. Thus, management has more freedom, which should lead to more diversity of the content, and therefore more richness for lexical content analysis. The latter certainly confirms some trends identified by previous works (e.g. the importance of the risk topic and the financial dimension), but it also shows the shareholder-oriented notion of internal reports. Such a work, based on disclosures published in 2005, should extend former surveys and prefigure further researches.

Journal Title: Accounting in Europe Volume: Vol. 6 N°1 Edition: Page Numbers: pp. 81-106
Ethical preferences for influencing superiors: A 41-society study
Author(s): Herrig Harald

With a 41-society sample of 9990 managers and professionals, we used hierarchical linear modeling to investigate the impact of both macro-level and micro-level predictors on subordinate influence ethics. While we found that both macro-level and micro-level predictors contributed to the model definition, we also found global agreement for a subordinate influence ethics hierarchy. Thus our findings provide evidence that developing a global model of subordinate ethics is possible, and should be based upon multiple criteria and multilevel variables.

Journal Title: Journal of International Business Studies Volume: Vol. 40 Edition: Page Numbers: pp. 1022-1045
Stress and adaptation strategy: analysis in a fusion-acquisition situation (French version: Stress et stratégie d’ajustement : analyse en situation de fusion-acquisition)
Author(s): Steiler Dominique; Rüling Charles-Clemens

The paper presents a state of the art of corporate coping strategies for merger and acquisition (M&A) related stress. After a presentation of models of workplace stress and a discussion of the specific sources of stress in a M&A situation, our analysis shows that the discussion of coping strategies in the managerial literature is only dealing with the effects of M&A stress on individuals. We conclude by highlighting a set of organizational paradoxes to be addressed in M&A stress management.

Journal Title: Management et Avenir Volume: n° 34 Edition: Page Numbers: pp. 40-62
The Ever Declining Role of Gender Equality in the European Employment Strategy
Author(s): Smith Mark

This paper analyses the changing position of gender in the European Employment Strategy (EES) since its 2005 relaunch. Overall we find a picture of mixed progress towards gender equality goals across Member States. There is some evidence of the EU soft-law approach leading to positive developments since the use of targets in conjunction with Country-Specific Recommendations and Points-to-Watch have had some influence in promoting gender equality policies among Member States. However, the weakened position of gender mainstreaming in European level initiatives has led to gender being marginalised or ignored in national and EU policy responses to the crisis. The prominence of gender has declined further in the 2010 revision of the EES under the 2020 banner. This introduces new risks as the emphasis on gender equality falls further down the list of priorities in the streamlining of the Lisbon process

Journal Title: Industrial Relations Journal Volume: Vol : 41(6) Edition: 1 Page Numbers: pp. 526-543