This article first appeared in the UConn Business magazine, Volume 1, Issue 1 (Summer 2009)

P. Christopher Earley is former Dean and Cycle and Carriage Chair at the Business School, National University of Singapore. Prior to that Professor Earley was Chair and Professor of Organisational Behaviour at the London Business School. He has held academic chairs at Nanyang Business School and Indiana University. He is currently the Dean of the School of Business at the University of Connecticut. Professor Earley’s interests include cross-cultural and international aspects of organizations such as the dynamics of multinational teams, negotiation and conflict, the role of face in organizations, and motivation across cultures. Professor Earley is the author of ten books and numerous articles and book chapters, and his recent publications include Cultural Intelligence: Individual Interactions Across Cultures(with Ang Soon), Multinational Work Teams: A New Perspective (with Cristina Gibson), Culture, Self-identity, and Work and The Transplanted Executive: Managing in Different Cultures (both with Miriam Erez), Face, Harmony, and Social Structure: An Analysis of Behavior in Organizations, and Creating Hybrid Team Cultures: An Empirical Test of International Team Functioning (with E.  Mosakowski, Academy of Management Journal). He has taught executives and consulted for companies such asNestle, Cisco Systems, Samsung, Unilever, British Aerospace, Mercury Asset Management, Eli Lilly Pharmaceuticals among others in England, France, Germany,  Hong Kong, Israel, People’s Republic of China, Singapore, South Korea, and Thailand, among others.

Q: Acclimating to a new family, so to speak, always comes with its special challenges and welcome surprises. Please share with us some of your highlights as you’ve adjusted to your new position as UConn’s School of Business Dean.

A: One of the key things I’ve been impressed by is how the faculty and staff have come together, especially under challenging circumstances. We’ve implemented many changes: changes in procedures, changes in course loads, changes in the way we do business. Throughout all these changes, the faculty and staff have been amazingly resilient and flexible. As you know, when you enter into a new family, there’s some level of disruption. However, I’ve been very impressed with the ways that our UConn faculty and staff have embraced these times. People have been asking in a much more iterative fashion, “What are the ways we do things? What are some better ways to accomplish these things?”

Q: What are some of your particular goals to ensure that UConn undergraduates are prepared to excel in the 21st century workplace?

A: Well, first and foremost, we’re trying to make experiential learning, one of the three main pillars of our academic plan, more widely available to the undergraduate students. Experiential learning is already extensively available to graduate students, but we’re trying to make sure that undergraduates have more opportunities along these lines, so that these students are matching their real-world experiences with their academic preparation. When students have blended experiences like these, then they have not only a solid academic background, but also practical firsthand experiences and knowledge as well. Secondly, we’re working on ways to strengthen undergraduates’ global exposure. Of course, I have a passion for this emphasis, because of my own background, experiences, research, and consulting. I think for the students, the more we can encourage them to have opportunities to travel abroad, the broader their world vision will become, and the more likely they will view their own part of the world in a much more sophisticated fashion.

Q: Of course, we all know that globalization is impacting all business schools’ curriculum and preparation of future business leaders. In what ways are UConn’s programs responding to these challenges and developing students’ cultural intelligence?

A: When we think about “cultural intelligence,” we are really talking about a multi-faceted approach to intelligence, for there are really different aspects of intelligence. And one of those is “practical” intelligence, and our programs place a very strong emphasis on practical intelligence. I’ve found that that many companies and industry leaders want individuals who have practical business sense, or, in other words, common sense situated within a business context. So I think it’s critical to step back, look at things more holistically, and find ways to integrate classroom learning with real-world contexts. From a globalization perspective, we’ve been working on developing more of an international network. That’s a really critical part of our mission as we move forward. Since I’ve come on board, we’ve actually doubled the number of international partnerships we have. This very big priority goes both ways: it’s not just sending our students abroad, but it’s also having a richer mix of international students at our own university. We’re partnering now with some very prestigious universities in the Middle East, in Asia, in Europe, and this is a very strong emphasis for me, because I think one of the ways our graduates get known is by having our university well-known.

Q: Among the myriad of changes we’re experiencing today, certainly the process of earning a college degree is changing as well. More potential students are looking for flexibility and responsiveness—in both course offerings and delivery methods. How is the School of Business responding?

A: Among other things, we’re introducing new programs. We’ve created—and are currently in the process of seeking state-level approval for—a master’s degree in financial risk management. We saw—and responded to—a strong demand for such a program from the business community. We want to roll out this program to improve our students’  employability, and risk management is a key issue during this economic crisis. By responding to the business
community’s needs during these times, we believe we’re going to be at the very forefront of a very different business program. Secondly, we’re trying to offer more general business background opportunities for students at our regional campuses. We’re looking to offer a general business degree, for instance, at all of our regional campuses, and we hope we’ll be able to launch these programs by 2010 or 2011. We want to offer these types of programs for students who don’t
necessarily have the opportunity to take classes in Storrs and who wish for a more generalist background in business.
We’re also looking at different venues and styles for classroom instruction. For example, we want to roll out a variety of different programs—both undergraduate and graduate—for online learning opportunities. Therefore, when people are in nontraditional roles, they can have the opportunity to m triculate at the university. Recently, I met with a student at one of our international events who’s in the military and was deployed in Iraq for the better part of last year. While he was in Iraq, he was taking online courses from UConn. He ended up taking something like 4-5 classes. If it weren’t for these online opportunities, he wouldn’t have been able to keep up that type of connection. He said that he found the experience of working with our online community and our specific style of online education very, very satisfying. We’ve also developed what we refer to as ABCs, or Advanced Business Certificates. The certificates are all comprised of four related courses in a specific area of study. These certificates allow students to specialize in a particular sub-area within their education, without necessarily committing to a full concentration, which would require completing many more courses.
That way, students can develop additional expertise, with which they can make themselves more marketable. We’re offering these certificate programs to students who aren’t necessarily full-time or even part-time MBA students. As long
as students qualify academically to our standards, these students cancomplete a series of linked courses to acquire some specialized knowledge that would benefit them and their organizations.

Q: With the current economic downturn, many students and families are naturally concerned about employment prospects upon graduation. However, these students and families also appreciate the first-class education that UConn provides. What advice and wisdom do you have for those who share these concerns?

A: I think it’s important for students to think outside the box with respect to traditional entry-level job placements. While a finance major, for example, may have traditionally wanted to go to Wall Street. I’m encouraging this type of student to consider opportunities at small-to-medium-sized banks in Connecticut. Many of these banks are highly reputable and are financially solid, and students will be able to acquire really good experience that they can then carry with them for the
rest of their career. These positions may not pay as high as the prestigious Wall Street firms, but they do provide security and a wonderful opportunity for graduates to learn new things and practice their craft. Also, I encourage students to think about pairing their different skill sets. For example, if a student is a finance major, then that student mightconsider pairing that background with information technology or management strategy. Students who do so will be able to differentiate themselves more from students who would be, say, finance majors without any developed knowledge in these other areas.

Q: The current economic climate has also encouraged many of our alumni—especially small business owners– to revisit their own business models and best practices. In what ways can UConn respond to these individuals’ needs?

A: Certainly, our Innovation Accelerator is a more formal mechanism specifically geared to help people launch new businesses. Also, the Management department’s Wolff Entrepreneurship program offers numerous opportunities for proactive engagement. More broadly, I encourage our alumni to see us as a resource for them. As a resource, we offer them opportunities to work with not only our faculty, but also our students who are eager to consult with them
and help them think through ways to refocus their business strategies and models. In a sense, the more our alumni participate and get involved with our students, both undergraduate and MBA, the more I think our alumni will appreciate that these students are excellent resources for them to draw upon. And the relationship is mutual: students will be able to assist alumni, just as the alumni benefit our students by creating opportunities for them.

Q: We’re blessed to have a dedicated, responsive alumni network; many of these alumni have graciously given to the School to support numerous programmatic efforts and scholarships. Please share with us how central these alumni efforts are to helping you and the rest of the UConn faculty realize goals that benefit students.

A: Our alumni network is absolutely critical in so many ways. For example, they bring us opportunities for executive education; they’ll often nominate UConn as one of the possible providers of executive education to their companies. Further, alumni are critical for student placement and for student internships. And, quite frankly, our alumni are very critical for helping us keep a finger on the pulse of what is really going on in the marketplace. For example, the new  graduate program we developed in Financial Risk Management was strongly endorsed and recommended by our senior alumni who are leaders in the financial industry. So developing new programs is really an iterative process, in which our alumni help inform us of what their needs are in the business community, and we in turn then take those ideas to our various departments, so we may design courses that address those needs, and then share our proposed offerings with alumni to receive feedback. Our alumni are especially key to making others aware of the uniqueness of UConn’s School of Business. For example, I’ll often have Deans and Associate Deans from other business schools come to visit us, and after they get a briefing on our Learning Accelerators, they walk away stating that these programs are things they wish they had in their own institutions, for they’ve never seen something so sophisticated before. These unique learning opportunities that help define our programs have helped our School of Business create partnerships that we couldn’t have created otherwise. We’re able to partner with very prestigious schools internationally that see the value of our unique offerings.