Distance learning: Open for business

The Open University's business school has become a leading provider of management education and a centre of research excellence, says Maureen O'Connor

When the Open University was founded almost 30 years ago, few of its supporters can have foreseen that as well as becoming the world's most influential "second chance" university it would also become a major provider of management education.

The Open University Business School was founded in 1983, beginning with fewer than a thousand students. It now has around 25,000 throughout the world studying in English or in translation. Most are based in the UK or Western Europe, but a growing number are signing on for OU Business School courses in the former Eastern bloc, Africa and the Far East.

The 170 permanent staff based at Milton Keynes are supplemented by a network of 800 part-time tutors, known as associate lecturers, who are based throughout Europe. Supporting the rising number of overseas students is not easy, as Tony Stapleton, director of external affairs, acknowledged in the school's 1997 Review.

In the UK a network of 28 regional managers, based in 13 regional centres, are dedicated to the support of business school staff and students. They manage the provision of residential schools and other activities for staff and students, the selection and supervision of academic staff and carry a tutorial and research responsibility as well.

Abroad, various delivery patterns and back-up systems for widely scattered students are being explored, from a partnership in Hong Kong with the local Open Learning Institute, to visits by tutors from Europe to East Africa to organise regular seminars and clinics. Most students are also expected to use computer-mediated conferencing and the school is experimenting with Internet support for students.

The school began by offering a range of short, self-contained courses, but has become one of the largest business schools in Europe with a full range of management programmes and a substantial research base. More than 140,000 managers have completed courses. David Asch, the dean, is particularly pleased that his school is one of a handful which have been given an "Excellent" rating for teaching and support systems by the Higher Education Funding Council.

The school's activities do not stop at courses for individual managers. Almost 70 per cent of its annual fee income comes from corporate clients who either sponsor employees on courses or use OU materials as part of an in-house management training programme. Clients include BT, Royal Mail, the Halifax and a range of public-sector organisations.

Business development managers and customer service advisers from the school work with companies to evaluate their training requirements. Courses can be tailored for individual organisations, often using existing in- house training systems as part of a route to formal qualifications for staff.

IBM has set up a scheme which encourages its managers in Europe, the Middle East and Africa to progress through the school's certificate and diploma in management programmes to the MBA. This year more than 600 IBM managers will be following OU programmes, the majority of them outside the UK. Students will start with an introductory weekend at IBM's own educational centre outside Brussels, which co-ordinates management training.

Maurice Thompson, IBM's senior education manager, says that his key requirement is that training should be consistent, no matter where managers are based. "As an international company many of our managers are highly mobile, so training has to be flexible and portable. With the OU, managers can study where and when they want and are supported by tutorial staff throughout Europe and in South Africa."

The Civil Service has also worked with the school on a joint initiative to encourage civil servants to take the "Capable Manager" course. A residential weekend brings civil servants on the course together with managers from industry to share experience. Research is as important to the OU as to any other university and the Business School is no exception. Results are fed immediately into teaching materials. There has been widespread public interest in work at the OU on brand management by Professor Leslie de Chernatony, who is arguing for fundamental change in this area of management.

Keith Bradley, professor of international management, has also aroused interest with his work on intellectual capital and knowledge management. He argues that with advanced technology and new employment practices changing the way we work, knowledge will become a company's greatest asset. The management of knowledge, information and intangible assets will become part of a 30-point course in the MBA programme, Managing Knowledge, in about a year's time. The multimedia course will draw on the research being done in this area within the business school. It will cover the management of information, knowledge, information and communication technologies, innovation, organisational learning, human resources, organisational learning, intellectual capital, brands and intangible assets.

A growth area for the school's research focuses on the process of distance learning itself in management education and the use of new technologies to support that process. Other key areas are public sector and non-profit- making organisations. Professor John Storey was appointed last year as the school's first professor of human resource management in the Centre for Human Resource and Change Managment. His role includes the development of the human resource aspects of new courses, and consultancy and research in these fields.

The School's Centre for Financial Management and the Development of Organisations is finalising research into the cost of capital, exploring how companies calculate the cost of capital in order to raise money and looking at economic value as a means of valuing companies. The centre is also looking at how the NHS is managing its financial decisions and how it is facing up to commercial realities.