The diversity label celebrates its 10th anniversary alongside Montpellier Business School
A 10 years commitment to inclusion
108 certified organizations met on October 21st at the Ministry of Solidarity and Health to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Diversity Label, awarded by AFNOR. This label guarantees a commitment to equal opportunities and aims to maintain and develop actions in favour of inclusion within companies.
In 2009, Montpellier Business School was the first school to join the holders by committing to a policy of continuous improvement for professional equality, both in the context of its educational programmes and in terms of human resources. 10 years later, Montpellier Business School is the only Management school to co-detain the Diversity and Professional Equality labels between Women and Men.
A label that reflects the structure of recruitment and fair career management
The Diversity Label is awarded during a regular audit to verify commitments made by the organisation, the actions carried out and the agreements made with the social partners.
The recruitment process is often seen as the first weakness of the company. Human resources in Montpellier Business School ensure that the workforce is balanced in terms of age, gender, seniority and geographical origin. In addition, there are various precise recruitment grids that allow to assess the candidate as accurately as possible on:
- His/her business skills;
- His/her Office management & language skills;
- His/her personal and behavioural qualities (soft skills).
The label also requires fair career management. From the employee’s integration to his evolution, it is important to maintain awareness and regular training in the concepts of inclusion and diversity. Thus, Equaliday was held on the last July 10th, a half-day event to raise awareness among its participants about the discrimination. In case you have missed it, you can relive Equaliday here.
Social policy as part of the pedagogical strategy
The Diversity Label does not limit its audit to employees but extends to the entire educational activity of Montpellier Business School.
Student recruitment is based on an identical method for all candidates, allowing judging only the personal and behavioural qualities of each one of them.
If potential discriminations are avoided before integration, there is still the risk of financial discrimination. This is why a social policy has existed for many years: it is based on a set of reduced tuition fees (scholarships) and offers paid and arranged activities outside school hours. Take a look at all the plans here.
The Escape Game: an intercultural educational tool to improve the memorial anchoring of students
MBS integrates escape gaming to bypass the limits of attention and reinforce concepts assimilation.
In the age of hyper connectivity, the attention of the new generation follows a pattern based on a succession of brief micro-tasks. “This is multitasking,” says Dr. Julien GRANATA, “we are moving into the world of instantaneousness, giving the feeling of having to simultaneously treat various topics through various media”. Thus, Y and Z generation students concentrate and navigate every fifteen minutes on average from one subject to another.
Rocio OVILLA BUENO, Professor and Coordinator of the Languages Cluster at Montpellier Business School explained: “as the attention changed, we had to find a playful approach to facilitate concepts and skills assimilation. By integrating the escape game as a learning and evaluation tool, we succeed in circumventing the student’s mental resistance and challenging him / her on short exercises staged in a playful scenario.»
Create inclusive game rules to promote the use of soft skills
Beverly LELIGOIS teaches intercultural management at Montpellier Business School and has adopted the escape game technique to test students’ behavioural skills and teamwork. Based on an investigation scenario around the endangerment of cultural heritage, this exercise called upon the students’ general culture, managerial concepts, empathy and artistic skills. “Within the same team, we could find up to six different nationalities. In the final stage of the game, students had to come together to create a creative medium that symbolized the multicultural personality of their group. “
The key to a successful escape game lies in the strategic aspect of the solutions. Beverly LELIGOIS explained: “the groups that succeeded in the allotted time were those who did not rush and who did a good distribution of roles and tasks. Groups that have put in place a real strategy have managed to limit the conflicts generated by the adventures of the game. The escape game allows students to face situations of failure, without this being interpreted as a sanction and thus invite them to rethink their strategy. “
A method recognized by the academic world
Montpellier Business School’s escape game has a bright future. Following the “Intercultural Management” module offered by Beverly LELIGOIS to Air France, the escape game scenario was registered with the CCMP (Centrale de Cas et de Médias Pédagogiques), a body that guarantees the educational contribution of the game.
In addition, Rocio OVILLA BUENO, who was one of the first to integrate this new mechanism at Montpellier Business School, had the opportunity to present his escape games methodology at UNAM University, in Mexico, in front of 80 professors ready to adopt this learning tool.
The Financial Times : MBS’s Grande Ecole Programme ranks World‘s 55th best Master in Management
The Financial Times has just published its 2019 world rankings of the best Masters in Management, which is the international reference for Business Schools.
This ranking ranks the top 100 Masters in Management in the world, all accredited by AACSB or Equis.
MBS’s Grande Ecole Programme (MiM) ranks World ‘s 55th best Master in Management.
As last year, 25 French Programs are ranked.
MBS’s Grande Ecole Programme (MiM) ranks is ranked France’s 13th Grande Ecole Programme post-preparatory classes.
This ranking is based on two surveys measuring 17 indicators: one survey of graduates (58% of the score) and one of schools (42%).
At the time of obtaining EQUIS, this ranking reminds us of MBS’ deserved place in the best BSs in the world.
Fanny Hugé, a final year student in the Grande Ecole Program, is the winner of the Jane M. Klausman "Women in Business" Award from Zonta International
An International Prize to Fight Man-Woman Inequalities in Business
Jane M. Klausman’s “Women in Business” program at Zonta International was created in 1998 to encourage women to pursue a career and positions of responsibility in business. The program seeks to strengthen the voice of women in business by detecting High Potentials and encouraging them to pave the way for real changes for gender equality in the business world.
Sensitive to the fight against gender stereotypes, Fanny Hugé, a final year student of the Grande Ecole Program, was able to stand out thanks to an innovative educational project and thus won the international Zonta award a few days ago in Bulgaria. . She is also the second laureate from Montpellier Business School in 3 years. Benjamin Ferran, Head of Diversity and CSR at Montpellier Business School, said: “the prize takes into account not only the candidates’ studies but also the coherence of their professional project. “
The fight against stereotypes, internationalisation and IT: the three bases of Fanny’s project
To be a contender for the prize, each candidate must develop a personal project representing his / her values. In that regard, Fanny said: “I wanted to build my project around women’s self-censorship. According to Global Study, children enter gender stereotypes as young as ten years old. Explaining to children the dangers of these preconceptions can make a difference.
Fanny then chose to build her project based on the two strong pillars that marked her career: internationalisation and information technologies. “For more than a year, I have been studying alternately at Microsoft. When I applied, one of the recruitment steps was to choose one of the current products and develop a new use for it. The idea was then to use their free video conferencing tool and introduce it into classrooms around the world to create relationships between students around the Globe. This would allow the children to discuss their cultural differences and those who have to travel kilometres before reaching their school to take distance courses. The goal is to build trust, cultivate openness and reduce gender stereotypes. “
“We can make a difference if we believe in a cause and get involved without restrictions”
After winning the award, Fanny continues to refine her career plan and future commitments. “I had the opportunity to meet many women who are actively fighting for women’s rights today. To all the students who would consider participating in this Prize but who think they have no chance, I would like to tell them that nothing is impossible and that they have nothing to lose. You have to learn to trust yourself. We can make a difference if we believe in a cause and if we get involved without counting,” Fanny concludes.
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Team Building by Montpellier Business School: an inclusive tool to develop soft skills and learn to manage individualities
Gamification of the teachings to lift the mental limits and exit censorship
Upon their return, first and second year students of the Bachelor and Grande Ecole programs had the opportunity to participate in an atypical team building module. Through several “Serious Games” (role play, track, etc.) students have the opportunity to develop their behavioural skills, as well as analyse and get a hold on the diversity of the courses of other fellow students.
Annie Mahé, a teacher at Montpellier Business School says: “we organize physical puzzles, during which students must be creative and collaborative to succeed in the challenge. It’s important to use the body because it’s about going beyond the mental limit. These students have just joined a new school, and for some a new city and country. For many, the first obstacle to their initiative is censorship, and this kind of fun workshop is essential to get them out of their reserve. “
Company role-plays to understand the stakes of the professional individualities and co-build the world of tomorrow
Beyond the liberation of self-control, the goal of this team building is also to develop managerial empathy. Through the concrete case of the company Bio Burger, students participate in a business role play, where each of them is assigned a function and a specific goal in the company: marketing project manager, management control, shareholder…
For Amine Mahé, “the goal here is for the student to understand the fundamentals of business behaviour. This does not stem solely from the personality but also from the function occupied by the individual. To caricature, a person of a less analytical nature will be forced by a function of management controller to adopt a different behaviour from what we usually come to expect from his personality.”
The development of behavioural skills or “soft skills” instilled throughout the curriculum
Students learn to develop their adaptability and awareness of the environment in which they evolve through Serious Games. A development followed throughout their career at Montpellier Business School, which puts a particular emphasis on the deployment of “Soft Skills” and the implementation of a strong professional ethic. Students will have the opportunity to make a regular update on the evolution of their professional personality and their behavioural skills through modules of Behaviour Focus, exclusively built for Montpellier Business School.
More than ever engaged in CSR and the promotion of Social Business, Montpellier Business School is co-organizing the 6th European Research Conference on Microfinance.
A look back at the 6th European Microfinance Research Conference
On 3rd, 4th and 5th June, Paris Dauphine University, the Institute for Research in Development (IRD) and Montpellier Business School had the honour of hosting and organizing in cooperation with The European Microfinance Platform (e- MFP) and the European Centre for Research and Microfinance (CERMi) the 6th European Microfinance Research Conference, bringing together 130 experts from all over the world.
Researchers and Professionals gathered to discuss the following issue: “New tools, new actors: goals, values and beneficiaries” in Microfinance. Anastasia COZARENCO, Research Professor and MBS Chair in Microfinance in Developed Countries, explains: “When we think about microfinance and micro-credit, we think first of all about developing countries.
“However, we can now see that these mechanisms, combined with the industrialization and increasing use of new technologies, have certainly promoted the financial inclusion of previously isolated areas and populations, but also created new risks such as the exploitation of individuals’ personal data for commercial purposes. Does Microfinance still aim to promote the financial inclusion of marginalized populations or turn these populations into new consumers? “
The purpose of these three days of round tables, debates and workshops was not necessarily to build an immediate response to these questions, but to encourage researchers and professionals to question the meaning of their research and practices, and to foster international collaboration.
Isabelle Guérin (IRD, co-organizer), Anastasia Cozarenco (MBS, co-organizer), Baptiste Venet (University Paris Dauphine, co-organizer), representatives of the Nepalese delegation.
Promoting social business and strengthening Microfinance Research at Montpellier Business School
In accordance with its mission to train responsible managers, Montpellier Business School received last March 4th Professor Muhammad Yunus, 2006 Nobel Peace Prize winner, pioneer of microcredit, to raise awareness on Social Business. In order to deepen its pedagogical accompaniment and its academic expertise of this discipline, the Microfinance Chair of Montpellier Business School was created and is the only one to focus on developed countries.
Anastasia COZARENCO commented saying: “Following the success of this conference, we are preparing to roll out other initiatives to better meet the demands of Research in the field and to pass on the latest tools and innovations to students to make them aware of societal values throughout their career.”
End of Start-Up Week – A look into the podium of the "Sport & Digital" battle
On Friday, September 20th, the final five finalists of the 6th edition of Start-Up Week faced off in front of a jury of professionals.
On this final phase, the expertise of Private Sport Shop, sponsor of the edition, was all the more important as it targeted a key element of their positioning: sports and digital.
Application, virtual reality and algorithm: a podium under the sign of technological innovation
For this ultimate week of Business Game, the concept remains unchanged: five projects compete in a final pitch phase before all the students and a jury of experts assessing the innovative character, the financial realism and the launch strategy of the start-up.
At the bottom of the podium, we find the group Virtual Arena who has chosen to focus on the friendly and spectacular aspect of major sporting events. In view of the perpetual improvement of the retransmissions of these events, this group imagined a concept of “virtual box” to watch, using virtual reality glasses, sports competitions as if you were there, and to meet in a virtual lounge with the people of your choice.
In second place, the group SAM (Sport Automatic Manager) decided to surf on the growth of the number of memberships in sports halls but especially the number of dropouts after a few weeks. The reason most often cited is the lack of availability of professionals and monitoring. Thus, the group has built a virtual coach, “Sam”, which allows tracking autonomously one’s progress through an algorithm.
The group that managed to reach the top of the podium was Place Me, an application for the sale of tickets for sports events, between individuals or on last minute. The project was born due to the filling rate deficit of the stadiums: 70% of the seats are actually occupied when 100% of the seats have been sold. The application allows you to connect enthusiasts, digitize your ticket and resell live on the application a few minutes before the game. This is an innovative concept halfway between an e-commerce platform and a social network.
To see the previous winners, here are the links:
Montpellier Business School gets EQUIS accreditation and the "triple crown"
The European Foundation for Management Development (EFMD) has just awarded EQUIS (European Quality Improvement System) accreditation to Montpellier Business School (MBS). Already accredited by AACSB and AMBA, the School joins the very small circle of the 1% of worldwide Business Schools holding the “triple crown”.
Montpellier Business School thus becomes the 14th French triple accredited post-preparatory class management school (AACSB / AMBA / EQUIS), the 91st amongst about 14,000 business schools worldwide.
Accreditation is the result of a long and rigorous review process that assesses an institution’s compliance with high academic standards defined by the EFMD and covering all dimensions and components of the institution: strategy, pedagogy, research, internationalization, proximity to companies and networks of graduates. Accreditation also applies to all of the school programs: Bachelor, Grande Ecole Program, Masters of Science, Executive MBA and DBA Programme.
Montpellier Business School relies on an atypical positioning, combining academic requirements and CSR footprint, which has allowed it to differentiate itself and acquire, over the years, a special place among French and international business schools. As Bruno DUCASSE, Dean of Montpellier Business School, explains: “This new accreditation recognizes Montpellier Business School’s unique strategy, which combines a focus on academic quality meeting the highest global standards with the will to defend strong values: social openness and building a more responsible economy and society. This is only the beginning, we are entering a new process of continuous improvement which must lead us to continue our progress. “
For André Deljarry, president of Montpellier Business School, “this new accreditation places Montpellier Business School in the top 1% of business schools in the world. It is a great pride for our school and our territory. With the Triple Crown and a new campus in the near future, Montpellier Business School will be ready to enter a new phase of its development. “
Meet Rahel & Jose Alexandro, the two laureates of the International Excellence Scholarships
Rahel and Alexandro arrived in Montpellier at the end of August and are our new laureates of the International Excellence Scholarships, both joined the PGE2 English course. After 3 weeks of intensive French and a period of adaptation, they are now well integrated and have started lessons.
Originally from Indonesia, Rahel holds a Bachelor of International Affairs from Bandung University, which she completed with her first professional experience as a media analyst in a public relations agency in Jakarta. Rahel is very involved in social entrepreneurship. Upon her return to Indonesia, she wishes to participate in the development of small and medium-sized entreprises in rural areas.
A native of Bolivia, Alexandro holds a Bachelor in Business Administration from the University of Santa Cruz, supplemented by a diploma in Financial Management from the same university. Vice-president of the Student Scientific Society of Economical, Financial and Managerial Sciences of his university, he is very interested in the world of Finance and more particularly in Fintech solutions.
Coming from a disadvantaged social background, they would not have been able to come to France without the financial support of the MBS Foundation for Equal Opportunities which launches an annual call for candidates. The target countries, which are different each year, are chosen by the members of the Executive Committee: they are developing countries or countries experiencing particular difficulties (war situation or very serious economic problems).
Since 2012, 17 students from Syria, Haiti, Colombia, Senegal, Ivory Coast, Burkina Faso, Myanmar, Dominican Republic, Vietnam, Mali, Venezuela, Bangladesh, Peru have been able to come and complete the last two years of the Grande Ecole Program at MBS.
Through corporate donations, The MBS Foundation covers the tuition fees of the laureates and also finances living expenses.
We welcome them to Montpellier Business School.
