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This is the Open Access edition of Global Focus from the European Foundation for Management Development (EFMD). Global Focus has become one of the most authoritative resources for in-depth analysis and updates on international management development. With features, topical reports, thought leadership and insight from leading experts from academia, business schools, companies and consultancies, this edition focuses on business school internationalisation.

This eighteenth volume focuses on the impact of Artificial Intelligence (AI), with insights into topics such as the role of AI in corporate learning by Martin Moehrle, reshaping business education using hands-on AI by Ana Freire, and whether generative AI is a threat to the world of teaching and learning by Pär Mårtensson and John Mullins. The topic of the impact of business school research is explored by Kai Peters and Howard Thomas, and Usha Haley, Cary Cooper and Andrew Jack look at societal impact through sustainable scholarship. Chapters also focus on important aspects of working in business and business schools, such as Dan Pontefract's discussion of loneliness both within and beyond the workplace and the importance of 'finding your people', and insights for developing an international scholar career presented by Miguel Córdova.

This book will be of value and interest to those working in business schools and higher education leaders, as well as policy makers and business leaders seeking insight into how management education will be shaped to support business and wider society.

Hyper-active governance is a new way of thinking about governing that puts debates over expertise at the heart. Contemporary governing requires delegation to experts, but also increases demands for political accountability. In this context, politicians and experts work together under political stress to adopt different governing relationships that appear more 'hands-off' or 'hands-on'. These approaches often serve to displace profound social and economic crises. Only a genuinely collaborative approach to governing, with an inclusive approach to expertise, can create democratically legitimate and effective governance in our accelerating world. Using detailed case studies and global datasets in various policy areas including medicines, flooding, water resources, central banking and electoral administration, the book develops a new typology of modes of governing. Drawing from innovative social theory, it breathes new life into debates about expert forms of governance and how to achieve real paradigm shifts in how we govern our increasingly hyper-active world.

AbstractWhat is the value of including vulnerable people in risk regulation decision-making in the European Union (EU)? This article examines a distinctive approach employed by the European Medicines Agency (EMA): public hearings integrated within safety reviews of medicinal products. The article presents findings from a case study of the EMA's public hearing on Quinolone antibiotics, which was included by the EMA as part of a review process that led to significant tightening of regulatory restrictions on the prescribing of this class of antibiotics. The article argues that the public hearing enabled a group of patients who had been victims of a debilitating toxicity syndrome associated with Quinolone antibiotics to criticise the existing scientific evidence base around the safety of Quinolone. Deploying the quantitative Discourse Quality Index and an interpretive analytical approach, the article shows how patients challenged the evidence base in a manner that was efficacious in advancing knowledge in this area of risk regulation. When physically staged alongside interventions by professional experts, the article argues that patients facilitated a process of "negotiation" of expertise, leading professional representatives to propose methods of coordination in order to integrate the patients' qualitative evidence of their suffering with the toxicity syndrome. Ultimately, this process led to the EMA proposing more stringent future guidelines for the prescription of Quinolone antibiotics in the EU.

In 2017, the European Medicines Agency staged the first effort at democratic innovation within transnational European Union institutions directly influencing the transnational regulation of medicines. Alongside its public consultation on epilepsy drug Valproate, European Medicines Agency included a public hearing involving representatives of patients and testimony from those directly affected by the medicines. Using this critical case study, the article argues from a deliberative democratic perspective that although the hearing in many ways exhibited the traditional shortcomings of elite-driven deliberation, it also demonstrated unexpected and surprising deliberative qualities. Based on new quantitative analysis of the hearing using the Discourse Quality Index, and qualitative observation of over 4 hours of footage, the article argues European Medicines Agency's hearing facilitated equitable access and influence of patients and members of the public who had previously been excluded from decision making on drug distribution. These findings provide important new evidence of the deliberative democratic value of public hearings.

Political scientists are wary of engaging with 'the public' on mainstream and social media because they fear those mediums fail to get across the deep and nuanced argument they develop in their own research. This article suggests a way of justifying public engagement that begins not with debates about the ethical and political concerns of doing this in practice (of which there are many), but how we as political scientists justify public media engagement to ourselves on the basis of the ethical and political process of 'doing' political science. As such, this article identifies the disciplinary basis upon which we may justify media-driven public engagement as an integral part of political science as an academic enterprise. Drawing on current epistemological debates in political science, the article characterises moments of political research as impressionistic exercises, which require public engagement. This means making the public aware of the deep and valuable insights of political science, in a way that sketches out how the discipline can shed light on important social and political phenomena, thereby informing our own scholarly thinking, and that of those we engage with.

AbstractThe European Union relies on decentralised agencies to implement important transnational regulations, such as certifying the safety of medicines. However, the authority of these agencies does not have 'hard' legal status and crucially depends on disseminating ideas and information effectively: what can be termed 'political entrepreneurship'. This article provides the first comprehensive analysis of the political entrepreneurship of EU agencies by constructing a conceptual typology of entrepreneurial strategies. Drawing conceptually on transnational public administration, a new database is constructed of the 'entrepreneurship' of 33 EU agencies in 2014 based on their media communication activities, face‐to‐face networking in workshops and collaborations, and knowledge dissemination and 'learning' exercises. This is mapped against the political salience of agencies in the European Parliament and media. The mapping exercise shows four types of entrepreneurial strategies covering the population of EU agencies: technical functional, insulating, network‐seeking and politicised. The typology is validated through semi‐structured interviews in 11 EU agencies, showing the core characteristics of each type of strategy. The article concludes by arguing that this typology provides an important addition to existing categories of EU agencies based on autonomy and accountability, and advocates a future research strategy examining the interaction between agencies' entrepreneurial strategies and the expectations and reactions of stakeholder audiences.

This article explores the role of social marketing in achieving health equality and social change in the context of obesity, one of the most serious global public health issues we face today. Social marketing has traditionally taken a downstream focus, targeting individuals to change their behavior. This article takes a critical perspective, supporting moves toward upstream social marketing and applying a socioecological model to social marketing theory. At the macrolevel, the marketing activities of some companies and social–economic environment mean it is difficult for some consumers to make healthy choices—for example, food and drink. At the microlevel, there is robust evidence parenting style and quality of preschool education during the critical early years' period of child development profoundly influences long-term health and life outcomes. Ecological models enable social marketers and policy makers to understand which interventions are likely to reduce inequality through sustainable, holistic positive behavior change compared with short-term, issue-based programs.

AbstractCritics of secularization theory have recently focused upon religion's public role to put forward theses about de-differentiation, post-secularity and desecularization. A strong defence of secularization theory has not been forthcoming because its proponents have tended to assume, rather than demonstrate, that religion has lost social significance. Drawing upon a neosecularization theoretical approach that highlights the scope of religious authority, this article examines evidence from qualitative studies of the attempts of English mainstream Christian organizations to bring religious messages into the public space and to engage in welfare provision. This re-assessment shows that religious organizations are increasingly co-opted by secular authorities, in ways neither anticipated by, nor explored in, orthodox accounts of secularization. But rather than blurring "the religious" and "the secular," their distinction is heightened. This situation involves an interlinked and mutually-reinforced declining scope of religious authority at the macro-, meso- and micro-levels, which, it is proposed, constitutes a state ofadvancedsecularization.

Studies of delegated agencies commonly emphasize the importance of accountability for these unelected bodies to secure authority to govern. This article argues that beyond formal accountability measures, developing legitimacy through interaction with external stakeholders is critical to agency authority. In doing so, the article makes a distinctive contribution by applying a new conceptual model based on organizational sociology and identifying multiple dimensions along which legitimacy is lost and won, and hence authority secured. The article presents original findings from a case study of how the Murray–Darling Basin Authority, an Australian water agency established in 2007, attempted to achieve 'political legitimacy'. Findings show that the Agency achieved legitimacy via appeals to common normative/ethical values and developing commonly used information and news outlets, despite facing opposition from stakeholders on the socioeconomic impact of its policies. The conclusion argues that the framework can usefully be applied to other agencies in 'wicked problem' policy areas.