UBC’s new dean of Commerce and Business Administration has made fostering strong
ties between the business world and his faculty a top priority.
“We have to take the steps to communicate what we are about to the community
and the business world,” says Daniel Muzyka. “We need to do more with industry
in general — work with them to develop learning programs here at UBC. The dialogue
between academia and the business community has to be strong and direct.”
The Harvard-educated Muzyka comes to UBC with extensive private sector and
academic experience. Most recently, he served as the director of INSEAD’s research
centre for entrepreneurship, 3i Venturelab, and as the associate dean of the
MBA program at the leading business school in France. To him, the best business
ideas often come from the interaction between academic thinkers and business
people.
“We need to be a major node for developing new ideas but we also need to be
open to new ideas and challenges from the business world,” he says.
Vital links can be forged with the business world, Muzyka says, through the
faculty’s participation in conferences, partnerships with industry, roundtables
with business and academic participants, and producing quality students for
the workplace.
Muzyka, who has worked as a strategy analyst for General Electric Co., says
that with ever- increasing global competition, the “half-life of knowledge is
shorter than ever” as business managers continually seek out ideas to improve
their operations. That makes what researchers in the faculty are doing even
more valuable to the business community.
One example is the work of Prof. Peter Frost and Assoc. Prof. Sandra Robinson.
The pair’s research recently brought to light the role of the corporate “toxic
handler” — someone in a company to whom others turn when they need to vent
or who voluntarily shoulders the heat from upper management on behalf of other
workers.
Frost became interested in the topic because of his own experiences as a human
cushion in managerial positions and after talking to executives about the issue.
Together with Robinson, he talked to executives — 70 in all — in Canada, the
United States, Europe and Australia who have either first-hand experience as
toxic handlers or have managed those who did. Their results were published in
this year’s July-August issue of the Harvard Business Review.
Frost and Robinson’s research into toxic handlers has direct implications
for today’s organizations, where employees face constant change and pressures
to perform. They not only identify the vital importance of toxic handlers in
today’s organizations, but also reveal key ways in which they can be supported
in the organization, maintain their effectiveness, and avoid bringing harm to
themselves in the process of managing others’ pain.
It’s an example of the point that Muzyka is making.
“The Commerce faculty’s ideas and research should be impacting the way managers
think,” he says. “And the business world also needs new theories and concepts
as well as applied research.”
Business and community leaders had an opportunity to meet with the dean at
a recent reception hosted by UBC President Martha Piper and Robert Stewart,
chair of the faculty’s advisory council.
The event was attended by more than 150 people, including business leaders
such as Peter Bentley, chair of Canfor Corp., Ronald Cliff, chair of B.C. Gas
Inc. and Larry Berg, president and CEO of Vancouver International Airport Authority.
Muzyka is so keen on the idea of partnerships and communication
between his faculty and the business world that a position has been created
in the faculty to handle just that. An associate dean of applied research and
outreach has been added to the faculty’s roster with Prof. Martin Puterman in
the role.
Muzyka also wants to expand the faculty.
“There is a fierce competition for the best and the brightest,” he admits
as he sits in an office surrounded by yet unpacked boxes. But he plans to keep
UBC among the top contenders for prime academic talent.
Part of that strategy stems from the location of the campus itself. Muzyka
himself was attracted to UBC in part because of what he terms its “strategic
position on the Pacific” and Canada’s tradition of strong relations with Europe.
“I see UBC as a crossroads — a transportation point,” he says. To him, that
gives UBC a distinct advantage in recruiting both top-notch professors and students.
But while focused on his drive to establish a brisk dialogue between his faculty
and the business community, Muzyka is also paying attention to internal communications
as well. He has scheduled a retreat in November to develop strategy with all
faculty members.
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