Client organisations come from a wide range of industries but they all share similar characteristics in that they are mainly SMEs facing growth or sustainability challenges. Very many of our clients are in the third sector, thus they have a focus on solving social issues as opposed to maximising returns.
In 2014-15, 104 students worked with 23 client organisations coming from the Greater Glasgow area.
The students involved in the project are in their 3rd year of a Business degree, thus they already possess substantial knowledge which can be applied to solve the issues faced by the client organisations. Moreover, Business Clinic students receive training on consultancy tools and business modelling in the form of workshops at the beginning of the project.
By the end of the project, each team of students produced a comprehensive report with a detailed strategy and recommendations for each of the 23 client organisations.
Much of the work also took on a practical element such as attending trade fairs on behalf of the businesses or redesigning websites to make these more effective in promoting the business.
Hunter Centre for Entrepreneurship
Faculty of Business
Dr Lucrezia Casulli
http://www.strath.ac.uk/staff/casullilucreziadr/
Themes
From a pedagogical point of view, the rationale behind the Business Clinic is that business subjects are best learned through practice and reflection on practice. Conceptual, classroom learning is objective and categorised but abstract. Real world business problems are fuzzy and interconnected but tangible. It is unrealistic for students who have only been exposed to the former type of learning to perform excellently in the latter type of environment. The Business Clinic exists to bridge this gap. It throws students in at the deep end in organisational issues the origins of which are often unclear and difficult to diagnose to begin with.
The leading tutor for the Business Clinic, Martin Gannon, conducted systematic data analysis of the 104 reflective learning summaries that the students wrote at the end of the project. Some of the themes in terms of student learning are reported below. Students learned a number of skills that they would not have learned otherwise, making the initiative a real success:
The benefits of the initiative were not only for the students but for all stakeholders. Thus, it is worth mentioning those.
Feedback from the businesses was positive with the following comments received:
By assisting these micro businesses in Glasgow, our students will have helped the organisations benefit from sustained growth, leading to wider benefits for the economy as a whole.
Our students accepted the challenges from the businesses with panache, working well with the representatives of the businesses resulting in a successful and meaningful relationship for all involved. Some students were offered positions in the organisations they conducted consultancy for.
The University benefitted as well. The professional manner of the students represented the Business School in a positive light, helping enhance our reputation within the wider business community.
The main lesson learned through the business clinic is that students need to be thoroughly prepared for the steep learning curve and for the uncertainty they will face. They have to be made aware that the format of class they will be engaging with is not subject to the same rules, rights and responsibilities as traditionally taught classes. This was perhaps not emphasised strongly enough the first time we run this class. For instance, students kept trying to please / satisfy the lecturer through performing academically rigorous work that lacked practical relevance. Also, students were uncomfortable with the changing circumstances of their client organisations. Real world problems are dynamic, and not static as the case studies presented in the classroom. Finally and more generally, students struggled with the uncertainty and fuzziness surrounding the daily life of businesses. It wasn’t easy for them to analyse and disentangle issues related to different disciplinary areas, particularly when they were given different interpretations of events from different staff members in the client organisation.
We faced a number of challenges in implementing this initiative. Firstly, we had to obtain access to client organisations before the project has established any legitimacy or track record. Once this hurdle was overcome, all other challenges stemmed from the scale of the project. Hence, those will be discussed in the section below.
Given the number of students and organisations involved, managing the projects was non-trivial. The project required a considerable administrative effort in terms of arranging workshops and meetings. This involved such things as getting nearly 130 individuals in the same room at the same time for the launch event when they either had clashing academic timetables (for the students) or full time, struggling businesses to run.
I believe this initiative can be transferred to other teaching and learning contexts. The Business Clinic itself is already modelled on the Law Clinic of the University of Strathclyde. This initiative can be transferred across any discipline where the practice is key to the development of expertise in the learner as opposed to her developing conceptual knowledge. Key in the transferability is the consideration of the impact that the project may have on the third party that is involved as beneficiary of the students’ practice. In this respect, lecturers should consider the following:
What could go wrong and what contingency measures can be put in place?