Case Writing Centre
The Doing Business in Africa case collection supports faculty in writing high-quality teaching cases. These teaching cases aim to place as a collection with a top global case provider. The School’s Case Writing Centre (CWC) has also developed a new, digital approach to creating short, online cases. These cases, which are aimed at a diverse audience of practitioners, students and others, and which the school makes available at no charge, consist of multiple parts—often a short case, a related infographic, a podcast and an analysis of the case written by a GSB faculty member and an alumnus. These pieces are released one per week on the CWC’s LinkedIn page with encouragement for readers to comment and engage. Full cases are archived and freely available on the CWC’s website.
Faculty Excellence
Between 2019 and 2023 the School’s faculty published 13 articles in journals that appear on the Financial Times’ top 50 list. In 2022 the UCT GSB faculty published 41 articles in peer-reviewed journals, four book chapters and 13 conference proceedings. Associate Professor Jess Auerbach, one of the School’s new hires, received a “P” rating from the South African National Research Foundation. Also known as the “NRF President’s Award.” The P rating is awarded to young researchers “who, on the basis of exceptional potential demonstrated in their published doctoral work and/or their research outputs in their early post-doctoral careers, are considered likely to become future international leaders in their field.”
Teaching Impact
The School has recently been able to directly benchmark the quality and impact of its teaching against other business schools through student evaluations within the CEMS network. In 2022, the first year in which the UCT GSB participated in the CEMS programme, the GSB's Global Citizenship Seminar received the highest score out of 34 CEMS schools, and the GSB’s skills seminar and purpose workshop was awarded a joint first place with University of Sydney. The GSB also achieved a joint second place ranking with London School of Economics and IIMC for the Term 2 CEMS Elective course offering.
Portfolio of Executive Education programmes
Executive Education Customised Financial Times Ranking - the GSB’s extensive non-degree Executive Education portfolio is subject to a series of processes that ensure high quality and continuous improvement. The GSB’s customised programmes have ranked on the Financial Times Top 100 ranking for 14 consecutive years. Most recently, the GSB reached 48th globally in the 2023 ranking while the School’s open enrolment programmes were ranked 63rd, for the second consecutive year.
The programme offering through Executive Education include programmes such as the UCT GSB Property Development Programme in partnership with South African Property Owners Association (SAPOA), running the 52nd cohort this year and a newer portfolio of international immersions focussed customised programmes. These include:
- ABSA Transcend - International Executive Development Programmes included international immersions at international companies, have taken the first two cohorts to Kenya, Ghana and Boston
- Ambatovy Mines – International Senior Leadership Development Programme – multi-city/country delivery from the Northeast Coastal mining town of Toamasina in Madagascar, to Skukuza, to Cape Town and Perth, Australia
- Imperial DP World - International Executive Development Programmes that include immersion in Amsterdam and Rotterdam where they visited Apple, Google and the Port of Rotterdam
The Customised Academic Postgraduate Diploma in Management Practice (PGDIP) is an NQF 8 qualification run for corporate clients Telkom, RandWater and NamWater. In addition, the Customised Academic Advanced Diploma in Management Practice (ADMD) is an NQF 7 qualification offered to these corporate clients.
Accolades which the Executive Education team are proud of are the high levels of satisfaction from key clients. These are:
- Net Promoter Score from clients at 92%
- Client retention rate at 88%
- Key new clients acquired in 2023: Nedbank, ABSA, Ambatovy, Imperial DP World, W&R SETA and ENGEN
- New Study Tour partners in 2023: ESMT Berlin, University British of Columbia Sauder School of Business, London School of Economics (LSE), Mathias Corvibus Collegium (MCC), Hungary. They welcomed back many returning study tour partners following a hiatus due to the pandemic
Emphasis on social innovation, impact, sustainability and long-standing sustainability
The School’s expertise in social innovation and sustainable growth, as well as students’ opportunities to engage with local entrepreneurs at the GSB’s facility in Philippi Village, consistently garners international attention. For example, Corporate Knights ranked the GSB’s MBA 22nd on its Better World ranking of global business schools in 2021. Link to the Bertha Centre.
