Over the past century business schools have mastered mass production. They can teach strategy and accounting until the cash cows come home. The trouble is that this market is increasingly commoditised. Basic finance courses are available at every turn.

Future growth is likely to come from offering practical wisdom and insights into subjects and issues that traditionally have been neglected or ignored by MBA programmes but which are now seen as critical to business success. These include entrepreneurship, creativity, ethics and corporate social responsibility.

For many of the newer business schools this offers a huge opportunity. One of those leading the charge is Nottingham University Business School. Housed on a spectacular campus on the outskirts of the city, the school offers the UK’s first, and so far only, MBA in corporate social responsibility (CSR). Its International Centre for Corporate Social Responsibility was established in 2002 and has a dedicated team of experts including two professors.

As business agendas shift from CSR to sustainability, the school argues that sustainability is more than just an environmental issue; it is also about socially sustainable business retaining a moral mandate to trade.

Examiners call in FBI to crackdown on cheats

Thousands of students are caught up in a probe into websites that reveal GMAT questions

BACKGROUND

• Credit crunch refugees fuel record demand

• Find the silver lining

• Doctors look for words to help NHS recuperate

• Russia’s lessons in capitalism

BACKGROUND

• Time to take a moral lead

• The cold, hard facts about global warming

• Teacher's mission

• All in the big-money game

Nottingham is also entrepreneurially hyperactive with the opening of its Ingenuity Centre under the auspices of the University of Nottingham Institute for Enterprise and Innovation. The centre is a collaboration between the business school and the schools of engineering, chemistry, computer science, plant sciences, the built environment and creative arts organisations.

“We are pioneering entrepreneurship education across all our programmes,” says Professor Leigh Drake, director of the university’s business school.

Nottingham also offers a masters in entrepreneurship and an MBA in the subject. Nottingham was shortlisted as Entrepreneurial University of the Year in this year’s Times Higher Education Awards, the results of which are to be announced next week.

Professor Martin Binks, director of the institute, says: “We believe that it is vital to equip students with enhanced creativity and effective problem solving abilities to help them to grasp and realise the many opportunities that their futures will bring. We aim to demonstrate that large group teaching does not preclude an integrative approach to learning.” The theory is being tested by the reality of success as the number of students taking the entrepreneurship module has increased from 385 to more than 800.

As well as a full-time, one-year programme, Nottingham offers an MBA in finance and an international MBA, which involves studying part or full time at partner schools abroad, such as in Singapore, or at the business school’s campus in Malaysia.

Drake says: “The key for us is to link innovations in teaching to our research strengths. Our approach to teaching is new and integrative, using live case studies and involving local businesses and business mentors.

“We see ourselves as a knowledge innovation hub. This means we are outward facing, pursuing multi-disciplinary links across the university and engaging with business locally and beyond.”

As part of this thrust, Nottingham is launching an executive MBA next January, which will focus on health services management. This builds on the school’s links with local NHS trusts and medical professionals, championed by Professor Graeme Currie, who has examined the NHS and public services from most angles.

Nottinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust and the University of Nottinghamshire recently won £17.4 million in funding to establish a new research centre – Collaborative Leadership in Applied Health Research and Care – to help to improve patient care.

Nottingham University also has a business school in Ningbo, China, and a Division of International Business in Malaysia. Students taking the MBA at Nottingham University Business School come from 31 countries. This suggests to Drake that his school is well positioned.

“Our aim is to become recognised as one of the top five schools in the UK,” he says. “The credit crunch will inevitably call into question existing business models and incentive structures, and also the appropriate relationship between business and society. There will be an increasing need for business schools to take a broader ethical and societal perspective on business and finance.”