Business
In times of economic challenge, creativity has been shown to be the most important quality in leadership. To be successful, business leaders of the future need to have more than just the paperwork that proves they are smart. They need to act on this brainpower—networking, embracing challenges and developing fresh ways of thinking.
A strong focus on creativity in the Massey Business School has led to the formation of a Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship Research Centre on the Albany campus with cross-college links. On the Wellington campus, the College hosts the New Zealand Centre for Small and Medium Enterprise Research, which looks at the entrepreneurs behind New Zealand’s largest business community.
In practice this means ensuring that the interplay between diverse disciplines is kept alive. Massey’s School of Management and College of Creative Arts teamed up to offer a BA in business and fashion, the first of its kind. Students in the five schools of the Massey Business School—Accountancy, Aviation, Finance and Economics, Management and Communication, Journalism and Marketing—are offered course choices such as Entrepreneurship, Innovation and Creativity, New Ventures, Entrepreneurship and Small Business, and Enterprise Development, along with other supporting courses such as Creative Processes.
Community engagement is also a priority. Our Massey Business School hosts high-profile competitions such as the Young Enterprise Challenge and Global Enterprise Challenge, actively seeking and nurturing creative talent at high-school level. The University’s ecentre has a crucial role to play in the creative strategy. With successes like SpeechSchool.TV, a business that helps migrants learn to speak the local lingo, ecentre helps to turn outstanding creative ideas into commercial reality. In placing creativity at the heart of its strategy, Massey University is a driving force in the positive future of New Zealand’s economy.
A creative approach demands practicality and lateral thinking. The Massey Business School’s Arts and Leadership Festival, organised by Dr Ralph Bathurst, explores what the arts can teach us about our interactions in management. A recent Festival explored issues in contemporary leadership practice by drawing on lessons from Haydn’s Europe with music by the New Zealand String Quartet.