Case study: RSM Management Processes

RSM governance structure. The dean governs the School6_{. He or she is}

appointed by, and reports to, the Executive board of Erasmus University. As an administrator, the dean is accountable for the operations of RSM, and is obliged to act according to the rules laid down by the dutch Higher Education and Scientific Research Act and the regulations of the University.

The School is organised as a matrix-type of organisation (see Figure 5.1), with the academic departments on one side of the matrix and the programmes on the other. The research and education programmes act as the ‘demand’ side of the matrix. They play a crucial role in the development and implementation of their respective programmes and in the allocation of money through budgets and transfer pricing mechanisms, whereas academic departments are responsible for the delivery – i.e. the ‘supply’ – of the content and for personnel management of the faculty. The programme leaders make agreements with the chairs of the academic departments on the nature and quality of content to be delivered and on the budgets allocated and staff needed to perform these services. In this model, the academic departments are the content suppliers, and at the same time form the home base for all academic staff at different stages of their careers. They house specific expertise (faculty members) in a management field and deliver services to the respective programmes or activities of the School. The academic departments perform as profit/loss centres in the School and have clear organisational responsibilities and financial mandates. The matrix structure facilitates the orchestration of the ‘content flow’ and ‘money flow’ in the School.

6 The case study is developed under proposed material by Erasmus University Maintenance of Accreditation Report for AAcSb Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus Univer- sity, 2008 and 2012.

Source: Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University, 2012

Fig. 5.1. Strategic Management Process in matrix-type organisation

As observed in figure 5.1, RSM has eight academic departments: • Organisation and personnel Sciences;

• Marketing Management;

• Strategic Management and Entrepreneurship; • Finance;

• Accounting and control;

• Management of Technology and Innovation; • decision and Information Sciences;

• business-Society Management. The main programme clusters are:

• The School’s research and doctoral programmes organised via Erasmus Research Institute of Management (ERIM), a joint venture with the Erasmus School of Economics. The management team for the institute consists of the dean of Research/Scientific director of ERIM, an Associate director, a director of doctoral Education and an Executive director ERIM. A programme Advisory board, consisting of the programme leaders of the respective research programmes of ERIM, serves as an internal advisory body to the Scientific director. ERIM also has a Supervisory board, serving as the external sounding board for the Scientific director. The Institute also has its own phd council and research support staff.

• The pre-experience, publicly-funded programmes, responsible for all full-time bSc and MSc programmes. Each of the programmes in this cluster has its own academic director and executive director, and the directorate is primarily supported by its own service and quality control staff. Overall responsibility lies with the dean for bSc & MSc programmes.

• _{The post-experience, privately-financed programmes, concentrated in} the limited company, RSM

Support staff departments. The programme clusters manage their own

programme-related support. given the decentralised support structure, the central support staff at School level is kept to a minimum and organised in the following central staff departments:

• dean’s Office; • Finance and control;

• Human Resource Management;

• corporate Marketing and communications; • corporate and Alumni Relations;

• IcT Support.

Decision-making processes. The structure, the decision-making processes,

and the responsibilities are laid down in the governance charter and by-laws of the School. The Management Team (MT), chaired by the dean, manages the School on a day-to-day basis and executes the strategic choices. Within the University’s governance charter and by-laws, the MT is advisory to the dean, who has the overall responsibility and the formal executive powers, and reports to the University board. The MT meets once every two weeks. by the summer of 2012, the key strategic plans and choices at School level as well as at department level were discussed in a Management committee

(Mc). The Mc was chaired by the dean and further consisted of the MT members, the department chairs, and other key stakeholders, such as the directors of services, a student representative, and a representative of the Faculty council. The Mc platform has now been replaced by the recently established Strategic platform (Sp), where MT members, the chairs of the academic departments, and the key support staff work closely together on the development of the strategy of the School.

In addition to the Management Team and the Strategic platform, there are three more groups involved in decision-making. First, the democratically elected Faculty council, consisting of both staff and student representatives. The Faculty council has an advisory role. Second, the programme committee (pc) monitors educational programmes. The advice of the pc is required for all decision- making regarding educational matters. Within the pc, at least 50% of the members are students.

programme Management is obliged to take the advice of the pc into account, and needs to explain in writing when it deviates from its advice. Third, the Examination board (Eb) is responsible for the final attainment level of students and the correct application of rules and guidelines required under dutch law. To this end, each year it produces the Teaching and Examination Rules (TER) that serve as the legal framework for all educational activities in the given academic year.

Finally, the School’s Advisory board offers advice and expertise to the management of the School. The Advisory board consists of 30 high- level (international) managers from corporate industry, NgOs, and the political arena. The board meets twice per year. corporate and Alumni Relations manages the communications with the board members on behalf of the dean. given its legal status, the RSM b.V., responsible for the post- experience programmes, has a separate Supervisory board consisting of three members, chaired by the president of Erasmus University. The University board appoints the members of the Supervisory board and approves the appointment of the statutory (executive) directors, on the recommendation of the Supervisory board.