Faculty spotlight: Ismail Erturk, Senior Lecturer in Banking, AMBS
Can you describe your journey to The University of Manchester?
Banking was my academic specialism during my postgraduate studies in New York in the early 1980s, when the US and UK were going through major financial deregulation and the globalisation of finance. Manchester Business School (now Alliance Manchester Business School - AMBS) had a banking centre and was doing a significant amount of executive training. The school had a position available and I had some banking experience in Turkey (but believed I would be better suited to academia where research is important) and this led me to apply. My expertise, interest and the business school's strong executive education activity in banking really came together.
You have spent a significant proportion of your career in Manchester – what keeps you there?
You need to like the institution and your colleagues. At AMBS, I have always worked with my colleagues as a team in research and teaching. In my early years at AMBS we delivered courses on finance and banking as a team. I also had the opportunity to develop the first international banking elective on the MBA programme, which was important. Gradually, my research interests converged with other colleagues at the finance and accounting division, just as AMBS merged with other business finance-related divisions at the University and then with UMIST to create The University of Manchester. I then had a new group of colleagues interested in a more interdisciplinary approach to finance and business.
Together, we were early developers of a discipline called ‘financialisation’ and we published on the topic, along with ‘cultural economy’, which brings humanities’ insights into business and economics. I have worked with the colleagues at the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) funded Centre for Research into Socio-cultural Change (CRESC) for 10 years, researching and publishing on financialisation and cultural economy. AMBS has always been more interdisciplinary and more socially oriented than other schools in terms of businesses’ contribution to the economy and society. This was the key reason I stayed – doing the kind of research I wanted to do with my colleagues.
Obviously, there are also many other good things about Manchester as the city has blossomed and become a very important city culturally and economically and has attracted investment. It's also a nice city to live for a family and for children's education.
Were you doing something distinctive to Manchester?
Each academic's career is planned and designed in a different way and career interests develop over time. But what The University of Manchester and AMBS offered was a long-term research relationship. I also teach and research what I like and enjoy - and it has an impact. PhD students wanted to work with me and my colleagues because of the kind of research we were doing. AMBS and the University have the resources for research but it's not just research. I was involved in developing the global MBA programme with colleagues and ran executive education courses on banking related subjects - most recently with Chinese banks. So, I like the portfolio of activities that AMBS provides.
Is your career the one you planned?
I worked in banking for three years but being a professional banker didn't motivate me. I was more interested in research and teaching. But I didn't want to be too distant from the business world, either. I was running executive programmes and some of them were important and influential, such as with Lloyds Bank in the 1990s, when they were transforming into a retail bank. I was programme director, dealing with their senior managers and it gave you a very good insight into what was happening in finance. We also had other developing world programmes. I ran programmes for Turkish banks because finance was growing everywhere.
Through these courses and also the full-time MBA, I always stayed close to the financial world. When the Global MBA started, this allowed us to teach senior and middle management and also to learn from them. This balance worked well for me and I've also done consultancy work as well, engaging with the real world - a good balance of teaching, researching, interacting.
What has changed is that I started doing more work with NGOs and non-profit organisations, especially after the 2007 crisis, which had a big impact on society and the economy. Businesses especially in the financial sector were not focusing on supporting the real economy, society in general or stakeholders and we needed alternative financial practices. NGOs and non-profit organisations have become influential in business and finance. Recently, I've been working with credit unions, a kind of cooperative, socially driven and successful providers of inclusive finance. Currently, I'm doing more research on environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues, and climate risk.
We see you regularly in the Middle East – is this an important aspect of your work?
I'm originally from Türkiy, so I'm familiar with the Middle Eastern culture. I don't think we can understand the global socio-economy over the last 20-25 years without understanding how Dubai has been transformed. Dubai is not just about the Middle East. The history of the Gulf shows it was an important link between Asia and Europe and the Middle East, with many cosmopolitan and multicultural cities like Beirut, Alexandria, Istanbul. Dubai has become a hub because of the developments in the region and reflects rising global and regional income levels and is an interesting mixture showing how globalisation has changed Southeast Asia and Eastern Africa.
Dubai is a global city and as an academic who studies contemporary business issues, coming to Dubai gives me a first-hand experience of this. Through our interactive teaching in the classroom, we learn from our students, as well as teach them. That's very important and not just in Dubai but also in Singapore and Hong Kong. Coming to teach at our locations enriches my teaching and research. Personally, I also like traveling because it’s very stimulating intellectually and also enjoyable for anyone who is interested in a global view of business.
One of my students in Dubai came from Ukraine, speaking no English but setting up a successful software business and studying an MBA. The sense that I can contribute to that person's development gives a particular sort of pleasure and Dubai allows that kind of opportunity for people with good education and ambition in the region.
What new elements are you bringing into the classroom?
The content I teach on the full-time MBA is exactly the same as the Global MBA - it's just the different delivery but the face-to-face teaching time is similar. Workshops are important because they are a more intensive way of learning and group work is the opportunity to change the pedagogical structure to suit different types of learners - our students on the Global part-time MBA are more experienced so it's easier to convey business ideas.
Currently, I am bringing more interdisciplinary elements by working with artists - we have climate risk, environmental issues, increasing social inequality, things I've been researching for a very long time and business schools and other disciplines are now moving in this direction. It gives me pleasure to see that the trajectory of what I'm doing now (ESG) is intellectually linked to what I've been doing before.
Business schools have an important role because our students manage companies and the knowledge they gain and their approach is vital. In the past, business schools encouraged too much focus on profit maximisation and shareholder value. There is now recognition that companies should have more social purpose and contribute to environmental targets as a foundation for socially responsible business. My current research looks at how new paradigms in thinking in the business and financial worlds can be developed so that long-term business and financial decisions also take into consideration societal and environmental issues in a meaningful way. This is a time when businesses and the financial world need to use new language, new analytical tools.
That's why bringing in a humanities approach to ‘value’ is important - because value is central to thinking about business and finance. Traditionally, thinking was about financial return - financial value, share price, profit, and was also very short term - next quarter, next year. So, the concept of value needs to be rethought.
Sometimes artists find better ways to express values, through stories, drama or film. Aesthetic expression can sometimes be more effective than verbal or mathematical expressions. That's why we have this increasing interest in creative industries, the role of design in business and the economy. Branding is also communicating a company's properties and values through aesthetic expression.
So, how do you explore what economic value is when you have increasing inequality, increasing environmental damage?
There are films, novels, poems, paintings that can change people's view of things. I found a musician who works with business in this area by creating ‘soundscapes’ – bringing together sounds around the theme of environment and climate that give you a different insight. I plan to use it this year with my full-time MBAs. The University allows us to collaborate with other faculty and curators at our galleries and museums to engage with the public. Manchester is the right place for these types of innovative activities.