A new MBA program exploring how ‘Indigenous nation building’ can be harnessed to help business leaders and innovators make transformational change in their communities is at the forefront of a new wave in Australian business education.
Developing skills and knowledge in Indigenous nation building is a key element of the newly redesigned Executive MBA (EMBA) at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS).
“To create prosperity we need to make good decisions about things that are important to people’s lives. Indigenous nation building provides opportunity to create transformation for sustainable change for Indigenous people, so they can achieve the positive results they’re looking for,” says Professor Daryle Rigney, Director of Indigenous Nations and Collaborative Futures at UTS.
Daryle, a member of the Ngarrindjeri nation, and one of the lead developers of the new program, says that at its heart, it has been designed to “open up thinking about boundaries and possibilities and allow students to think deeply and innovatively about how to do things differently”.
“What we’re looking at is how can an Indigenous-led governance agenda be used to build prosperous communities.”
Created as a specialised ‘stream’ within the university’s Executive MBA, the Indigenous Nation Building program has been jointly developed by the UTS Business School and the university’s Jumbunna Institute for Indigenous Education and Research.
The program draws on the knowledge and inspiration of 30 years of research from the Harvard Project of American Indian Economic Development, the Native Nations Institute at the University of Arizona and the Jumbunna Institute, which has identified key principles that support successful and sustainable development in Indigenous nations.
These explore the importance of Indigenous-led institutions and organisations and public-spirited, community-minded leadership that use innovative Indigenous approaches to create long-term change.
“What this research explored is how to unlock economic development in Indigenous and Native nations,” says Daryle.
“Indigenous people have been locked out of the economy for a very long time,” he says. “If you don’t have access to economies and finances, you’re too often reliant on others thereby affecting opportunities to make self-determined decisions.”
“There’s a real need for Indigenous nations to be organised, to represent themselves and to be empowered to do things that are important for their prosperity.”
With this in mind, the program deep dives into four key areas, focused on Indigenous Nation Building and Governance, Indigenous Economic Development and Finance, Indigenous Leadership and Changemaking, and Strategy and Risk.
Students also study a dynamic range of core business subjects within the broader Executive MBA, and can choose a broad range of electives from the EMBA’s two other streams, focused on Corporate Transformation and Entrepreneurship.
The program is designed to be highly flexible, with participants encouraged to map their own learning journey from across a range of online tutorials, intensive in-class learning via leadership labs and strategic design studios. It also provides opportunities for all students across the EMBA program – Indigenous and non-Indigenous – to explore the Nation Building subjects.
Professor Robynne Quiggin, a member of the Wiradjuri nation, and Associate Dean, Indigenous Leadership and Engagement at UTS Business School, says the course is designed to add an extensive, new set of tools for Indigenous changemakers so they can be more impactful in their communities, businesses, organisations, corporations or government.
“This course offers so much – from flexible learning, to the opportunity to refresh knowledge of the business basics and then to major in nation building, entrepreneurship or corporate transformation – it is unique,” she says.
“Nation building is a highly innovative way of doing business, it builds on our Indigenous knowledge systems and consolidates our ways of setting priorities and driving change. It’s cutting-edge Indigenous thinking about self-determination in a way that is distinctly Indigenous.”
She says new EMBA complements the University’s popular Bachelor of Business Administration (BBA) for Indigenous professionals, now in its seventh year.
“Whereas the BBA is for early-to-mid-level Indigenous professionals and business owners, we’ve designed the Executive MBA for more senior business and community leaders who want to take the next step in their careers as changemakers leading their communities,” says Robynne.
The courses also vary in delivery modes – the BBA is taught in week-long intensive “block-mode” sessions with a set program of study over three years, whereas the EMBA has greater flexibility, and can be completed in one to two years.
Daryle says that bringing together different bodies of knowledge within higher education is critical in shaping a sustainable, shared vision of the future for Indigenous nations.
“It’s important to build collaborative futures, and to collaborate in a meaning way,” he says.
“What we want to do is shift the thinking – so much of Indigenous engagement is focused on service delivery, often driven by an agenda of ‘Closing the Gap’ – around health, education, life expectancy and social issues.
“These are very important – but who gets to decide on these priorities and agendas? We want support Indigenous communities and nations to have real power in making decisions and representing their people’s interests.”
To learn more about Indigenous Nation Building and other Indigenous business education opportunities at UTS, please visit www.uts.edu.au/indigenous-business