Certain countries have become renowned for specific capabilities: Germany for excellence in engineering, Japan for assembly of electrical appliances, France for style. Could Australia become renowned for excellence in developing business leaders?

Business educators from Charles Sturt University (CSU) and the International Marketing Institute of Australia (IMIA) Centre for Strategic Business Studies believe that Australia can build on its leadership success in other fields to become renowned for the development of business leaders.

In May this year, CSU and IMIA will offer a Doctor of Business Leadership degree, designed to facilitate the development of business leaders preparing to assume leadership responsibility for large-scale, multi-national business organisations.

According to the Head of the School of Business at CSU, Dr Michael O’Mullane, a world-class business leader combines an understanding of day-to-day leadership practices with the courage to ethically implement a challenging vision for the business, capable of delivering positive results for all stakeholders.

“Australia’s disproportionately high success in sport and the media, compared to countries with larger populations, its multicultural society and low cost, highly educated workforce, are all advantages that have already been leveraged by major corporations in recruitment and development of their future overall global leadership, as exemplified by Colgate, Unilever, Glaxo and others,” said Dr O’Mullane.

IMIA Head, Professor Ramzi Fayed, said the course was designed to respond to needs identified through surveying corporate leaders in a number of large Australian corporations. Drawing insights regarding business leadership practice from the experience of successful business leaders, and preparing the participants to deal effectively and ethically with emergent business leadership issues, are the pillars upon which this unique program has been designed.

“The course, which enrols participants by invitation only, fills an important niche in the further education for business leaders in major corporations. Currently, most formal courses for such corporations focus on the needs of junior and middle managers,” Professor Fayed said.

The program will be delivered via the Internet, supported by personalised coaching and workshops.