Discover some of our recent publications.
The XOLAS ADVISORS team regularly contributes to the public discourse on the future of higher education through academic publications, blog articles, social media posts, roundtables, workshops, and similar activities. We have always positioned ourselves as forward-thinkers, taking a stance on the critical issues defining the future of business schools and their parent universities.
The Dark Side of AI in Learning
Ulrich Hommel (with Péter Fehér, 2025): Critical thinking enables future leaders to navigate ambiguity, challenge conventional wisdom, and make judgments in complex organizational contexts. The usage of AI challenges the commitment to developing self-aware, reflective, adaptive, and humble business leaders.
How to (Not) Cope with a Deficit
Wolfram Berger and Ulrich Hommel (2025): Much can be criticized about conventional crisis management practices. It appears to be the equivalent of delaying cancer treatment until the patient has reached stage 4 and then using a broad-band, low-efficacy drug as a cure. The authors develop a 5-point plan on how to do it more effectively.
AI-Enabled Career Services
Martin Meyer (with Bernt Blankholm, 2025): The article posits that an AI-driven, end-to-end CV system is not merely a support tool; it can become a catalyst capable of transforming how universities operate, engage students, and partner with employers. If adopted responsibly, AI can become a reliable partner at key stages throughout the entire student journey, from recruitment to graduation and beyond.
Executive Imperative: AI Adoption
Ulrich Hommel, with Péter Fehér and Koen Vandenbempt (2025): To unlock the transformative potential of AI, business school leaders must assume the role of institutional entrepreneurs. They should act as champions of AI integration, reimagine organizational models, and foster agile, forward-looking institutions that are prepared for an AI-driven future.
Leveraging Legal Form
Ulrich Hommel (with Julie Perrin-Halot, 2023): New legal frameworks provide business schools with the means to maintain their financial autonomy while also responding to stakeholder demands to incorporate sustainability into their curricula and operations. This transformation fosters co-creation between academic and nonacademic actors.
Business School 5.0
Ulrich Hommel and Martin Meyer (2023): Business schools must prioritize innovation, interconnectivity, and experimentation as constant change becomes the new norm in business education. This article argues that business schools should depart from their traditional approaches and make innovation the centerpiece of their development.
Digital Shared Learning
Ulrich Hommel (with Kai Peters, 2022): Business schools have to move away from their full-service ‘business models’. Shared learning will contribute to the deinstitutionalization of higher education and the future delivery of degree qualifications. Four forces are at play and act as levers: Micro-credentialing, stackability, cross-institutional shared learning models, and recognition of prior learning.
Continuously Rewired B-School
Ulrich Hommel and Martin Meyer (2022): Business schools must prioritize innovation, interconnectivity, and experimentation as constant change becomes the new norm in business education. In response to disruptive change, business schools must engage in “institutional neuroplasticity.” They need to reconfigure their internal synapses and their connections to the broader ecosystem.
Changing Nature of Accreditation
Ulrich Hommel (with Koen Vandenbempt, 2022): The provision of management education is undergoing a process of deinstitutionalization and will become ecosystem-based, modular, learner-centered, and produced through “unbundled faculty systems.” Consequently, the accreditation process must also evolve in terms of its role, content, and procedures.