Conclusion: The future for OS and HR educational excellence

This conclusion chapter reasserts how the chapters within this text have provided educational ideas that combine to bridge from the conventional left-bank educational outcomes examined in the Introduction, Chapter 1, that persist still and significantly in the assumptions of many university managers, to the right-bank education outcomes that are essential for learners’ futures. Five broad educational advances are discerned from the chapters of this text that create this bridge, and the chapters aligning with these advances are re-reviewed from this perspective. In interpreting the reflections of the contributing authors on the influence of the pandemic on Organisation Studies and Human Resource Management (OSHRM) education, it is proposed that the recent pandemic can be understood as a catalyst for achieving these educational advances. Significantly, and despite assertions to the contrary, we show how current students, characterised through the contributing student opinion pieces, also support these proposed directions for the future of OSHRM education. Therefore, we conclude this text by proposing that the global COVID pandemic has the potential to be ‘a new dawn for higher education’; that the educational understandings, approaches and methods detailed throughout this text offer a way to confidently cross the pedagogic bridge and to seize the new day ahead.