It seems that everyone has an opinion about how business should be taught. Management education – particularly at the graduate level – is under fire as being too rigorous, not rigorous enough, too trendy, not keeping up with current trends, or irrelevant.
Indeed, some academics argue that MBA programs teach precisely the wrong things and reward faculty for what they view as inappropriate behavior. Meanwhile, front and center in the media are concerns about ethical issues and how business schools may contribute to ethically dubious decisions by their former students, now in corporate leadership roles.
Following directly on the heels of the Enron debacle, we witnessed a meteoric rise in required ethics content in business school courses across the country. Yet an informal 2007 poll of deans suggests that faculty and administrative commitment to ethics as core contest of business schools is once again waning.
Simultaneously, businesses are responding to concerns about the environment, global warming and social justice, as well as their more time-honored concerns of short- and long-term financial viability. Skills once considered optional – such as values-based leadership and ethical decisionmaking – are now required for business success. According to The Wall Street Journal, 84 percent of corporate recruiters consider awareness and knowledge of corporate social responsibility to be important. The journal Corporate Board reports that more than 80 percent of executives at U.S. multinational companies rate sustainability as either essential or very important in their decisions.
Results of a recent survey by Net Impact of more than 2,000 MBA students suggest that a majority of them believe that social and environmental topics should be integrated into the business school curriculum and plan to look for jobs with socially responsible companies during their careers. Many of those surveyed expect business employees to consider the social and environmental implications of business decisions, yet they believe that few corporations currently are improving society.
Writers from John Elkington to Thomas Friedman have observed that we are entering a period of extraordinary change in our companies and our ways of doing business. Business education is in a parallel state of flux. The rapidly shifting landscape presents us with an opportunity to shape how important issues are framed and resolved. And make no mistake about it: At stake is no less than the future of how to educate the next generation of business leaders.
Business schools around the world face these issues. We struggle with the right doses of theory and application, as well as making our MBA programs distinctive, high-quality and responsive to the needs of employers – without giving way to fads.
But where we do not experience conflict is in thinking about what kind of student we want to graduate. Our intent has always been that our students will contribute to their own advancement as well as that of their employers, and to the well-being of others around the world. In short, we have built a curriculum and culture over the past two decades that encourages making a living while making a difference, and that profit is a result of doing good.
We live in a world where the population is growing at more than 30 percent per year in the less-developed world, but is stagnant in the developed world. The richest 225 people on earth have annual incomes equal to the poorest 2.7 billion people. Social and political unrest is greatest in the poorest countries, but what happens even in the most remote location can have a tremendous effect on our global economy.
We can no longer afford to be passive observers, but instead must make business the solution to some of the challenges facing the world in the next generation. This includes bringing economic activity (and wealth creation) to the least developed parts of the world, while simultaneously guaranteeing that the natural resources on which we all rely are sufficient for generations to come.
Business can provide answers to some of the most vexing problems that will face us in the years ahead. Creating more opportunities for people to make a living – increasing the size of the proverbial pie – is one answer. More than government, non- governmental organizations or the best intentioned private citizens, business can do good in order to make a profit. For-profit businesses are a very effective mechanism to address even the most difficult social, environmental and economic challenges.
What is increasingly clear is that an MBA is becoming the standard for people who want to go beyond individual contributions to make a difference in the enterprise-and the world. At Daniels, we are developing a new curriculum for our MBA students that will emphasize both wealth creation and wealth distribution via capitalism and private enterprise. We believe that a truly competitive business must align corporate and community values, and that a profitable business depends on global sustainability.
In business, it’s not enough to know the difference between right and wrong. Sometimes you have to understand what the people affected by your decisions consider right and wrong. Do they believe you’re creating jobs or exploiting a cheap labor pool? In a world where the rules of business have changed, leaders need the technical skills and a sound ethical foundation to make the complex decisions required by diverse stakeholders.
