Responsible management education: Moving a cow out of a ditch

Responsible Management Education

While the concept of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has been around for a much longer time, mention of Corporate Social Performance (CSP) has been increasing since the 1970s. The difference between the two, although subtle, is significant. A critical component of the CSP construct is ‘social responsiveness’, or the capacity of an organization to adapt its behaviour to social needs.

At this point, it is a no-brainer to stress the importance of going “beyond knowledge” in managerial education to encompass the development of socially desirable attitudes and values by educating students as stewards of society. It would be worthy to argue that civic behaviour can and should be developed in classes and beyond.

In a time where studies of social responsibility focus exclusively on private companies, there has emerged a new area of intellectual enquiry – Responsible Management Education – which looks at the extent to which business schools (B-schools) deliver in response to their stakeholders’ demands.

As serene and beautiful as it feels to imagine a world where people and organizations make the right choices not just for themselves but for the environment and humanity as a whole, currently we are a long way from that world. And in our world, rare is the noble initiative that will be accepted and followed honestly and selflessly.

Despite a strong incentive to issue clear signals in favour of sustainability to their stakeholders, some schools may decouple their espoused commitments from their practices. De-coupling is when B-schools don’t institute actual changes and include sustainability in organizational activities, but rather merely indicate that such change is taking place.

Anyone who has had even the slightest interaction with a B-school would know how concerned they are about the school’s ranking. It is a welcome sign that more and more rankings are considering sustainability and social responsibility as key criteria in their evaluation of a school – since schools would invest in such activities for their reputation. The same is true for accreditation bodies – most of the most recent revisions of standards and principles of accreditation agencies place much more focus on sustainability and impact.

Jako Volschenk uses an anecdote from his youth to explain the push and pull factors that can move business schools towards positive societal impact. To move a cow from a ditch requires someone to push and someone to pull the cow.

While research shows that a new and more progressive generation of students represent a pull force on business schools, the PRME play a critical role in pushing schools towards constantly evolving needs and expectations. Progressive schools lead the way for others to follow.

For Ezequiel Reficco and his fellow researchers, it is imperative that B-schools instil a socially responsible mindset and thought process in students while they are in their studies. Current cohorts of students are the future leaders of business, and should be educated to be stewards of society, and not just future money-making machines. 

This article is based on a research paper presented at the The 2020 Business Association for Latin American Business Studies Annual Conference and currently under review. It was originally published by the Council on Business & Society.