Issue link: http://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/56535
Change Is Coming At the Aspen CBE, we've seen hopeful signs that schools are making steady progress on these three mission-critical invest- ments in knowledge and understanding. In the data recently collected for the 2009 version of "Beyond Grey Pinstripes," our biennial survey of accredited business schools around the globe, we've noted steady growth in dedicated courses on sustainability, social enterprise, and stakeholder engage- ment. We've also identified curriculum change efforts in both global brands and regional institutions. At our Web site for teaching faculty, www.CasePlace.org, we've seen a twofold increase in demand for content in the past year. Yet institutional change is always uneven and often mad- deningly slow—the more so because it's not clear who has the power to demand it. Students? Faculty? Recruiters? Donors? The media? It's obvious that if students have any ability to influence the curriculum, values and sustainability will quickly become part of the core. Aspen's most recent survey of student attitudes reveals a student population hungry for practical knowledge about creating sustainable value through business in ways that contribute to the environment and the community. In that survey, 33 percent of respondents said they believe that a primary responsibility of a company is "creating value for the communities in which it operates." Twenty-six percent were interested in finding work that would allow them to make a contribution to society. Other stakeholders don't seem so eager for change. Some recruiters say they want students who are broad thinkers, but frequently that claim seems to be "spin" from the parent company, not the reality that governs the interview process. And with important exceptions, donors aren't leading the parade, either. They will endow professorships and bestow naming gifts to their alma maters even if their schools are not in the forefront of sustainability. The mainstream media sometimes adds to the confusion, particularly with rankings mechanisms that send contradictory messages. In addition, when reporters from BusinessWeek or NPR call us to ask about curricular innovation in sustainability, they want to know what's happening at Harvard, not the Uni- versity of Denver or Washington State at Vancouver or other schools where innovation is happening in unexpected ways. Nor will many business school deans choose to benchmark against these schools. Nonetheless, progressive deans and pioneering faculty continue to advocate for sustainability to be integrated into the business school curriculum, because they believe this is the most important challenge of our day. It is impossible to 34 BizEd JULY/AUGUST 2009 imagine a sustainable future if business sits on the sidelines, and business education is too important and too influential to ignore. In the contemporary mantra, where sustainability is concerned, business education is too big to fail. What Can Be Done At the Aspen Institute, one of our goals is to create healthy debate about what constitutes a "cutting-edge" school and what kind of change is necessary throughout the system. Take, for example, the views of Larry Zicklin, the former head of Neuberger Berman whose name is on Baruch Col- lege's School of Business. Zicklin has strong opinions about the importance of "soft" skills like judgment and critical thinking, and he says we can't surrender individual judg- ment simply because a situation is complex. "Those of us in the education profession have a respon- sibility to ensure that graduates understand that there is a human factor in business, and judgment and experience should trump models," he says. "The system never was and should never be about pure mechanics." It seems that judgment was in short supply during the recent economic disasters. When Enron collapsed, many people believed its problems could be blamed on "a few bad apples." Today's crisis has focused the lens on the entire system. At Aspen CBE, we certainly don't think business schools are wholly at fault for the world's current financial woes. Howev- er, we do believe they bear some responsibility for teaching the narrow focus on short-term financial metrics that flows from the dominant theory of shareholder value. That kind of think- ing led to the exaggerated risk-taking we are paying for now. But while this is a time of crisis, it is also a time of great opportunity for business schools, as individuals throughout the system ask questions about formulating a better model for long-term success. Business schools not only can influ- ence the next generation of business managers, they enjoy remarkable access to the current generation, particularly through alumni seeking guidance and points of connection in a complex world. So what's next? We have two suggestions for leveraging this unique access to business decision makers. The first is to deliver graduates regular and real-time opportunities to refresh their professional education. As graduates confront complex tradeoffs in expanding global businesses, they will need lifelong learning to grapple with evolving issues. Tom Piper, author of Can Ethics be Taught?, once asked how much of the ethics curriculum belongs in the MBA program, and how much in a continuing education pro- gram ten years out. The question has even more resonance