Issue link: http://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/57462
Sustainable Innovation by David Cooperrider I had what I call my "Drucker moment" in March 2003, when I had my last conversation with business visionary Peter Drucker. I visited his home to ask his advice regarding a new research program on social responsibility that we were launching at Case Western Reserve University's Weatherhead School of Management in Cleveland—a program that would become the Center for Business as an Agent of World Benefit (B.A.W.B.). Excited and passionate, I talked to him about the moral argument for social responsibility; I shared inspiring stories of business acting as a force for achieving peace and eradicating extreme poverty. I argued that our research would answer the perennial question, "Can social responsibility also be profitable?" Drucker, then 93, smiled and laughed at my misdirected enthusiasm—he told me I was asking the wrong question. It's not whether social responsibility can be profitable to business, he said, but rather how profitable business can make social respon- sibility. That day, he declared to me something we should all remember: "Every single social and global issue of our day is a business opportunity in disguise." More businesses are now discovering the truth of Drucker's statement, and as they do, business schools also are taking giant leaps in promoting sustainability. More programs are teaching socially responsible business leadership, driven, in large part, by three pivotal ideas: 32 BizEd JULY/AUGUST 2008 It may have been a long time coming, but business is embracing the opportunities that sustainability and design have to offer—and business schools are rising to the challenge.