Issue link: https://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/56535
Rethinking the simplistic, short-term paradigm of shareholder value and profit maximization may be the single biggest challenge we face. company, has promised to eliminate negative environmental impact by 2020. Google strictly separates advertising from its search results as one manifestation of its unofficial corpo- rate motto, "don't be evil." Tiffany scrubs its supply chain to protect areas of ecological or cultural value. Pik n Pay, a $6 billion South African company, trains entrepreneurs to become suppliers in an effort to overcome inequalities that are a legacy of apartheid. At the same time, it invests in the long-term prosperity of the South African market. These companies have followed a more complex set of metrics and decision-making approaches than the companies we are reading about in today's headlines. They have inter- esting stories to tell our students about leadership and val- ues—stories that will help our students be less cynical about what is possible. Business schools can use compelling examples of social innovation across the core curriculum, from marketing to general management to finance. Business faculty can use research and teaching to help build an understanding of the potential for better societal outcomes. In particular, they can expand knowledge about what a company needs for long-term value creation, focusing on communications systems, metrics, compensation, and incentives. All these pieces must be in place for business schools to successfully teach social innovation. An Essential Skill Finally, it's critical that business schools offer students the chance to practice raising their voices when they see busi- ness behaviors that conflict with their values or the firm's own stated principles. Such work can be done in an ethics classroom, but for maximum effect, it should be practiced in courses across the core. What we learned from Enron and the current market crisis is that mistakes weren't fueled by lack of knowledge, but by greed, short-term thinking, and pay packages aligned with immediate results. Plenty of individuals could have helped avert disaster if they'd had the courage—and competence— to speak up about the bad behavior they were witnessing. The Giving Voice to Values curriculum was conceived and authored by Mary Gentile and launched by Aspen CBE and Yale University's School of Management. GVV treats the prac- tice of "giving voice" like any other business skill that must be mastered. The program, which was profiled in the July/ August 2008 issue of BizEd, is being piloted in more than 60 business schools in classes ranging from corporate governance to ethics to leadership. Students in the GVV program recall and analyze times in the past when they raised their voices. They script responses to uncomfortable situations they could encounter in their next jobs. They learn how to find peers, build coalitions for change, and craft the most effective arguments. The GVV program offers them essential skills in a world that requires sound judgment to deal with complicated tradeoffs. No amount of regulation will replace the need for internal advo- cates with the moral compasses and skill sets to speak up before it's too late. The Future Looks Bright T he Aspen Institute's biennial "Beyond Grey Pinstripes" survey explores how schools are integrating social and environmental concerns into their curricula. For the 2009–2010 report, teams of researchers will score 70,000 pages of data from 150 MBA pro- grams that submit infor- mation about their syllabi, articles, and courses related to social enter- prise. When we compare preliminary data from the 2009–2010 survey to our 2007–2008 report, we see hopeful signs. We anticipate: • A 35 percent increase in the number of schools preparing students for social and environ- mental stewardship for the 2009–2010 academic year. • A 41 percent increase in dedicated electives and an 86 percent increase in core courses during that time. • More than 90 percent of participating schools to have at least one required course that addresses social, environ- mental, or ethical issues. More data will emerge when research- ers complete the task of scoring the data. Researchers also will review 3,500 syllabi and 4,000 article abstracts on relevant topics. Eventually, the sylla- bi, articles, and course data will appear on a searchable database that will allow users to compare institutions. The database also will enable students and faculty to find peers, whether they organize their work under social enterprise, risk, ethics, sustainability, or supply chain management. More information can be found online at www. beyondgreypinstripes.org. BizEd JULY/AUGUST 2009 33