How Business Schools Can Accelerate Societal Change

• Business educators need to ensure they’re teaching students about how systems of business and society interrelate, rather than focusing narrowly on segmented parts of a much larger whole.
• Societal challenges must become an integral part of business decisions; schools can help tomorrow’s leaders develop a mindset that considers the broader world.
• Helping students understand the impacts of business on the environment and individuals’ well-being can shift their thinking about the purpose of business.

Transcript

Jean Oelwang: [0:15] Partnerships with business schools and universities are absolutely critical right now. The education sector is probably one of the most trusted sectors in the world. What an extraordinary opportunity and responsibility to work with business to recreate and reimagine the underlying systems in the world that no longer really serve our interconnected world.

[0:34] I've seen so many times where universities have come in. One of the things that's unique about a university, especially a business school, is that they can play a neutral role and they can convene. Not just build a partnership with one company, but also look at how they can build a partnership across an entire industry.

It's not just one system, the system of the business, but it's how all of the systems operate together.

Amy Hall: [0:51] I know that business schools teach systems thinking. It's important for business schools to teach this concept of relational systems thinking.

[1:00] It's not just one system, the system of the business, but it's how all of the systems operate together. The governmental system, the community system, the planetary system, the business, and the people in the business, all working together for shared goals.

 The business school has an opportunity to do systemic change through reaching to a wide audience.

Alan Jagolinzer: [1:19] Virtually every function in society runs on a business engine. We need finance, marketing. We need fundraising. We need accounting for accountability, transparency, and to prevent fraud in every institution, whether it's the government, NGOs, corporations, churches even.

[1:36] The business school has an opportunity to do systemic change through reaching to a wide audience. We have a lot of people who come into our facilities to understand what's going on in business, but they don't often think about the societal implications of what we're doing, nor do they realize that we're all systemically linked.

Katell Le Goulven: [1:53] Today, every organization has a responsibility in addressing these societal challenges. Business was created part of the problem and now needs to be part of the solution as well. That means that business decisions need to integrate this societal challenge when they are being made.

[2:11] Business school have the responsibility to making sure that every student and participant who come on our campus is both aware of this responsibility but also equipped to try and integrate the societal challenge irrespective of the industry, the company, and the function that they will have coming out of our school.

Most students already come to school with some level of concern about the planet, about the people in their community, any of those kinds of issues.

Jemilah Mahmood: [2:31] In business schools, when you're teaching students, whether they're undergraduate or postgraduate students, we need to talk to them about how their business practices need to ensure that both the social well-being, the health, and the environmental well-being are all in balance.

[2:53] This requires a completely different shift towards one that is perhaps focusing much more on regenerative economics, one where we take into consideration the planetary boundaries, the social flaw that's required for us to allow communities and people to thrive.

[3:13] That requires a little bit of a rethink and a little bit of a revolution in the way we educate people in business and other disciplines as well.

Hall: [3:21] Most students already come to school with some level of concern about the planet, about the people in their community, any of those kinds of issues.

[3:34] You meet them where they are. You create a situation that grabs them emotionally. Whether it's a field trip to a neighborhood that they haven't been in before, or to an environmental disaster, or a cleanup site that they aren't aware of. It could be a film. It could be bringing a speaker in to talk about any of those issues.

It's the professor's responsibility and the alumni to bring in cases to illustrate [societal challenges] for the students.

[3:57] As soon as they understand how the environment and society is impacted by local business, they are one step forward in their understanding and their total passion around these issues.

Jagolinzer: [4:13] It's the professor's responsibility and the alumni to bring in cases to illustrate this for the students. I don't think the students fully are aware of all of this because they're not as globally tuned in as they could be.

[4:28] It's our responsibility as those who have lives who have seen some of this come in to bring that stuff into the classroom.