B-School: Active Lessons in Sustainability
There will always be a few adherents of old-fashioned, "robber baron" capitalism with the view that sustainability—not to mention the whole concept of corporate social responsibility—has no place in the cutthroat world of business. Most of us have come to accept its value, not just as a good thing to do, but as a commercial imperative. One of the latest pieces of research on the subject, for example, by C.B. Bhattacharya of Germany's European School of Management and Technology (ESMT Full-Time MBA Profile) and Xueming Luo of the University of Texas at Arlington seems to conclusively prove that even a modest improvement in CSR ratings can deliver increase annual profits.
It's not surprising, therefore, that the teaching of sustainable and responsible approaches to corporate management is now as commonplace as the teaching of entrepreneurship on business school campuses around the world. But what is the best way to get the message across in MBA programs? Should schools focus on making the academic case for doing the right thing, or will students only get the point if they are prompted by their teachers to put theory into immediate practice? The problem with the former is that it risks turning CSR into something of a classroom debate, easily forgotten once back in the workplace. The problem with the latter is that it can become an extension of a student charity that seems to have no relevance to the challenges faced by front-line business managers.
