Tracking the Rise of the Impact MBA
UPDATED: While the number of programs featured in Business as UNusual has indeed risen by more than 170% as originally cited, after re-running the numbers the actual increase over five years is 194%, leaving us with an even more impressive rise of impact MBA programming.
About a month ago, a call came into the Net Impact offices from the State Department: Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was interested in how universities are preparing students to develop better solutions to meet social and environmental challenges. How widespread is impact coursework in school programs? her aide wanted to know. Of course, we have this conversation a lot internally. But when we crunched the numbers for Secretary Clinton's office, the results surprised even us.
The number of schools featured in our annual Business as UNusual guide, which provides student reviews of graduate business programs offering impact-related coursework has grown 194% in the five years we've been publishing it. Our first edition featured just three dozen entries, marvels Liz Maw, Net Impact CEO, and now we cover well over one hundred schools.
That's a pretty significant increase, given an MBA landscape that can be sluggish to break from traditional approaches. Faculty can be conservative, says David Levy, Chair of UMass Boston's Department of Management and Marketing, and recent Aspen Institute Pioneer Faculty award winner. So it tends to be led by cheerleaders: activist faculty who champion these areas.
This sentiment is echoed by Lina Alfieri Stern, Director of the Levy-Rosenblum Institute for Entrepreneurship at Tulane University. You're working in a bureaucratic institution, she points out, and each department's mission is to provide specialized knowledge in its specific discipline. So by nature you work in these silos.To better educate tomorrow's business leaders, many schools are now breaking down these silos, and exploring new ways to integrate environmental and social issues into business curriculum.
Students as Drivers of Change
Tulane's Stern points to the increase in students who are pushing schools to reevaluate traditional curriculum. With the unemployment situation, young people are growing up with the sense that companies aren't necessarily going to take care of them and they need to create their own opportunities, she explains. So in large part, the rise in programming is driven by this bottom-up approach of students really expecting more...because of the internet, we're more connected to the rest of the world, more connected to other people's suffering, more connected to the problems that are intrinsic in our world. And students are looking for solutions to these problems.
What makes Business as UNusual such a unique resource for students who are evaluating an MBA program is that the more than one hundred schools included are all reviewed by students currently enrolled in these programs. The result highlights an extremely varied landscape of teaching approaches, informed by what each school sees as important to its students, its faculty, its business model, and to the job market in general.
A Varied Teaching Landscape
Is environmentalism itself a discipline, asks David Levy, or is it an application of business? It's not an easy question to answer; some schools lean toward the former, and offer specialized certificate programs, concentrations, or entire degree programs. There's something to be said for the specialized certificate program for people who do want that branding when they go into the marketplace, says Levy. On the other hand, he continues, It's still considered risky to make that the only interest.
This may be because there are very few jobs that carry the 'green' label, such as Chief Sustainability Officer. So many schools try to prepare students to make an impact from otherwise conventional roles. At the Center for Sustainable Enterprise and Regional Competitiveness at UMass Boston, where Levy serves as Director, what we hear from employers is that they want somebody who is excellent in their primary area (such as accounting or marketing), and can also demonstrate some knowledge and passion about sustainability.
To answer this marketplace need, a more interdisciplinary approach may be more called for. That's the thinking behind UMass Boston's new PhD in Business Administration track, Organizations and Social Change, which focuses on issues at the intersection of business and society, such as sustainability, workforce diversity, economic development, and globalization.
Even at the undergraduate level, interdisciplinary programs are becoming more ubiquitous. Tulane University, for example, is launching an undergraduate minor in social innovation and social entrepreneurship this fall that addresses topics as far-reaching as the history and role of social entrepreneurship, using design thinking to solve social problems, and cross-sector collaboration.
But programming like this does not come without challenges. Getting buy-in from faculty and administration is one thing - actually implementing an entire program is another. "Even after the critical mass of students, faculty, and staff buy into the idea of such an interdisciplinary program," says Rebecca Otten, Program Coordinator for Social Innovation at Tulane's Center for Engaged Learning and Teaching, "it's difficult to determine how the program can run on a daily basis within existing structures."
So What's a Student to Do?
With so many choices now open to students interested in studying impact issues, it can sometimes be tough to know where to start. A lot of times, students really have to go hunt, says Lina Alfieri Stern. They have to go see somebody at the business school, then go see somebody at the engineering school, and so on - they kind of have to do this on their own. As long as the schools have those resources and the students have the initiative they can get it done, but forward-looking schools have set up those systems so students can find what they need in one place.
That's why Stern recommends looking closely at what specific resources a given school does offer to students interested in social and environmental issues. Are those resources institutionalized and easy to access? Of course, publications like Business as UNusual, or the Aspen Institute's Beyond Grey Pinstripes, can help. David Levy says the best of these resources consider an interdisciplinary view, and make sure their rankings reflect that. (Business as UNusual covers everything from one-off classes, to core curriculum integrating social or environmental issues, and even dedicated degree programs.)
Ultimately, says Levy, students should be looking for a good program across the board in terms of quality and reputation, and for faculty who are committed and interested. He also recommends knowing what issues you're most interested in, be it environmental conservation, workforce diversity, government regulation, or something else, because different universities have different focuses and strengths.
Whatever and wherever you choose to study, the key to success is being proactive. Young people today more than ever are empowered to try to create a better world, says Tulane's Stern. I mean, young people have always tried to create a better world. But nowadays, young people believe they can.
