The GRLI’s first event for 2015 was held on 29 January ahead of the 2015 EFMD Deans and Directors General Conference in Barcelona. Our aim was to convene and initiate a discussion on the Responsible Management Education ecosystem and to explore how the various organizations and initiatives in the landscape may scale their collective impact. We were fortunate to be joined by more than 30 representatives including five “conversation starters”:
- Alfons Sauquet, Chair, The Academy of Business in Society and Global Dean, ESADE, ES
- Dan LeClair, Chair, PRME and Chief Operating Officer, AACSB International, USA
- Howard Thomas, Former Dean of Lee Kong Chian School of Business and LKCSB Chair in Strategic Management, Singapore Management University, SG
- Sue Cox, EFMD Vice-President and Dean of Faculty, Lancaster University Management School, UK
- Philip O’Regan, Executive Dean, Kemmy Business School, University of Limerick, IE
Philip shared a brief overview of the Values in Action project which was initiated by our pioneering Management Education innovation cohort. Through a peer-based learning process the group developed a draft paper on the implementation of ethics, responsibility and sustainability initiatives in management education. Comments and suggestions on the paper were welcomed via an online survey.
We also announced that the startup meeting for the next Innovation Cohort would be taking place on 7 June 2015 in Brussels.
The panel discussion started out with a recognition that a number of initiatives were taken by the European Union, EFMD, AACSB International and the UN Global Compact more than a decade ago to address business and education conduct regarding the issues of responsibility, ethics and sustainability. These resulted in what we know to day as the Academy of Business in Society (ABIS), the GRLI and later the UN’s Principles for Responsible Management Education (PRME). The discussion on the state and future of the responsible management education ecosystem engaged our four panelists and highly participative audience around the following questions:
- What are achievements and value of the various initiatives to date and today?
- What other relevant issues of importance do we foresee for the future?
- How has the complimentary value of these initiatives played out to date?
- What are the proposals for ensuring impact at scale in the future?
It was felt that whilst a lot has been achieved in terms of placing responsible management education on the agenda a lot more could and should be done to put into practice. There was a range of suggestions about issues that may become increasingly relevant in the context of ensuring progress toward global responsibility. It was pointed out for instance that the unforeseen fall in the oil price places additional pressure on actions to mitigate and minimise the impact of climate change. Participants suggested that greater emphasis needed to be placed on the role of management educators when it came to developing leadership and entrepreneurship as well as ensuring inclusivity and equality in our economic and societal systems.
My key take-aways from the session revolved around ensuring that we collectively future-proof management education to better serve the common good by:
- Developing trans-disciplinary and issue-centred teaching, research and engagement capabilities is key. We cannot possibly anticipate all the emerging topics related to issues of sustainability and ethics, and developing or securing the deep subject expertise required to deal with them will not be possible across all institutions on the short-term. In stead we need to place a greater emphasis on collaborative initiatives and the role of management educator as learning facilitator and guide shaping trans-disciplinary learning and research actions around the relevant issues.
- By convening and starting to actively drive alignment of the responsible management education initiatives across GRLI, PRME, ABIS, AACSB International, EFMD and others we are taking a necessary step towards positioning the management education industry as pro-active partner to business and society when it comes to ensuring globally responsible progress.
