Reflections on our development

Citation

Jones, G. (2013), "Reflections on our development", Journal of Global Responsibility, Vol. 4 No. 2. https://doi.org/10.1108/jgr.2013.46604baa.001

Reflections on our development

Article Type: Editorial From: Journal of Global Responsibility, Volume 4, Issue 2

Since its launch in 2010 the Journal of Global Responsibility has been inclusive of articles on a range of issues. The term “global responsibility” is by definition inclusive and can absorb a large number of topics. Tracking the kinds of articles that have been appearing, it is apparent that the concept is expanding, or to put a finer point, the content is starting to fill out the potential of the concept. In addition to the well established embrace of concerns relating to human rights, spirituality, the environment, labour practices, ethics, fair trade, stakeholder engagement and social equity, we are seeing the emergence of literature reflecting emerging global conditions, interfaith dialogue, supply chain management and the status or perhaps plight of refugees. The journal has also been able to make a contribution through its pages to the wider global effort to give a voice to developing countries.

There has been a second set of issues arising from the experience of the business school and the embedding of responsibility in the curriculum. How do we develop a curriculum that actually enhances and develops the sense of responsibility, without the kind of preaching that alienates many students? These questions are even more important as we are reaching the end of the UN Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (2005-2014). This is a good time to be publishing articles that reflect upon what has been achieved during this decade and the challenges that still lay before us.

To take an institutionalist perspective on the problem of the business school curriculum, the past decade has seen the emergence of high status institutions devoted to the cause of global responsibility, such as the UN Global Compact and the Globally Responsible Leadership Initiative. The higher the status of the institution, the higher the status of its message.

The full effects of this relationship between institutional strength and the strength of the message are probably still to be felt. There are now almost 500 signatories to PRME. Yet a glance through the sharing information on progress reports, which are an obligation of signatories under PRME, reveals many that are lacking in matters of substance. In both this issue and the last you will find articles reflecting on PRME. In this issue in particular you will see an article comparing PRME to the even newer (launched 2010) ISO 26000 standard for social responsibility.

Both PRME and ISO 26000 have been critiqued for a lack of teeth. Unlike the more powerful global compact, so the arguments typically run, no one gets expelled from PRME for a failure to meet commitments. The same comment could be made about ISO 26000.

How then can PRME or ISO 26000 be viable levers for change? The truth is that they would add little value as yet another option in the suite of high status accreditation devices, which include AACSB, EQUIS and AMBA. PRME has set itself up to inspire and encourage identification rather than command and its role is to lead business schools to measure themselves against alternative norms.

The curriculum of business schools faces significant obstacles to change. Universities tend to see their business schools as cash cows, imposing the commercial imperatives that beset all of higher education on business schools to an even more concentrated extent. Many business schools have reacted by relegating global responsibility related topics such as ethics and sustainability to elective status, allowing students to opt in and out as they wish, so that these subjects do not discourage enrolments in what then becomes defined as the mainstream courses. This is understandable but not laudable.

Most higher education institutions want to have a business school of some description, making the business of teaching business one of the most contestable and competitive of all academic markets. If that was not bad enough, now we have the massive open online course (MOOC), a brand new word which already attracts 3.3 million webpages under a Google search.

In global responsibility terms MOOCs are a big issue. We need to distinguish between globalized knowledge and globally available knowledge, which is inclusive of a broad range of cultures, constructs and perspectives. When one subject is potentially taught to millions of students, the knowledge conveyed by that subject will become especially powerful. If the effect is to homogenize what is considered to be legitimate knowledge within a couple of elite institutions, the game will be over and we will have lost.

One of the outcomes of the education for sustainability literature over the past decade is the insight that an alternative to some of these trends is to stop teaching sustainability and responsibility overtly and to become rather insidious. The Decade of Education for Sustainable Development has yielded a wide array of fundamental skills, the practice of which tends to broaden one’s concerns. These skills include systems thinking, visioning and reflexivity. Students are taught to develop a global mindset. Sustainability has been reframed in some instances using business language: terms like business continuity and business resilience. The benefit is that students are engaged in a disciplined practice that tends to lead inevitably to more sustainable thinking without actually badging themselves in the labour market as anything other than “business trained”.

Alternatively, the MOOC may add impetus to global responsibility. Under this scenario, niche courses may be more viable because of the large numbers of enrolments the MOOC can service. It may provide global accessibility to overtly badged, loud and proud responsibility based courses.

Grant JonesEditor-in-Chief