Mathias Falkenstein, Ulrich Hommel and Annie Snelson-Powell
The purpose of this paper is to enrich the discussion at the intersection of responsible management education (RME) and the pandemic with new views that explore together the…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to enrich the discussion at the intersection of responsible management education (RME) and the pandemic with new views that explore together the inhibitors of and drivers for a strengthening of RME in the emerging context. On the one hand, the pandemic crisis fosters the social role business schools play by supporting the enhancement of the RME rationale as an idealist foundational pillar of responsible business schools. On the other hand, it invites negative pragmatic responses in the light of financial and competitive disturbances that seem to enlarge the opportunity cost of moving RME forward.
Design/methodology/approach
The essay puts forward arguments that help dissect the inherent contradictions and synergies between idealistic and pragmatic business school strategies, as they are impacted by the dynamics of COVID-19. The analysis serves to frame a discourse over the extent to which the pandemic crisis is acting as an accelerator of the RME agenda or instead brings the risk of demolishing what has been achieved so far.
Findings
The authors form an opinion of the emerging factors that promote and inhibit RME in business schools as they grapple with the challenges of the pandemic whilst recognizing the inherent contradictions faced in their strategic choices and resourcing.
Originality/value
In light of the growing emphasis on RME in the literature, this study challenges the degree to which the agenda has already become firmly rooted as a core organizational and educational theme in business schools. By doing so, it delivers an assessment of RME progress as a relevant strategic lever for business schools, whilst nonetheless being at risk of back-sliding.
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Eric Cornuel and Ulrich Hommel
Business schools appear to be slow adopters of responsible management education (RME), though the rhetoric of RME is visible throughout the sector. The purpose of this paper and…
Abstract
Purpose
Business schools appear to be slow adopters of responsible management education (RME), though the rhetoric of RME is visible throughout the sector. The purpose of this paper and the accompanying ones in this Special Issue is to address this apparent gap between substance and image by analysing the barriers to RME adoption and potential ways of overcoming them. The contributions offer insights from a range of different perspectives that will help encourage an informed debate on how to make RME more of a reality in management education.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper analyses the problem within the dominant institutional logic of the business school sector, which is shaped by entrepreneurialism, operational for-profit orientation and externally validated reputation creation. It sets the stage for the other contributions to this Special Issue, which use alternative approaches to analyse the limited progress of RME adoption.
Findings
This paper identifies five potential barriers to RME adoption: students, as “customers”, do not sufficiently value the “R” in RME; the switch from full-time to part-time and online provision precludes the use of pedagogical methods particularly suited for RME; the fragmentation of intellectual production in business schools makes it difficult to implement an institution-wide RME-based learning model; the standardization of educational provision combined with a focus on ranking-related performance indicators moves business schools away from addressing RME-specific learning needs; and entrepreneurialism and business school rankings link RME directly and indirectly to financial impact, which is difficult to determine. In the authors’ view the way forward requires a review of the intellectual underpinning of modern management in combination with the adjustment of organizational routines and more explicit forms of faculty development.
Originality/value
The existing literature focuses on the differentiating features of RME and how they can help to overcome deficiencies in management education as practiced today. This paper and others in this Special Issue adopt the reverse perspective and analyse the reasons for institutional inertia as a starting point for identifying ways of encouraging more widespread adoption.
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Ulrich Hommel, Wenwei Li and Anna M. Pastwa
The spread of entrepreneurial rent seeking (or entrepreneurialism for short) and market-based performance measurement (accreditation, rankings) have transformed many business…
Abstract
Purpose
The spread of entrepreneurial rent seeking (or entrepreneurialism for short) and market-based performance measurement (accreditation, rankings) have transformed many business schools into risk-taking organizations. The establishment of formal risk management activities would represent the fitting counterpart to this development. The purpose of this paper is to examine the state of risk management activities in business schools and evaluates the presence of discrepancies from first-best practices found in the corporate sector.
Design/methodology/approach
The data for this study were collected through a structured questionnaire addressed to heads of internationally active business schools in cooperation with a major international accreditation provider. Non-parametric and parametric methods (logistic regression) were used to analyze the formalization of risk management in business schools, in particular the differentiating role of entrepreneurial rent seeking and international accreditation.
Findings
Risk management is still in the early stages of formalization compared to the corporate sector. The results indicate that entrepreneurial rent seeking does not encourage the institutional establishment of risk management in business schools, while holding international accreditation has the opposite effect.
Practical implications
Risk management has become a focus area of regulators and accreditation agencies. The rising number of business schools struggling financially also serves as evidence that risk taking is frequently not matched by formal risk management policies (further supported by descriptive statistics of the survey published separately). The largely uncontested statement of the R. Lyons, Dean of the Haas School/Berkeley, that 50 per cent of business schools will disappear within the next five to ten years can only be rationalized in the context of risk not being appropriately addressed by business schools.
Originality/value
The paper represents the first empirical study analyzing risk management practices in business schools. The study design follows the approach commonly employed in the corporate risk management literature to capture the design of the risk management process covering governance aspects as well as approaches to risk identification, risk assessment, risk mitigation and performance controlling.
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Business schools are increasingly positioning themselves as entrepreneurial risk‐takers. In doing so, they are front‐runners of a marketization trend affecting the entire higher…
Abstract
Purpose
Business schools are increasingly positioning themselves as entrepreneurial risk‐takers. In doing so, they are front‐runners of a marketization trend affecting the entire higher education sector. In response, governments have begun to subject higher education sectors to systems of risk‐based regulation. The purpose of this paper is to study the likely impact of regulatory change on business school behaviour.
Design/methodology/approach
The article focuses on the financial dimension of institutional performance and draws on the corporate risk management literature to derive general design principles for managing risk‐taking in business schools. These are matched with a review of the regulation literature to evaluate regulatory effectiveness.
Findings
Business schools are facing a double‐hurdle test when managing their risk position. They need to protect their financial solvency with the maintenance of properly functioning risk management systems. At the same time, they will increasingly be subjected to regulatory scrutiny with regulatory shortcomings likely to be mapped into binding but sub‐optimal behavioural constraints. The article offers initial reflections as to how business schools can cope with this double‐hurdle.
Originality/value
Risk management in higher education, here with a specific reference to business schools, has so far been under‐theorized from a financial perspective and, as a consequence, the debate on risk‐based regulation lacks a proper foundation. The article addresses this shortcoming.
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The purpose of this paper is to perform a philosophical interrogation of some assumptions that underpin management education. It offers an analysis of how these assumptions may…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to perform a philosophical interrogation of some assumptions that underpin management education. It offers an analysis of how these assumptions may influence the promotion the responsible management agenda within business schools.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper is a theoretical exploration based on a literature review and philosophical analysis.
Findings
The ontological and epistemological assumptions that underpin management education pose barriers to responsible management education. A combination of ontological and epistemological assumptions privilege an instrumental approach based on simplistic utilitarian premises. These assumptions make it difficult to engage with the long term, relational and complex nature of the ethics and sustainability concerns that are central to responsible management education.
Practical implications
Understanding the assumptions that underpin management education may assist in challenging the current paradigm and rethinking our approaches to responsible management.
Originality/value
The paper pursues the tacit assumptions that may underpin empirical findings around the blockages experienced when schools pursue responsible management education. It takes the research into the current state of business school education further by exploring what informs and sustains its current functioning.
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Amy Klemm Verbos and Maria T. Humphries
The Principles of Responsible Management Education (PRME) are a United Nations led initiative that includes a mandate to engage with voices generally marginalized in business…
Abstract
Purpose
The Principles of Responsible Management Education (PRME) are a United Nations led initiative that includes a mandate to engage with voices generally marginalized in business classrooms. The voices of Indigenous peoples are among such marginalized voices. Inclusion of indigenous worldviews offer opportunities to enhance the capacity of the PRME to contribute to more just and sustainable management and development of humanity. The paper aims to discuss these issues.
Design/methodology/approach
PRME Principle One inspires opportunities to integrate the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (DRIP) and through this confluence, contribute to manifesting the espoused aspirations of the United Nations Global Compact (UNGC) – i.e. the transformation of poverty and environmental degradation toward universal human and environmental thriving.
Findings
Greater attention to relational ethics through critical pedagogy encourages reflection on the paradoxes of the market logic that permeates management education. The outcome in practice of this logic appears to result in ever increasing disparity. Its unfettered trajectory risks both people and planet. An indigenous call to respect all life, including that of the planet, brings the principles of universal inclusiveness to light in a compelling way.
Originality/value
This essay is unique in its call to construe together the PRME, UNGC, Business Reference Guide (BRG), and the DRIP to progress aspirations of inclusiveness and sustainability; and contribute indigenous worldviews for their intrinsic value in critical reflection on the damage caused by the market logic endemic to management education.
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– The purpose of this paper is to reach more clarity regarding the notion of compliance, in particular with regard to relation between this notion and the notion of integrity.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to reach more clarity regarding the notion of compliance, in particular with regard to relation between this notion and the notion of integrity.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper is a conceptual investigation, following a broadly understood Wittgensteinian approach.
Findings
The main result is: there is no such thing as compliance in the full sense of that word without integrity. Compliance without integrity is a pathological case of compliance.
Originality/value
So far, issues of compliance and integrity have either been treated as being essentially separate or as one coming in addition to the other one. If the paper’s argument is correct, this should no longer be accepted. The whole discussion should, instead, take another route.
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The ambiguous response of business schools to responsible management education (RME) is part of a larger problem which is rooted in how science evolves. The purpose of this paper…
Abstract
Purpose
The ambiguous response of business schools to responsible management education (RME) is part of a larger problem which is rooted in how science evolves. The purpose of this paper is to explain how the consolidation of causal-based research in management will produce much more effective theories and teaching materials. Therefore business schools will then have to seriously engage in strong RME practices to prevent scandals from happening and to consolidate management as a profession.
Design/methodology/approach
In total, two models are introduced and explained. First, a comprehensive methodology for theory building that controls for causality and delivers clear and actionable results. Second, a model that depicts the three stages of interactions between variables (relationship, contingency and causality).
Findings
New causal-based research methods are starting to emerge that explain when a particular event will occur and how to “cause” for it to happen.
Social implications
Business schools are not responsible of the current economic crisis. But if they do not find a way to introduce RME practices before the advent of causal-based research their reputation might be severely damaged during the next one.
Originality/value
As many other business school innovations, the first group of business schools that pioneer causal-based research will not only deliver on the promise of RME but also introduce the new generation of successful, relevant and actionable new managerial practices.
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Bob Doherty, John Meehan and Adam Richards
The purpose of this paper is to gain a greater depth of understanding of both the pressures and barriers for embedding responsible management education (RME) within business and…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to gain a greater depth of understanding of both the pressures and barriers for embedding responsible management education (RME) within business and management schools.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper utilises a longitudinal case study design of six business/management schools.
Findings
This research identifies a set of institutional pressures and barriers for RME in the business schools selected. First, the pressures appear to come from a number of external business school sources and the barriers from a series of organisational resource and individual factors.
Research limitations/implications
RME cannot be seen as just a bolt on. The orientation needs to change to view RME as requiring a shift in culture/purpose/identity. Due to the barriers this will require systemic organisational change at all levels and an organisational change process to bring about implementation.
Practical implications
The results clearly show these market pressures are no passing fad. Failure to respond in a systemic way will mean business schools will run into serious problems with legitimacy.
Originality/value
This paper fulfils a need for an in depth study of a number of business schools to identify the barriers to RME. This is now a critical issue for schools and this research has provided a number of practical recommendations which will help business schools overcome the identified barriers.
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The reforms in business schools based on the Ford and Carnegie Foundation reports (Pierson, 1959; Gordon and Howell, 1959) have been very successful in embedding management in a…
Abstract
Purpose
The reforms in business schools based on the Ford and Carnegie Foundation reports (Pierson, 1959; Gordon and Howell, 1959) have been very successful in embedding management in a research-based body of knowledge, thereby elevating the academic status of business administration. These reforms, however, did nothing toward making management more socially trustworthy or management education more responsible. In the light of the pressing economic, social and environmental crises the world is facing, the feeling is spreading that not only business and economics but business schools also need to change fundamentally, if they want to be a provider of solutions to these crises and thereby keep and regain their legitimacy. The purpose of this paper is to provide a critical analysis of the fundamental challenges facing the role of business schools and their contributions in the areas of education, research, managing faculty, and role of the business school. It presents suggestions what responsible management education for a sustainable world could and should look like.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper builds on the existing literature on the needed changes in business schools and has been written as part of a large international project, the 50+20 initiative (www.50plus20.org), which was developed by a broad coalition of organizations with the World Business School Council for Sustainable Business (WBSCSB), the Globally Responsible Leadership Initiative (GRLI) and the UN Principles for Responsible Management Education (PRME) at its core and 16 business schools and organizations from all around the world as supporters (Muff et al., 2013).
Findings
Business schools need to transform themselves fundamentally, if they want to be a provider of solutions to the crises of responsibility and sustainability and thereby keep and regain their legitimacy.
Originality/value
The paper pulls together insights from a diverse area of literature and develops practical conclusions.