In the article, David Grayson argues that, although CEOs and other executives recognize the importance of incorporating sustainability into their firms’ strategies and day-to-day operations, business schools are not doing a very good job of equipping their students to meet these expectations on graduation:
“There are more than 10,000 business schools worldwide. Just 326 have signed up for the UN Principles of Responsible Management Education. Only 60 schools are members of the Academy for Business in Society and 40 are in the Global Responsible Leadership Initiative. Just 149 schools entered the last Aspen Institute's Beyond Grey Pinstripes biennial rankings.”This argument seems counter-intuitive to me, mainly for two reasons:
First, my sense is that CSR/sustainability courses in business schools are growing rapidly and business school professors are both aware of the importance of delivering these issues in the classroom and being proactive in responding to growing student interest in these areas.
Second, I think Grayson gives executives a bit of a free pass. He cites a UN Global Compact study that reports survey data of 93% of CEOs who believe sustainability is critical to their firms’ operations and 96% of them who think sustainability needs to be fully integrated into strategic planning. Apart from the fact that I have always considered such survey data to be suspect (due to the high likelihood of social desirability bias), there is no attempt by Grayson to place these extremely high numbers in context by comparing them with what CEOs are actually doing to bring about the change they say is necessary. He makes some good suggestions for how communication between firms and business schools can be improved, but ultimately argues that the burden of responsibility lies with the schools, rather than the executives who have the power to actually alter the way firms operate:
“Taking sustainability more seriously has to rest with deans and schools' executives. If they do not take this on board, other organisations will fill the void for teaching sustainability skills.”Grayson is Director of the Doughty Centre for Corporate Responsibility at Cranfield School in the UK (http://www.som.cranfield.ac.uk/som/p1080/Research/Research-Centres/Doughty-Centre-for-Corporate-Responsibility). From this and his other pioneering work, I know that he is doing more than his fair share to raise the profile of CSR/sustainability issues both in the classroom and directly with corporations. I am not so pessimistic on the rest of the work being done by colleagues in this area, however, and am certainly less than confident that the very CEOs Grayson cites (and the incentive structures/cultures they establish in their firms) are not one of the largest barriers to progress.
Take care
David
Bill Werther & David Chandler
Strategic Corporate Social Responsibility: Stakeholders in a Global Environment (2e)
© Sage Publications, 2011
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Schools are blind to the sustainability revolution
By David Grayson
627 words
4 October 2010
Financial Times
USA Ed1
15
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/63cf95b0-cd5f-11df-ab20-00144feab49a.html
