According to the World Economic Forum (January 2014), the role of business over time has remained fairly constant: to provide goods and services that people need and want. Decades ago,

business students were taught that the primary, or even sole, role of business was to maximize profit for the owner(s). As famously stated by economist Milton Friedman, “The social responsibility of business is to increase its profits…our first social responsibility is to maximize shareholder profits†(NYT, Sept. 1970).  More recently, however, society has developed higher expectations of business due to increased community and global problems, consumer demands, and changes in employee motivation.

 

Our communities face growing challenges in areas such as public health, education, social

inequality, and environmental pollution. Market-based organizations can play an important role in addressing these challenges through healthcare provision, better housing, improved nutrition, help for the aging, greater financial security, environmental sustainability, etc. (HBR; Stephan, et al).  Due to increasing reports of fraud, corruption, and wrong incentives driving business decisions, society has grown to distrust businesses (HBR). We now expect more of businesses than simply the provision of goods and services – we want these goods to be safe, well-made, and provide good value.  We want business leaders to be ethical, and we want businesses to contribute to the well-being of our communities.  In addition, today’s new employees, the “millennials,†are concerned with the mission and goals of the organization in which they spend their working days. Research (Pink, 2011) indicates that most employees are at least as much, if not more, motivated by purpose as they are by profit.

 

What do these more recent trends regarding perceptions on the role of business in society mean for the education of business students? What is the responsibility of business schools and their faculties in ensuring that business students are introduced to a variety of perspectives and approaches regarding the role of business?  While “debate about the business of business schools continues to rage in academic journals,†some faculty are advocating for a “substantial change in business schools so that they produce, and engage with, knowledge and practices that serve the public interest†(Contu, ACBSP, January 2017).

 

To explore these questions, the three authors (Aloi, King, Ray) from three small, private colleges utilized the Kettering Foundation framework of deliberative dialogue as a pedagogy in several of their business courses. The Kettering Foundation framework involves training groups to address and respond to difficult issues in a systematic fashion by asking a series of questions. Example questions include:  When you think about this problem what worries you? and What is the deeply held belief or principle that drives this concern? This framework is used to facilitate discussions involving difficult subjects. Specifically, for our purposes, business students from our schools participated in naming and framing an issue - the role of business in society - and weighing alternatives utilizing the deliberative dialogue process. We were interested in how this process would function across the different contexts presented in our respective schools. What we found was that this process was effective regardless of the type of student (i.e. traditional vs. non-traditional), the level of student (i.e. undergraduate vs. graduate), and the supporting pedagogy (i.e. class discussion, interaction with advisory board, community involvement).

 

On the content side, while opinions varied on the role of business in society, perspectives deliberated by students at these three colleges included some common themes.  Through a variety of instructional techniques, students considered multiple roles for business and discovered that these simultaneously incorporated economic, personal, and community goals. Discussing the inherent benefits, tensions and trade-offs among these differing perspectives led students to a deeper – and broader – understanding of the various roles of business in communities. Overall, student responses suggested that discussion of the role of business in society is a valuable function to be facilitated by schools/colleges of business and that instructors should be systematic in their approach of these topics.

 

Finally, we were careful to distill best practices for approaching these topics based on the particular groups we were serving and the types of courses we were teaching. Our recommendations are applicable to a wide range of class types from facilitating simple class discussion, to facilitating interaction with school advisory boards, to facilitating community outreach. We believe these best practices can provide a useful toolkit for instructors to assist in leading meaningful conversations about the role of business in society as well as other important topics.

 

We propose an interactive presentation to discuss the results of our implementation of these methods in our courses, the content of the student responses, and the best practices and recommendations distilled from this work. The general outline of the session would include:

I.            Introduction—Introduce the presenting faculty, impetus for the work, and the context in which the work took place

II.            Procedure—Discuss the tools and procedures used in presenting the questions to students

III.            Content—Discuss the responses from students in addressing the primary questions and solicit additional ideas from audience members

IV.            Best Practices—Discuss the lessons learned while undertaking the work and provide suggestions for future implementation

V.            Wrap-Up—Exchange of information with interested individuals

 

 

Works Cited

 

1. Contu, Alessia. (January 17, 2017). “Time to Take on Greed: Why Business Schools Must Engage in Intellectual Activism.†Business Education Week (ACBSP).
2. New York Times. (September 1970).
3. Pink, Daniel (2011). Drive: The surprising truth about what motivates us.
4. Porter, M.E. & Kramer, M.R. (January-February, 2011). “Creating Shared Value: How to reinvent capitalism and unleash a wave of innovation and growth.†Harvard Business Review.
5. Stephan, Patterson, Kelly, & Mair. (July 2016). “Organizations Driving Positive Social Change: A Review and an Integrative Framework of Change Processes.†Journal of Management.
6. The Kettering Foundation. www.kettering.org
7. World Economic Forum (2014). “What is the Role of Business?†https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2014/01/role-business/