Case method use in shaping well-rounded Latin American MBAs

Latin America's deteriorating socio-environmental conditions and widely publicized corruption scandals have in recent years led concerned citizens to expect business to play a more constructive role in society. How did Latin American business schools react to societal demands for a rounder education? What adjustments in content and pedagogical methods did those changes imply? This paper seeks to extract lessons from those changes by probing into methodologies likely to be conducive to shaping well-rounded leaders. The analysis shows that the introduction of values in Latin American MBA curricula went hand-in-hand with a change in methodologies used for teaching courses on social responsibility, environmental sustainability and business ethics. The redefinition of B-schools role – from training centers for functional specialists, to catalysts for positive societal change – carries with it an expanded role for active learning methodologies.