IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsusta/v12y2020i15p6083-d391297.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Will Businesses and Business Schools Meet the Grand Challenges of the Era?

Author

Listed:
  • Sandra Waddock

    (Carroll School of Management, Boston College, Chestnut Hill, MA 02467, USA)

Abstract

Meeting today’s grand challenges means changing the economics paradigm that informs both business practice and business/management education. This paper asks whether business schools meet the challenges of the 21st century and argues not without shifting away from the core—neoliberal—paradigm of economics. This essay makes the following argument. Paradigms shape narratives. Changing core narratives is a powerful lever for transformation. Narratives are constructed of core ideas (memes) that replicate readily from mind to mind. Neoliberalism’s memes are pervasive and highly resonant in business schools. To move towards sustainability, the fundamentals taught in business school need to shift away from neoliberalism’s tenets towards what gives life to economic systems. From a theory perspective, neoliberalism’s lack of attention to social and ecological consequences of economic activity plays a large part in shaping today’s crises, including the pandemic, climate change, and biodiversity loss. A new/next economics paradigm is needed that shifts away from an emphasis on only financial wealth and constant economic growth on a finite plant towards life-centered economies that foster wellbeing and flourishing for all, creating what scholars call collective value. The result of this analysis is a conceptualization supporting new memes that include collaboration and competition, stewardship of the whole system, a cosmopolitan to local sensibility, and recognition of humanity’s deep embeddedness and connection with other people, other beings, and nature. The article concludes that business schools need to meet this challenge head on, changing the fundamentals of what is taught and why.

Suggested Citation

  • Sandra Waddock, 2020. "Will Businesses and Business Schools Meet the Grand Challenges of the Era?," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(15), pages 1-11, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:12:y:2020:i:15:p:6083-:d:391297
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/15/6083/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/15/6083/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Sandra Waddock, 2016. "Foundational Memes for a New Narrative About the Role of Business in Society," Humanistic Management Journal, Springer, vol. 1(1), pages 91-105, September.
    2. L. Lovins, 2016. "Needed: A Better Story," Humanistic Management Journal, Springer, vol. 1(1), pages 75-90, September.
    3. Nicola Pless & Thomas Maak, 2011. "Responsible Leadership: Pathways to the Future," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 98(1), pages 3-13, January.
    4. Thomas Maak & Nicola M. Pless, 2006. "Responsible Leadership in a Stakeholder Society – A Relational Perspective," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 66(1), pages 99-115, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Gerard Farias & Christine Farias & Isabella Krysa & Joel Harmon, 2020. "Sustainability Mindsets for Strategic Management: Lifting the Yoke of the Neo-Classical Economic Perspective," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(17), pages 1-14, August.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Michael Pirson, 2020. "A Humanistic Narrative for Responsible Management Learning: An Ontological Perspective," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 162(4), pages 775-793, April.
    2. Ulrich Müller & Armin Lude & Dawson R. Hancock, 2020. "Leading Schools towards Sustainability. Fields of Action and Management Strategies for Principals," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(7), pages 1-20, April.
    3. Christof Miska & Mark E. Mendenhall, 2018. "Responsible Leadership: A Mapping of Extant Research and Future Directions," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 148(1), pages 117-134, March.
    4. Chris Laszlo & Sandra Waddock & Anil Maheshwari & Giorgia Nigri & Julia Storberg-Walker, 2021. "Quantum Worldviews: How science and spirituality are converging to transform consciousness for meaningful solutions to wicked problems," Humanistic Management Journal, Springer, vol. 6(3), pages 293-311, December.
    5. Thomas M Maak & Nicola M Pless & Christian Voegtlin, 2016. "Business Statesman or Shareholder Advocate? CEO Responsible Leadership Styles and the Micro-Foundations of Political CSR," Post-Print hal-01480535, HAL.
    6. Vincent Giolito, 2015. "Toward a unified "Theory Y" of leadership: Leader self-awareness, ethics and integrity as key attributes of positive leadership," Working Papers CEB 15-043, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    7. Michael Pirson, 2017. "Better Stories Needed: How Meaningful Narratives can Transform the World," Humanistic Management Journal, Springer, vol. 2(1), pages 1-6, October.
    8. Sandra Waddock, 2021. "Wellbeing Economics Narratives for a Sustainable Future," Humanistic Management Journal, Springer, vol. 6(2), pages 151-167, July.
    9. Anna-Mari Simunaniemi & Mira Valkjärvi & Riikka Franzén & Sari Liikala & Jaana Tähtinen & Kati Suomi & Jaana Jeminen, 2023. "Microentrepreneurs as Socially Responsible Leaders," South Asian Journal of Business and Management Cases, , vol. 12(1), pages 14-30, April.
    10. Xueting Jiang & Bogdan Prokopovych & Garett DiStefano, 2022. "Leveraging A Lenient Category in Practicing Responsible Leadership: A Case Study," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 181(2), pages 413-425, November.
    11. Katrin Muff & Coralie Delacoste & Thomas Dyllick, 2022. "Responsible Leadership Competencies in leaders around the world: Assessing stakeholder engagement, ethics and values, systems thinking and innovation competencies in leaders around the world," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 29(1), pages 273-292, January.
    12. Amy L. Fraher, 2022. "Disobeying Orders’ as Responsible Leadership: Revisiting Churchill, Percival and the Fall of Singapore," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 175(2), pages 247-263, January.
    13. María Helena Jaén & Ezequiel Reficco & Gabriel Berger, 2021. "Does Integrity Matter in BOP Ventures? The Role of Responsible Leadership in Inclusive Supply Chains," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 173(3), pages 467-488, October.
    14. Xinyue Zhang & Dian Li & Xintong Guo, 2022. "Antecedents of Responsible Leadership: Proactive and Passive Responsible Leadership Behavior," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(14), pages 1-22, July.
    15. Bilal Afsar & Ahsen Maqsoom & Asad Shahjehan & Sajjad Ahmad Afridi & Adnan Nawaz & Hassan Fazliani, 2020. "Responsible leadership and employee's proenvironmental behavior: The role of organizational commitment, green shared vision, and internal environmental locus of control," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 27(1), pages 297-312, January.
    16. Thomas Maak & Nicolas Stoetter, 2012. "Social Entrepreneurs as Responsible Leaders: ‘Fundación Paraguaya’ and the Case of Martin Burt," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 111(3), pages 413-430, December.
    17. K. V. James & R. G. Priyadarshini, 2021. "Responsible Leadership: A New Paradigm for Organizational Sustainability," Management and Labour Studies, XLRI Jamshedpur, School of Business Management & Human Resources, vol. 46(4), pages 452-470, November.
    18. Cheng, Ken & Wei, Feng & Lin, Yinghui, 2019. "The trickle-down effect of responsible leadership on unethical pro-organizational behavior: The moderating role of leader-follower value congruence," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 102(C), pages 34-43.
    19. Atala Issam DBA* & Al Rahim Raneem MBA, 2019. "The Effect of Responsible Leadership on Key Stakeholders in Schools The case of Beirut-Lebanon," Sumerianz Journal of Social Science, Sumerianz Publication, vol. 2(6), pages 54-60, 06-2019.
    20. Michael Pirson, 2018. "Humanistic Management – Sucks Less and Better for your Health," Humanistic Management Journal, Springer, vol. 3(1), pages 1-7, July.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:12:y:2020:i:15:p:6083-:d:391297. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.