Giving Compass' Take:

• Andrew Hoffman, a professor at the University of Michigan, shares his perspective on shifting the mindset how college professors teach business management and ethics. Hoffman poses the idea that it would be beneficial for business students to learn how their future enterprises should focus on helping society rather than worry about solely fulfilling shareholder expectations. 

• If all business management classes were taught with this perspective, how would this impact the philanthropy sector? 

• Read more about how this may become a trend within business schools to focus more on ethics and social change. 

Andrew J. Hoffman‘s course “Sustainable Business in Iceland” is a winner in this year’s Ideas Worth Teaching Awards. Hoffman is the Holcim (US) Professor of Sustainable Enterprise at the University of Michigan; a position that holds appointments at the Stephen M. Ross School of Business and the School of Environment and Sustainability.

The market has become the most powerful institution on earth, and business has become the most powerful entity within it. And yet, we presently have a disconnect between the power that the leaders of those businesses wield and the responsibility and accountability to which they are held.  Nowhere is that disconnect more acute than in our nation’s business schools.

What we need to do is update the MBA curriculum to teach students that they will possess awesome power as business leaders, and with that power comes great responsibility and an obligation to create benefit for society.

This means amending the MBA’s attention to the basics of business management with an expanded focus on management as a calling or vocation, one that moves away from the simple pursuit of a career for private personal gain and towards a call to service to society.

To begin, we need to teach more critical thinking when it comes to capitalism.  While most business education takes the form and function of capitalism as a given, capitalism is actually quite dynamic and ever-changing to suit the evolving needs of society.

Future business leaders must be taught about the history of capitalism(s), the underlying models on which they are based, and the ways in which they both serve and harm society if they are to assume any kind of role in shaping necessary improvements.

Read the full article about shifting business education at The Aspen Institute