The Socially Conscious MBA

September 2007 Special Sections

Call it the silver lining of corporate malfeasance. The debacles of Enron, Tyco, and WorldCom may have bilked investors, emptied retirement funds, and inspired regulatory legislation, but they also helped to spark a new trend in MBA programs in Minnesota and across the country. Business students are still learning business fundamentals like leadership and strategy, but increasingly, colleges and universities are creating classes and entire programs centered on corporate ethics, nonprofit administration, social stewardship, and executive accountability.

“Business schools have to pay close attention to what employers are asking of their graduates,” says Rich Leimsider, director of corporate governance and MBA reform projects at the Aspen Institute, an organization that tracks social and environmental stewardship and curricula in MBA programs. “More and more, corporate recruiters and CEOs are saying they need people who can do marketing or strategy, but also handle ethical issues.”

In part, the growth of socially conscious tracks in MBA programs is spurred by larger changes in corporate culture, with shareholders demanding greater transparency into company operations, and environmental concerns and fair wage issues getting more attention. But the growth is also coming from the student body, says Leimsider. Many of those entering or currently in graduate school grew up not in the “greed is good” eighties, but in the turbulent Enron era and that upbringing fostered greater awareness of business ethics and corporate accountability.

Local Trends
At area universities, MBA programs focused on ethics and social responsibility are in full swing. At the Twin Cities graduate campus of Saint Mary’s University, there’s an Executive PowerTrak MBA with a corporate responsibility focus. At the University of St. Thomas, ethics training is woven throughout its full-time MBA program. At the Carlson School of Management, business ethics play a role in the regular curriculum as well as in global enrichment electives—study-abroad programs that span from ten days to six weeks and center on environmental stability, maturing economies, and development challenges in other countries.

“There’s a growing recognition that what’s good for society is also good for business,” says Brother Louis DeThomasis, chancellor of Saint Mary’s University of  Minnesota. “Business profits when people profit.”

Saint Mary’s was founded by the LaSallian Christian Brothers, a religious order that wanted to educate people toward greater social awareness, so every program has that as its basis, DeThomasis says. For its MBA program, for instance, Saint Mary’s has added capstone projects about sustainable development, environmental issues, and executive character. Every PowerTrak MBA student is required to write a strategic plan for a nonprofit, and another course requires them to address the issue of ethics on a global scale, comparing how business is done in the U.S. versus other countries.

“We’re seeing more people not just interested in getting a job or creating a career path, but actually making a difference in the world,” says Saint Mary’s MBA program director Karen Gulliver. “That creates more rounded individuals, and it’s exciting to think about their ideas being put into practice.”