TRANSFORMING GLOBAL BUSINESS EDUCATION TO TRANSFORM THE WORLD

ABSTRACT TRANSFORMING GLOBAL BUSINESS EDUCATION TO TRANSFORM THE WORLD This session, if accepted, will report on progress on an application to the 2019 MacArthur Foundation 100&change competition and on the progress of the business schools involved in that application as they start the transformation of their teaching and much of their research to be in alignment with the need for a sustainable/ flourishing world. The application calls for creating a loud, clear, and inspiring global conversation about transforming our broken producing-distributing-consuming system. The session will report how that conversation is being led by a group of Jesuit and other business schools. The session and the application will: 1. call attention to the fact that our system for producing, distributing, and consuming is broken in the sense that it leaves a third of the world’s peoples in poverty, is destroying the planet’s capacity to support all species, and-- even for many of those who are ”benefiting” from the system -- yields lives that the world’s wisdom traditions have taught us are neither satisfying nor fulfilling. 2. call attention to the need to transform that system in a time period that seems impossibly short, 3. describe how the world’s global network of business schools can be the key leverage point for transforming that system, 4. show how the world’s business schools can lead that transformation by a. Demonstrating that it is possible to transform existing organizations in what seems like impossibly short periods of time by doing exactly that: by transforming their own teaching and much of their research in the seemingly impossible period of three years, b. Admitting that the vast majority of the world’s community of business schools has been contributing to and supporting that broken producing-distributing-consuming system by teaching students to work in “business-as-usual” organizations and to do so with “business-as-usual” mindsets, c. Admitting that none of us knows what a truly sustainable/flourishing world looks like nor how to get there but committing to discover the answers to those implicit questions through their teaching and research, and to do so before August 1, 2022, d. Inspiring business and other organizations to transform themselves, through the knowledge the schools develop in their teaching and research, and through the examples of transformation they accomplish as they transform themselves in three years e. And inspiring and enabling not just the transformation of existing organizations but also the creation of the new organizations and ways of being that will be required if we are to achieve a sustainable/flourishing world. The presentation and paper for this session will be based on the work of the professors and administrators actively involved in transforming their own business schools and in preparing the 2019 100&change application.