INSPIRED BY THE MACARTHUR FOUNDATION – Jesuit and other business schools working independently and together to transform business education and the world.

This proposed paper reports on a continuing set of initiatives inspired by a 2016 MacArthur Foundation 100 million dollar competition to contribute to solving a significant societal problem. The paper will report briefly on an application to that 2016 competition submitted by the IAJBS and CJBE leadership. The session will report more fully on an application in the 2019 competition submitted on behalf of a number of Jesuit and other business schools. The 2019 application was designed to support 40 business schools in transforming their curricula and some to much of their research to be fully aligned with the need for a sustainable world. An unusual aspect of that application is that it was designed and intended to create an initiative that would proceed even though winning the hundred million dollar prize was assumed from the beginning to be essentially zero. The paper will describe (1) the strategy underlying the 2019 application’s intention to transform education and research in 40 business schools as part of a global movement to transform business education and business practice around the world; (2) why business education can be seen as perhaps a uniquely promising vehicle for global transformation – Why business education and business schools can be seen as an “acupuncture point” (in Otto Sharmer’s metaphor) for transforming the global producing-distributing–consuming system and ourselves as individuals; (3) how the 2019 application to the MacArthur Foundation was designed to create the basis for an initiative that would continue whether or not the application won the MacArthur competition; (4) the participating schools’ progress in transforming their curricula and research since the application was submitted in August 2019; (5) the schools’ plans for moving ahead in continuing their transformations in the next year; (6) how individuals, other business schools, and business and other organizations can assist the participating schools in making their transformations happen; (7) how other business schools can start transforming their own teaching and research in similar ways; and (8) how the participating schools’ current actions are building the base for scaling the 2019 initiative into one involving 400 business schools. That initiative will be framed as an application in a possible MacArthur Foundation 2022 100 million dollar competition. That 2022 application will be submitted to the MacArthur Foundation if there is a third 100 million dollar competition offered three years after the 2019 competition. The 2022 application will also be designed and intended – just like the 2019 application – to create an initiative that will proceed even if the application does not “win” the next 100 million dollar prize – and the 2022 initiative will move forward, starting immediately, even if there is no third round of the 100 million dollar MacAthur competition.