Transcript BUILDING RESPONSIBLE BUSINESS SCHOOLS: A CASE OF

BUILDING RESPONSIBLE BUSINESS
SCHOOLS:
A CASE OF THE UNIVERSITY OF DAR
ES SALAAM BUSINESS SCHOOL
By Dr. Muhsin S. Masoud and Dr.
Omari K. Mbura
University of Dar es Salaam Business
School
Introduction
Objectives
1. Focuses on the processes that can be used
by Business Schools to manage themselves
in a responsible manner.
2. What to do for our graduates to act
responsibly.
1.0 Introduction
Informing Concepts
• International Leaders Forum (IBLF) Model of
Corporate Social Responsibility,
• the United Nations Principles of Responsible
Management Education
• Martell (2008) concepts on what constitute a
responsible Business School.
• Integrated ideas from the Copenhagen Business
School with regard to the implementation of
responsible management
Introduction
University of Dar es Salaam Business School
(UDBS)
• Part of 50 years celebration
• a framework where the School is expected to
aim to become after the 50 years
• among the First Generation Universities in
East Africa and is the oldest in Tanzania.
• the place where the two authors teach
Introduction
• “behaving responsibly” is the commitment of the business
school, starting with the leadership to all other members of
staff, to behaving in a manner that bears an overall positive
impact on both academic and administrative employees,
students, and other stakeholders such as suppliers, the
government, community, unions, and creditors.
• Ethical conduct and behaving responsibly go together.
• Ethics refers to values but it is generally challenging to
articulate those values cross culturally.
• Universally-accepted hyper values do exists. These include
honesty, fairness, respect, responsibility, and compassion
(sharing success with the less fortunate members of society
through employee volunteer services and community
service).
1.1 Key ethical and responsibility issues in business
school
Why do we have products with ethical conduct anomalies?
Triggers a need for looking at:
(i) How do we manage ourselves within and
(ii) The kind of behaviour that we inculcate in our students.
•Looking at our selves, are we motivated enough to behave
responsibly? Are we punctual and ethical in whatever we do?
•Do we incorporate ethical and responsible behaviour in
whatever we do?
•Are environmental concerns and sustainability given importance
in all our actions: mission, vision and core values, governance
structure, curriculum, incentives, and punishment etc?
1.1 Key ethical and responsibility issues in business
school
•To what extent does curriculum cover the ethical and
responsible matters?
- To a certain extent socially irresponsible concepts and ethically
unsound theories tend to dominate our curriculum,
- one of the expertises of an accountant is to learn how to steal,
pilfer, embezzle, funds and not be caught.
-Many people erroneously believe that laws are there in order,
surprisingly, to be broken and not obeyed.
•Sen (1997) argues that the effect that behaviours of the actors
in firms are affected by the nature of education they had
received.
1.1 Key ethical and responsibility issues in business
school
• Bennis and O’Toole (2005) business students spent “95% of
their time learning how to calculate with a view to maximising
wealth. Just 5% of their time…is spent developing moral
capacities.”
• Bennis and O’Toole, (2005) : A good manager, is the one “who
requires much more than technical training. It requires
education in moral reasoning.
1.2 Internal processes in managing business schools in
a responsible manner
1.2.1 Overview
• CSR organisation ought to be the one whose employees value
it as a great place to work in and whose customers and
suppliers consider it as the great partner to have and the
community appreciates it as a great neighbour to have.
• A business school that embraces CSR should be valued for
giving out responsible candidates.
• We argue for the connectivity of CRS practices and long-term
opportunities for the business schools.
• The CSR we are advocating is supposed to distance itself from
the 3 curses of CSR: Incremental, peripheral and uneconomic.
1.2 Internal processes in managing business schools in
a responsible manner
• Our discussion in this section centres on how we can manage
our internal processes to produce an overall positive impact
on society.
• We adopt the framework developed by the International
Leaders Forum (IBLF) to elaborate the methods that can be
used to build a Business School that has made responsible
behaviour an integral part of its education and training
programmes.
Figure 1: THE IBLF SPHERES OF INFLUENCE MODEL
The IBLF spheres of influence model
• At the centre of the Model, we have Leadership and
Management. This is where the seeds of sustainability,
responsibility or ethical conducts start to grow.
• Acceptable conducts will then diffuse to the employees: both
UDBS academic and administrative staff.
• The market place sphere depicts the interaction mode with
our clients.
• Supply chain: do we take into consideration ethical issues and
our values in developing relationship with suppliers such as
high schools and suppliers of other non-human inputs?
The IBLF spheres of influence model
• Community concerns: Is there a mechanism to bring about
long-term and beneficial relationship between the school and
the community at large?
• Enabling environment considers the relationship between the
school and the government, and the mass media. It also
entails seeking public opinion on issues related to CSR.
1.2.2.1 Leadership and management
• 3 Aspects to be considered: (1) Leadership, Values and Culture
(2) Communications and (3) Strategy and processes.
(i) Leadership Values and Culture
• Commitment of a responsible business school depends on the
leadership of the organisation –The leaders :whether they are
perceived to ‘walk the talk’.
• Leadership is about aspirations, which means developing a
vision of the future and getting the people to buy into it.
• a leader should demonstrate an ability to inspire, engage and
facilitate the endeavours of others, to be seen as walking, talking
and breathing symbols of corporate responsibility with strong
ethical values.
1.2.2.1 Leadership and management
(ii) Internal and External Communications
• Business Schools are to communicate their CSR initiatives to
all interested parties and make public their strategies in
achieving CSR objectives.
• Business Schools are to actively contribute to CSR-related
journals, conferences and workshops.
• The school promote school responsible activities to the
stakeholders through the use of newsletters, flyers, notice
boards, meetings, email, press releases, annual reports, the
internet, intranet, events, presentations, case studies, awards,
and picture and success story displays.
1.2.2.1 Leadership and management
(iii) Strategy and Processes
• The key issue is whether CSR is strategically managed or just
regarded as the practice that end with its being included in
the vision, mission and core values, or an existence of a policy.
• In UDBS do we have appropriate and effective governance
and budgets that specifically deal with the CSR responsibility.
• As for community engagement, do we have an annual
programme plan with activity priorities?
• At the university-wide level how is the CSR issue handled?
• Currently, at least, the Entrepreneurship Centre (UDEC),
Quality Assurance Bureau and Institute of Development
Studies do exist.
1.2.2.2 Workplace
• The work environment significantly influences their quality of
workers life, their family life and can even affect their health.
• Every business school must have an interest in becoming an
employer of choice and, thus, being able to attract the most
committed and talented staff.
• Being an employer of choice requires respect for the talents
of all individuals regardless of their gender, race, ethnicity,
religion, disability, age .
• On the whole, Business Schools ought to be fair in the
recruitment, promotion and development of staff in addition
to ensuring that the workers operated in a safe, healthy and
fair working environment.
1.2.2.3 Market place
• The marketplace is a critical meeting point between Business
Schools and the society.
• A responsible practice for the Business School is to consider
what impact, value or harm its core products (students, ideas
and advice) and services are likely to generate for the society
in the marketplace.
• A school should keep its approach to marketing, advertising,
and procurement fair and honest, as well as effective.
• Key aspects of Market Place management in the responsible
business school context include: (i) Integrity and Standards (ii)
Service quality, reliability and safety (iii) Customer relations
1.2.2.4 Supply chain
• A Business School should ensure, that the Codes of Conduct
and Standards it sets for its own operations are reflected in its
partners.
• A mechanism needs to be instituted to ensure that those
joining the school or dealing with it in any transaction are
aware of the need to avoid compromising ethical,
environmental and responsibility issues.
• Members of Business Schools should ‘walk the talk’ and abide
by what they have written down.
• Some aspects of the Supply Chain management in the
responsible business school context include (i) Shared values,
(ii)Business Standards, (iii)Codes of Conduct and (iv)Capacity
building.
1.2.2.5 Community development
• A business school can take the initiative by supporting and
contributing to the community through active community
engagement and outreach support services.
• This can be in the form of charitable donations, staff
volunteering and providing other in-kind resources (e.g. use of
professional skills or the use of equipment and premises.)
• Short-term programmes like the ones conducted by the UDEC
and MDCB are geared towards achieving this objective.
• The 2011 entrepreneurship training in the UDSM-UDBS 50th
years anniversary is a typical case
1.2.2.5 Community development
•The support the UDSM and UDBS extended to the Mbagala
bombing victims and orphans are both a good public relations
gesture and more importantly a form of community service.
Some suggestions on increasing efficiency in community
engagement by the Business School:
•Encouraging employees to volunteer in community service and
the provision of financial contributions to the community or help
in kind.
•Identifying enthusiastic volunteers among our staff and finding
out their opinions on how the school can support them in their
voluntary activities.
1.2.2.6 Enabling Environment
• A business school’s firm decision to incorporate responsible
practices in its operations and produce responsible leaders
may be at odd with the prevailing practices in society.
• Under this situation, the Business School should attempt, as
far as possible, to help create an enabling environment for the
school to flourish by helping to improve the operating climate
(legal, institutional etc) in which it operates.
• When the UDEC started, it had to work extra-hard to change
the mindsets of the students and lecturers in addition to
pushing for a change in policy at the country level.
1.2.2.6 Enabling Environment
• Key aspects in creating an enabling environment in the
process of developing a responsible business school include:
(i) engagement with the government and the mass media (ii)
seeking public opinion on the issue (iii) Capacity building.
• The business school has to focus on maintaining a good
rapport and relationship with the government.
• These relationships contribute towards creating an enabling
environment for a responsible business education to emerge,
and thus contribute to the social well-being of society.
• Thus, it is important to have a person in place responsible for
ensuring that these relations flourish.
1.2.2.6 Enabling Environment
• Engaging with media and public opinion is also important
strategy in projecting an image in the society that the
Business School was in the forefront in facilitating change and
enabling members of the community at large to embrace
good CSR practices.
• The Business School can also use the media to propagate its
CSR practices.
• Capacity building and research are important in enabling the
Business School to share responsible practices with others.
• For the Business School, this entails participating and
speaking at CSR training seminars and conferences.
1.2.2.6 Enabling Environment
• We also need to mention here that this paper stems from the
participation by some of the academic members of staff in
CSR training seminars.
• The authors have also pioneered a course among the 8
corporate Aga Khan foundation companies. A similar course
has also been offred to our MBA students
• But we need to go a step further and facilitate CSR case
writing and CSR conferences.
• We can use our Business Management Journal to encourage
the submission of academic papers on CSR and probably have
a special issue after sponsoring research on CSR.
1.2.2.6 Enabling Environment
• We need to start thinking about organising CSR conferences in
a bid to raise its profile in our Business School and society at
large.
• The CSR can also be a focal point when we are seeking for
partners in other countries.
1st part conclusion
• The CSR: driven by proactive behaviour
• We need not think of CSR in terms of philanthropy but as our
core function and strategic investment permeating all levels of
leadership and management, the workplace, the marketplace,
the supply chain, and the community. CSR=CSO
• We also need to ensure that CSR is built and not bolted:
because of opportunities it engenders.
• We need to manage CSR professionally with practices,
policies, processes and systems.
2.0 THE PRINCIPLES AND THEIR IMPLEMENTATION IN
PRODUCING RESPONSIBLE STUDENTS
• The Business School is involved in the preparation of current
and future managers.
• Principles of Responsible Management Education (PRME) that
may enable us to produce responsible business leaders.
• We examine the 6 principles and then propose some
strategies and operational mechanism which we believe can
stimulate discussion.
• We table our proposed future objectives likely enable us to
achieve more in relation to the principle.
2.1 Six principles of Responsible Management
Education
Principle 1- Purpose
•We will develop the capabilities of students to be future
generators of sustainable value for business and society at large
and to work for an inclusive and sustainable global economy.
Principle 2 - Values
•We will incorporate into our academic activities and curricula
the values of global social responsibility as portrayed in
international initiatives such as the United Nations Global
Compact.
Principle 3 - Method
•We will create educational frameworks, materials, processes
and environments that enable effective learning experiences for
responsible leadership.
2.1 Six principles of Responsible Management
Education
Principle 4 - Research
•We will engage in conceptual and empirical research that
advances our understanding about the role, dynamics, and
impact of corporations in the creation of sustainable social,
environmental and economic value.
Principle 5 - Partnership
•We will interact with managers of business corporations to
extend our knowledge of their challenges in meeting social and
environmental responsibilities and to explore jointly effective
approaches to meeting these challenges.
2.1 Six principles of Responsible Management
Education
Principle 6 - Dialogue
• We will facilitate and support dialogue and debate among
educators, students, business, government, consumers,
media, civil society organizations and other interested groups
and stakeholders on critical issues related to global social
responsibility and sustainability.
General conclusion
•To achieve what was discussed, we need to distance ourselves
from the 4 characteristics that constitute irresponsible
behaviour.
(i) Believing that we are protected from terrible consequences
because of the misconception of “too big to fall”
(ii) Building our operational models that thrive on our clients’
supposed ignorance
(iii) Becoming so absorbed in the micro-reality of our local
context that we fail to see the bigger picture.
(iv)Believing in the most comfortable reality that is too good to
be true and lose sight of our real objectives and national
obligations.
•THE END!!
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