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CSR Teaching and Education in Business Schools:
There is growing criticism that business schools globally are no more than brainwashing institutions educating their students only on relatively narrow shareholder value ideology, particularly in the wake of the recent corporate scandals. (Emiliani, 2006, Ghoshal & Moran, 2005). The need has been felt to incorporate themes like ethics, social responsibility and business society interlinkages. In response to this, some solutions like adding a course in business ethics in the business school curriculum, greater emphasis on ethical dimensions in the regular courses, mainstreaming CSR education have been proposed (AACSB,2004, Eabis, 2006). There is increasing recognition that in grooming leaders for the future, business schools need to address and integrate the notion of responsibility of business in to their curriculum. A review of the courses offered by the US and European business schools reveal that there are four categories of courses currently being offered:
In addition to these, other popular courses include social entrepreneurship Environment and sustainability.
CSR Education in Indian Business Schools
In 2005, Partners in Change (PiC) and the Indian Institute of Management Bangalore (IIMB) conducted a scoping survey of corporate social responsibility education in Indian business schools. The survey sample was small and the responses limited, but they revealed some interesting results:
Individual faculty in management schools have been offering courses on business ethics, CSR, Corporate Governance, Business and Society, Environment and Sustainability and social entrepreneurship.
The need to create a greater awareness among the business school students on the social issues in India becomes increasingly relevant. It is well recognized that in the fast pace of economic development, benefits of globalization in emerging countries like India have not translated in terms of commensurate performance in the Human Development Indicators like mortality, health, education and gender. Such a process of economic growth is likely to aggravate the already existing inequity in society. Confederation of Indian Industry, which is an apex industry federation, was urged to play its role as a partner to the Government. (Manmohan Singh's speech at CII, 2007). As future business leaders, MBA students need to be aware of the larger socio economic political context in which businesses operate.
The integrative course on "Responsible business" intends to plug this gap in the management education.
References:
Emiliani M L (2006) Improving Management Education . Quality Assurance in Education Vol 14 (4) 363-384 Emerald Publishing
Ghoshal S & Moran P (2005) Towards a Good theory of Management in Sumantra Ghoshal on Management ed. Birkinshaw J & Piramal G Prentice Hall
Baron. D P (2003) Business and its Environment 4 th edition Prentice Hall
Eabis http://www.gfme.org/