As chief executives of mainstream global corporations position sustainability as a business imperative for the 21st century, social and environmental issues move from the agendas of HR, PR and legal departments to the core of business strategy and operations. With these new sustainability pressures, what should business educators do?
The mission of business education institutions must go hand-in-hand with the needs of business itself. It has become clear that traditional business education has failed to prepare students for real-world challenges. Moreover, the watered-down, model-based approaches serve as obstacles to business professionals, limiting their ability to conceptualise and cultivate holistic, socially responsible views of the world. Perhaps the biggest challenge is to move beyond functional skills towards helping develop reflexive, transformational leaders.
Ethical education
From its inception, IEDC-Bled School of Management dedicated itself to developing managers with the highest of professional and ethical standards. For nearly 27 years it has served as a pioneer in developing education of impact. Well known for its innovations in how management education is conceived, designed, and delivered, the school offers a full portfolio of executive development programmes and customised programmes for companies.
Located in Slovenia, IEDC is a globally recognised centre of excellence that attracts world-class faculty and diverse international participants. Since 1986, over 64,000 students from 70 countries have joined IEDC’s community, while alumni stay connected through the IEDC Alumni Clubs, currently active in 15 countries. The mission of the school is clear: to attract the most promising executives and top managers, provide them with world-class management education, inspire them for life-long learning, and prepare them to act as competent and ethically responsible leaders in their organisations.
The management school is designed as an art gallery, in a stunning architectural space, located near lake Bled – Slovenia’s number one tourist destination. It is the ideal place for learning and reflection, as executive education is enhanced in breathtaking, natural settings away from the hustle and bustle of city and corporate life.
IEDC is a creative environment for creative leadership. This vision powerfully motivates its devoted employees and resident faculty (educated at Harvard, Stanford, Kellogg Business School, University of Exeter, IMD, INSEAD, the London School of Economics etc.), and its more than 50 renowned visiting professors. President of the school, Professor Danica Purg – honoured as the 2010 Educator of the Year by the Academy of International Business (AIB) for outstanding achievements in international business education – has led the school from its beginning. As the third European awarded, she joins an elite list of deans from top international business schools around the world.
“It is business schools’ mission to develop responsible leadership and contribute to a sustainable and better world,” says Purg. “Especially now, in the time of global economic crisis, responsible leadership is highly important.” She is deeply committed to developing leaders for a better world and believes in leadership that holds the values of social responsibility and ethics at its core. On her initiative, 21 years ago, IEDC was one of the first business schools in the world to integrate ethics as a required subject for MBA students.
However, the ambitious endeavours didn’t stop there. In 2008, the school fully integrated the subject of sustainable development across its entire curriculum. A year later the school was the only institution from Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) to be named among the 100 top business schools worldwide in the Aspen Institute’s Beyond Grey Pinstripes ranking, for significant leadership in integrating social, environmental and ethical issues into its MBA programme.
Collective genius
IEDC believes in and nourishes partnerships with important academic, professional and business stakeholders. Since 2008, the school has successfully worked together with the Coca-Cola Company. Muhtar Kent Chairman and CEO for Coca-Cola states the importance of the partnership for the school: “Our contribution and partnership with IEDC-Bled School of Management will encourage students to consider social responsibility and community development activities as strategic imperatives.”
The Coca-Cola Chair of Marketing was established six years ago, as a partnership between Coca-Cola and IEDC. This was the first chair financed by Coca-Cola in CEE and only its third in the world. It was also the largest single research grant for IEDC at that time. Based on the results and lessons of this period, IEDC proposed to focus on the field of sustainability and sustainable innovation. As a result, the Coca-Cola Chair of Sustainable Development was established in 2010. In 2012 it was approved and extended to 2017.
“The Coca-Cola Company’s investment will support applied research, development of unique teaching materials, and creation of breakthrough global projects aimed at developing management professionals ready to address complex social and environmental pressures facing the world today,” explains Craig Harwood, HR Director for Coca-Cola in Central and Southern Europe.
The most tangible output from the partnership is the publication of Embedded Sustainability: The Next Big Competitive Advantage, co-authored by Dr Nadya Zhexembayeva, part of the faculty at IEDC. “Embedded Sustainability is the incorporation of environmental, health, and social value into the core business with no trade-off in price or quality – in other words, with no social or green premium,” explains Zhexembayeva, who is also holder of the Coca-Cola Chair. “In recent years, three big sustainability trends – declining resources, radical transparency, and increasing expectations – have redefined the way we do business. Sustainable development – an approach to value creation that harmonises long-term profitability and growth with sound social and environmental performance – has become integral to business strategy and essential to how companies compete and win on the marketplace.“
A pivotal role
However, embedding sustainability into the very DNA of how business is done is still a work in progress. Therefore IEDC is striving to establish a number of new initiatives within the existing efforts of the Coca-Cola Chair of Sustainable Development. Professor Purg is Chair of the Principles of Responsible Management Education (PRME) Steering Committee for 2013, and so sustainability and ethics are on the agenda of her daily endeavors on a regional and global scope. PRME, started by United Nations Global Compact in 2007, unites approximately 500 business schools from 80 countries that strive for responsible management education. “Our next big step is strengthening global transformation efforts in the domain of the United Nations Principles of Responsible Management Education (UN PRME), with a special contribution of the Coca-Cola Chair to 2013 UN PRME World Summit. It is taking place on 25-26 September 2013 and will be hosted by IEDC-Bled School of Management,” Purg explains.
Education should teach values. It should focus on building up honest, progressive professionals. It should develop leaders, who will do something good for the society. Purg believes that IEDC stands for all of this. “One of our students once told me: ‘When I returned from my studies at IEDC, I didn’t become only a better manager, but as my family said, also a better person.’ That’s the power of studying in our school, where art, ethics and sustainability play a crucial role.”