In the September/October issue of Harvard Business Review, former Unilever CEO (2009-2019) Paul Polman and renowned author and sustainability strategy thinker, Andrew Winston share important insights from their new book, Net Positive: How Courageous Companies Thrive by Giving More Than They Take, a manifesto that postulates how a business can unlock lasting value and grow by coincidentally helping the world prosper.
The authors define a new positive company as one that “improves well-being for everyone it impacts and at all scales—every product, every operation, every region and country, and for every stakeholder, including employees, suppliers, communities, customers, and even future generations and the planet itself.” The authors emphatically assert: “For their own good, companies must play an active role in solving our biggest shared challenges. The economy won’t thrive unless people and the planet are thriving.” Much of this is reflected in the global dialogue related to “stakeholder capitalism”. In late 2019, the Business Roundtable, a U.S.-based lobbying group representing the country’s biggest corporations, announced it was revising its statement of purpose with an eye toward “stakeholders.” Jamie Dimon, the chairman, and CEO of JPMorgan and the chairman of the Business Roundtable wrote in a follow-up article in the Time: “Capitalism has been the most successful economic system in history. But we can improve upon it to help solve society’s problems and lift up more people.”
We have seen this stakeholder emphasis reflected in growing attention to ESG, environmental, social, and governance, investing and focusing along with the impressive growth of Certified B Corporations. ESG, Environmental, Social, and Corporate Governance is an evaluation of a firm’s collective conscientiousness for social and environmental factors. Certified B Corporations are new businesses that balance purpose and profit. They are legally required to consider the impact of their decisions on their workers, customers, suppliers, community, and the environment. This is a community of leaders, driving a global movement of people using business as a force for good. Today, there are over 4,000 companies across 150+ industries in 77 countries that are certified as B Corporations. Likewise, in the business school world, the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB International), established in 1916 to advance business and management education, is deeply committed to the belief that Business Schools are and will continue to be a “force for good” in local, national, regional, and global communities.
This is clearly a tall order for global enterprise and one that will proceed with fits and starts over time. Indeed, many argue it is time to see action and impact. Fortune CEO Alan Murray, in announcing the company's upcoming Fortune’s Global Sustainability Forum, said that virtually daily, large, global enterprises are elevating their individual company commitments to fight climate change. He cites Cisco, which plans to reach net-zero for all “Scope 1” and “Scope 2” emissions—those directly within its control—by 2025. And Cisco says it will hit net zero across its entire value chain by 2040. Indeed, Jessica Matthews on August 16, 2021, Fortune article writes, that by the end of March 2021, more than 20 percent of the world’s companies in concert with Cisco had set target dates to drop their carbon emissions to zero, according to a report by the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit and Oxford Net-Zero.
But is it fair to ask, are all these corporate commitments real? I have written for years about the need to link “mouth” and “movement”, what we say, with what we do. There is a great deal of public pronouncements, statements at shareholder meetings, and CEO declarations around various social commitments. But will these, in fact, lead to action? At the same time, AACSB has always maintained that the very best business schools in the world operate at the intersection of theory and practice. Meaning, quite simply, that our global constellation of business schools must constantly engage with and support the needs of our global constellation of businesses.
Business Schools as well must not only reflect the needs and wants of the communities we serve but likewise embrace the competencies and expectations of the businesses across different industries that recruit our graduates and compete in an ever-changing global marketplace. Indeed, in a recent Financial Times article announcing their latest master’s in management rankings, I argued there was “red hot” student demand for MiM courses to include insights into sustainability. There was also a fresh focus on topics such as supply chains, blockchain, and inclusiveness, as well as the importance of ensuring that graduates demonstrate “workforce readiness.”
So, there is no surprise that as the focus on societal impact and engagement has grown exponentially in the corporate community, there has been a parallel growth and emphasis among the world’s business schools and likewise reflected in AACSB’s 2020 Accreditation Standards. In the nine, 2020 Standards, which benefited tremendously from a two+ year development process by a global group of business school deans, there is a new standard, Standard 9, which is exclusively focused on Societal Engagement and Impact. This standard evolved as a result of a tremendous groundswell of support across the world, by AACSB members embracing the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and seeing a tsunami of interest and support by students, professional staff, faculty, alumni, and in many ways business schools’ corporate partners for this incredibly important topic. Standard 9 reads as follows: “The school demonstrates positive societal impact through internal and external initiatives and/or activities, consistent with the school's mission, strategies, and expected outcomes.”
The rationale for Standard 9 provided in the Interpretive Guidance document states: “Business schools and business are a force for good in society. Through their activities, schools have the opportunity to make a difference to society and to address significant issues at a local, national, or international scale”. Perhaps, most importantly, as the 910 AACSB accredited schools spread across 58 countries and territories ratified the 2020 Standards is the notion that over every five-year cycle, Peer Review Teams are looking for “exemplars of success” related to positive societal impact. Examples, illustrations of success can be entirely local, or they can be broader in scope, indeed both regional and global for some schools. These exemplars, which define and capture the impact of societal engagement as well, are simply to be aligned with the distinctive mission of the business school, which clearly defines the area/breadth of scope. And now, AACSB members across the globe are focusing mightily on both incorporating societal impact and engagement in their strategic plans but also working on methodologies for capturing illustrations of societal impact both quantitatively and qualitatively, telling their unique stories of societal impact and engagement.
When looking only at AUC’s School of Business, there is a passionate and ongoing emphasis on societal engagement and impact, much of which has already been shared in previous NileView articles. Accordingly, building on the firm belief in the power of collaboration, a range of partnerships was forged. For example, the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab regional office in the Middle East and North Africa at AUC School of Business (J-PAL MENA) has engaged with several governmental and non-governmental organizations to investigate the impact of their policy interventions using randomized control trials as well as by designing and implementing impact evaluations and advancing evidence-informed decision-making.
J-PAL MENA collaborates with the Sawiris Foundation for Social Development (SFSD) in studying the impact of its programs that target the underprivileged segments in society. It is also a strategic partner of the Micro, Small, Middle Enterprises Development Agency (MSMEDA) in building its capacity to measure and assess its programs’ impact. J-PAL MENA plays an essential role in two critical societal challenges in the region, including financial inclusion and women participation in the labor force; through its partnership with the Nasser Social Bank (NSB), J-PAL MENA studies the impact of the financial services provided to the poor and works with the Ministry of Social Solidarity in Egypt to conduct an impact of the national nurseries’ promotion program.
Besides, in collaboration with the Ministry of Planning and Economic Development in Egypt, AUC’s university-based incubator hosted at the School of Business, the Venture-Lab (V-Lab), launched a capacity-building program for business incubators and accelerators as part of the V-Lab’s ongoing collaboration with the DROSOS Foundation. The impact of the V-Lab incubator is increasingly being recognized locally and internationally, and it is truly delightful that it featured among AACSB’s 2020 Innovations that Inspire.”
Finally, the John D. Gerhart Center for Philanthropy, Civic Engagement, and Responsible Business promotes social change through building a culture of effective giving, corporate social responsibility, and civic responsibility. Also, the center strives to build capacity for leadership and enhance their ability to become more civically engaged and positively impact society through social entrepreneurship, mentorship, and creativity through constantly collaborating with local and international partners from academia, civil society, and corporates. The Gerhart Center is perceived as the developmental arm of AUC School of Business, acting as a platform to instigate social impact and change. Following the outbreak of the pandemic, the center has introduced a webinar series titled The Aftermath of the Covid-19: The New Social Impact Ecosystem, bringing in global scholars, thinkers, entrepreneurs, and leaders from different walks of life in over 100 talks and panel discussions addressing various aspects related to the future social impact ecosystem.
With the increasing importance of integrating social impact into the business and management education curriculum, AACSB International will continue working closely with business schools and organizations around the world, including AUC School of Business, to endorse and support their invaluable role in advancing their societal impact and engagement as well as collaborate with other partners to create knowledge, and disseminate lessons learned and experiences addressing social impact and engagement through various platforms such as CASE Focus; a peer-reviewed case journal launched in 2020 and published by the Case Centre of Cranfield University focusing exclusively on teaching cases from the Middle East and Africa.
About the authors: Timothy S. Mescon is Executive Vice President and Chief Officer for Europe, the Middle East and Africa for AACSB International and President Emeritus of Columbus State University, and Sherif Kamel is Professor of Management and Dean of the School of Business at The American University in Cairo.
29 October 2021
Issue #18