The NileView

The Role of Business Schools should go beyond Quality Education in Advancing the Sustainable Development Goals

The impact of business schools is increasingly becoming invaluable to society. They link academia to business and industry, cater to the changing local and global market needs, and help society become more innovative, agile, and competitive. Today, the impact of business schools goes way beyond the campus boundaries. Besides, the constantly changing global economic climate is putting continuous pressure on business schools requiring a regular dialog and coordination with their local constituents, including the government, the private sector, and the civil society, to guarantee that the business and management education offerings cater to the emerging economic and societal challenges and that they are aligned with the developmental priorities. In addition, given the repercussions of the Covid-19 pandemic, the role of business schools should become more central in addressing these challenges as empowered, engaged, and trusted partners in the society that can drive innovation, creativity, and discovery in the knowledge economy.

On this note, universities and higher education institutions, including business schools, can play an instrumental role in meeting the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the 17 ambitiously identified, universal, interdependent, and transformational Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) or probably their new amended versions given the developments that emerged since Covid-19 hit different societies around the world and their associated challenges. However, for business schools to be effective contributors to the advancement of SDGs, there is a need for simultaneous top-down and bottom-up commitment and alignment across the school starting from the leadership and the formulation of the vision, mission, goals, ambitions, as well as institutional values, plans, strategies and policies and moving into the buy-in of different constituents both on and off-campus including faculty, administrators, staff, alumni and various corporate partners and organizational affiliations.

Business schools can help advance the SDGs through advocacy and revamping their diverse portfolio of business and management education programs, activities and services innovatively and systemically while studying organizations in their broader societal as opposed to their narrower business and management context. This includes redesigning the curricula, revisiting the pedagogical approaches including experiential learning, internships, and co-op programs, identifying research endeavors and their implications on policy, selecting partners and affiliations that add value, diversifying extracurricular activities, integrating innovative technologies, investing in community development, and reconfiguring executive education.  All to promote the SDGs and endorse the notions of responsible business, diversity, integrity, inclusion, equity, ethics, and governance as building blocks contributing to societal development and prosperity.

Integrating the SDGs into the academic triangle of teaching, research, and service should be done using a holistic approach and increasing interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary collaboration that can lead to the formulation of innovative models and solutions that can contribute to realizing the SDGs. Business and management education should be considered a foundation upon which most economic and social strategies are based, and policies and directions are built. Therefore, the quality, focus, depth, and breadth of the academic offerings in business schools is essential if the national objective is to realize effective and sustainable socio-economic development and growth.

Building a knowledgeable society and realizing the SDGs remain an integral platform for creating jobs, improving living standards, realizing economic prosperity, and having a resilient nation, a role that should be at the core interest of business schools. Therefore, business schools need to have the students and learners of today and the leaders, entrepreneurs, and change agents of tomorrow understand the importance of the different SDGs and their implications on society.

For emerging economies, SDG#4 which focuses on quality education and aims to “ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all,” is of utmost importance. The key challenges that face higher education institutions, including business schools, could be summarized in three main issues, (a) an increase in educational disparity within countries; (b) for some countries a constant decrease in the quality of education, despite an ongoing increase in per capita education expenditure; and (c) the mismatch and the growing divide between market needs, in terms of capacities and skills, and what the educational system has to offer in terms of output, a fact that will be further affected with the continuous acceleration in digital transformation following the Covid-19 pandemic and its implications on the future of learning.

However, for emerging economies, while business schools have a key role to play in addressing the challenges of the quality of education and in achieving SDG#4, their contribution should extend way beyond that to include many of the other interconnected SDGs that address a portfolio of vital developmental issues that should be well integrated into the DNA of business schools and embedded in their portfolio of offerings such as the alleviation of poverty, water and food management, human rights, climate change, equality, energy, responsible business, sustainability, and others.

Naturally, there is no one size fits all. Therefore, each business school should map its programs and activities to reflect their possible contribution to the SDGs depending on their respective country’s context and the school’s available capacities and resources. I do not doubt that somehow each business school in the world is in one way or another engaged in building the momentum and contributing to the realization of some of the SDGs through their offerings either in the curricula, research, community development, or executive education and focusing on closing the skillset deficit, broadening minds, helping students and learners unleash their creative capacities irrespective of their background and effectively support their drive to improve their lives and help better their societies.

Business schools should demonstrate their role in realizing a practical and comprehensive impact on societal transformation, including building an entrepreneurial culture as a vital engine for economic growth and job creation, creating a commitment to responsible business as an imperative vehicle for enabling social mobility and sustainable growth, and supporting economic development with a focus on inclusiveness and accountability.

Moving forward, business schools should transform themselves into learning hubs and incubators for knowledge creation and dissemination while offering co-learning spaces for different constituents to deliver the next generation of well-rounded, responsible business leaders and entrepreneurs who are principled, cultured, innovative, technology-savvy, locally focused and globally oriented while being driven by promoting entrepreneurship, innovation, thought leadership, critical thinking, business ethics, responsible business, and inclusive development. The business schools of tomorrow should be innovative, engaged, relevant, adaptive, and driven by scalable and sustainable social impact through the effective contribution to advancing the SDGs. Finally, in the future, I firmly believe that the integration and alignment of SDGs into the business schools’ offerings including but not limited to environmental, social, and governance (ESG) issues and consequently their implications on advancing the SDGs will have to be considered as one of the key elements used in the business schools’ ranking.

About the author: Sherif Kamel is a Professor of Management, Dean of the School of Business at The American University in Cairo, and President of the American Chamber of Commerce in Egypt.

31 March 2021
Issue #12