Rethinking the Performance of Management Education, some elements for a more socially responsible field

Abstract

Are management faculties teaching socially desirable principles? Are management alumni generating beneficial impacts in society? How effective and sustainable are the practices nurtured by business schools?

This paper is triggered by the obligation to reflect about the social accountability that should be expected in the field of ME; insisting on the need to acknowledge the pervasive ubiquity of business, and the structuring role that management education –ME- plays within society. Pondering the question of ‘how ME performance should be assessed and improved?’, this article adapts Donna Wood’s model of Corporate Social Performance as a frame of reference to rethink the responsibility of management education through the exploration of principles of social responsibility, processes of responsiveness, and outcomes of behavior. While the existence of multiple levels of analysis is acknowledged -institutional, organizational, and individual-, emphasis is placed upon the reflection of the discretionary power - its limits and possibilities- that individual professors and researchers might have.