Just in the last few years, we've seen the rise of the chief sustainability officer as companies move to integrate social and environmental performance into their core business strategies.
But you wouldn't necessarily know it based on the way business schools are prepping their students, new research suggests. Many business leaders see few MBA students hitting the job market equipped with the skills needed to meet their corporate sustainability goals.
"The one big conclusion is that what students are being taught about sustainable development is far removed from the reality of how it's being applied in the marketplace," said Terry F. Yosie, president and CEO of the World Environment Center (WEC). "As a result, students are not receiving the level of preparation that they could be receiving in order to work at a major global company."
The WEC teamed up with Net Impact, the sustainability-focused student and professional network, for the report, "Business Skills for a Changing World: An Assessment of What Global Companies Need from Business Schools." The partners interviewed 33 sustainability executives in companies spanning sectors and geographies for the report, which is scheduled for release today.
They sought to explore which skills are required for tomorrow's sustainability leaders, how business schools are moving to fill the demand and what companies could do to support any effort.
What they found was no surprise -- people have been talking about the skills gap among business students for some time, Yosie said -- but he doesn't think people were aware just how big that gap is. As a result, companies are also left doing a lot of internal training and preparation because school curricula is much too narrowly focused.
MBA graduates entering the workforce need a number of desired skills, business leaders said:
• Inside-out skills: Those needed for the day-to-day duties, such as an understanding of project management, finance, marketing and risk mitigation.
• Outside-in skills: Those needed to assess the external issues that can impact a business, including knowledge of public policy and the multi-cultural perspectives of the communities in which the company operates.
• Traversing skills: Those that intersect the first two sets of skills, such as systems thinking and interpersonal skills that can be used to communicate with internal and external audiences.
Yosie cited several reasons for the growing gap, including the fact that business schools still view sustainability as an environmental or philanthropic topic, whereas companies view sustainability as a business strategy and are innovating rapidly, leaving universities behind. Sustainability content is often isloated and rarely integrated across curricula, he said, and the curricula itself often ignores the growing importance of social issues.
Companies can play a role in addressing some of these issues by communicating with business schools about what they're looking for and how they are integrating sustainability in their own companies.
"There needs to be a lot more interaction between companies and business schools," Yosie said. "There is a lag and lack of knowledge of how these companies are really functioning."
Graduation image via Shutterstock.
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This is a terrific
This is a terrific needs-assessment document, Tilde. Which, of course, leads to the question: "What do we do about its findings?"
Over the past 2 years I've done an informal and ongoing gap assessment between:
• What corporate sustainability leaders ought to know, and
• What various universities offer in their degree and certificate programs.
It's been something of an obsession ever since I designed two university-level corporate sustainability management courses back in 2009.
Rather than comment on the strengths and weaknesses of various university programs, I've assembled a suggested academic degree program for corporate sustainability management. It's available for downloading at: https://docs.google.com/leaf?id=0B-43ksRRuoFQNDFlZTk2MzMtZjBhMy00NzUxLTg...
Further, over the past summer I've circulated this strawman curriculum around to my academic colleagues, who are deans and department chairs at various public and private universities in the U.S. Their responses have been most interesting. Each of them has essentially said it is not likely they would create such a program at their school. The aggregated reasons are:
• A general lack of current faculty expertise in the multidisciplinary facets of corporate environmental sustainability
• The silo'd unwillingness of current faculty members to develop such multi-disciplinary programs outside of their professional comfort zones
• A lack of appropriate textbooks, and
• The ever-popular refrain of "no program development and operating money".
It appears, at least to me, that much of academia is in a "follower position" regarding the definition – and, by extension, the teaching – of sustainability management disciplines. Whereas, the developmental bleeding edge of the field resides with practitioners.
This is a terrific career-making situation for the pioneering practitioners. However, it is not a good situation for prospective students seeking a formal academic program to learn useful professional skill sets.
As I mentioned above, this is a "strawman" curriculum proposal. Therefore, everyone is invited to beat the stuffing out of it and reassemble it the way it really needs to be. Have fun!
I attended the Net Impact
I attended the Net Impact conference last week in Portland, OR, where I learned about at least one effort to rank MBA programs on their sustainability teaching. The Aspen Institute offers "Beyond Grey Pinstripes is the only MBA ranking focused on social and environmental impact." This can be found at http://www.beyondgreypinstripes.org/. I am not associated with The Aspen Institute in anyway and cannot vouch for it personally, but I do believe these types of rankings can spur competition for all programs to improve.
While many business schools
While many business schools are slow on the uptake to bring sustainability concepts to their core curriculum, there is a growing list of schools that are leading the charge here. This is an opportunity for programs to differentiate themselves, schools like the Presidio Graduate School, Dominican University of California, and Bainbridge Graduate Institute have been pioneers in this area. But traditional MBA schools, even Ivy Leaguers like Wharton and Yale, are starting to move in this direction too.
-Rick