A little learning is a dangerous thing? The role of universities

I’m normally more an Independent man (all puns intended), but – as professors reminded me during my own days in academia – reading around the list rather than down it can sometimes pay dividends. And if you’re going to be informed, why not be informed about more than the one thing? Glancing unaccustomedly through the pages of The Pink ‘Un, I was refreshed to find an article – Question of relevance must be addressed – in their Soapbox column that posed a long overdue question or three:

What are business schools for? What do they do? How can they best serve the needs of business and society?”

All good questions, I thought, although it seemed perhaps a little unfair to single out business schools. (We can’t all be managers, and it wouldn’t help if we could.) When it comes to purpose, relationship to both society and the economy, and to upholding their end of some very nebulous psychological contracts, most of higher education could do with clearing its throat and piping up in words of one syllable. The Guardian’s Q&A best bits: Marketing higher education during times of change (first published this April) was an interesting Googlefind, but not an inspiring one in this context.

 

Leadership and Ethics- Myth or Reality?

[This post is a guest contribution by ASK Associate, Barbara Hocking. You can read Barbara’s biography on our Guests page, which also provides a link to her Personal Learning Profile.]

Is the time for ethical leadership really here? Has the global economic climate created conditions for a radical rethink in the way we do business? Will we see a different set of values being pursued by those in positions of influence in the major corporations around the world? Business schools across the globe are certainly questioning how they should be developing leaders of the future in the light of criticism from many quarters following the worldwide economic crisis.