CAPÍTULO 4. PROPUESTA DE INTERVENCIÓN
8. CONCLUSIONES FINALES
SHARED ATTRIBUTES: HOW TO ADAPT CURRICULA AND CONTENT WITHIN RESPECTIVE BUSINESS SUBJECT AREAS Introduction
Consistently ranked among the top business schools in Australia, the Australian School of Business (ASB) at the University of New South Wales (UNSW) is located in Sydney, Australia. The ASB is host to 8 disciplinary schools (Accounting, Economics, Banking & Finance, Information Systems, Management, Marketing, Risk & Actuarial Studies, and Taxation & Business Law), the Australian Graduate School of Management (AGSM), 12 research centres and institutions, 9 affiliated research centres, 13,948 students (undergraduate and postgraduate), 260 academics and researchers, 177 professional and technical staff and boasts over 57,000 alumni.
Challenges
Current macro-economic conditions create a profound challenge to busi- ness schools globally to rethink our values, our principles and our con- tribution to society. Our students require a substantially more sophisti- cated learning experience to become leaders in these changing conditions. Our students want to develop the confidence to appropriately challenge the status quo, based on a deep understanding of current knowledge. Our students seek careers that will allow them to make genuine, long lasting contributions to their organisa- tions, their families, their professional associations, their communities and their nations. This is entirely consistent with the Principles for Responsible
Management Education (PRME), which is why we are signatory to the initiative and actively seek to embed thesePrinciplesin all that we do.
My advice to signatories to the Principles for Responsible Management Education is to embed these Principles, not only within the curriculum, but throughout all levels of their organisations. Our organisations and our business communities, nationally and internationally, require the insights implicit in these Principles to help a new generation of business leaders and graduates to create new solutions to complex business and social problems.
Gregory Whitwell, Professor and Deputy Dean, Students and Programs, Australian School of Business, University of New South Wales
Actions taken
There are several actions under way in the ASB to adapt curricula to address the Principles of the PRME initiative:
. Embedding the Principles by linking them to our graduate attributes and programme learning goals (including critical thinking and ethics). The ASB is seeking to embed these Principles via the AACSB Assurance of Learning (AOL) process in all programmes. . The cohesion, symmetry, and shared vision between the Principles
and many of the ASB’s own programme learning goals and graduate attributes offers a set of unique aspirations for which to be accountable. However, if these aspirations are not engaged or measured they will only remain aspirations, rather than realities. . The ASB, via the AACSB accrediting process, is in the process of
assuring its learning. Thus, by drawing on the ASB’s own research and expertise, stakeholders, community partners, tier 1 alliances, and national and international partners, the Principles have been codified into the curricula and student experience.
. The Centre for Social Impact (CSI), housed at the ASB, has been designed to deliver sustainable management education, through seminars, dialogues with the broader business community and through the Graduate Certificate in Social Impact
. The CSI is a collaboration of four universities: UNSW, The University of Melbourne, Swinburne University of Technology and the Uni- versity of Western Australia (UWA). The CSI helps students to lift their gaze and widen their vision about themes as diverse as: managing non-profit organisations, reporting on shared value and indigenous business education.
One of our AGSM programmes, Master of Business and Technology, offers a number of specific courses, as well as seminars on “wicked problems”, which highlight and promote sustainable business. These courses include current debates and literature in the following disciplines:
. Business management for a sustainable environment . Sustainable energy management
. Management of manufacturing systems . Introduction to management.
As another example, ASB has created a compulsory core course, Business Communication and Ethics in Practice, for our Master of Commerce programme, following multi-stakeholder dialogue.
. We are using engaging case studies, simulations and problem-based activities, and guest speakers and seminars to debate the themes behind the Principles.
. Community-based projects to actively engage students in problem solving and leadership in the community, in for-profit and non-profit organisations.
Our colleagues Dr. Tracy Wilcox and Dr. Mehreen Faruqi have taken the lead, from a research perspective, and are conducting a scoping exercise on the content and impact of our current PRME-related learning and teaching practices. The first stage will explore all postgraduate programmes to document in detail how the Principles are being applied in our programmes. This will allow us to “capture the existing champions” of socially and environmentally responsible business practices in our course curricula and in teaching and learning, and serve as a gap analyses for future development in this area.
The ASB has also increased its partnerships and relationships with other PRME signatory institutions in order to benchmark its progress, through formal seminars and informal networking.
Following multi-stakeholder dialogue the Master of Commerce has made the inclusion of COMM5001 Business Communication, Ethics and Practice a compulsory course focusing on embedding and integrating PRME principle of ethics and corporate responsibility course in our core work. From my perspective, as someone who has had a long-term interest in business ethics education and education for social responsibility, the fact that ASB has signed up to PRME is of enormous importance – as a legitimating device and as a means of demonstrating/asserting that socially – and environmentally – responsible management is not a nice-to-have or an add-on to “real” business education. This point has been well-researched by our colleagues both here in Australia and internationally.
Tracy Wilcox, Lecturer, School of Organisation & Management, Australian School of Business, University of New South Wales
Results
As we move to systematically review all our academic programmes, at the postgraduate and undergraduate levels, the Principles will serve as a touchstone, to ensure we continue to create business leaders who act ethically and with sustainability principles as top of mind.
To illustrate the importance of the Principles of our curriculum design, we have reshaped one of our flagship programmes, the Masters of Commerce. In our new programme, we have one compulsory course for all students, which implicitly and explicitly incorporates the lessons learned from recent large scale corporate failures. The UNPRME are explicitly used as a framework for analysis. This is complementary to our existing course, Business Communication and Ethics in Practice, which allows students to develop a sophisticated ability to include ethical aspects in all their business decision making.
Why PRME is/was important
. PRME is a process that legitimates and prioritises the view that socially responsible management education is not optional, but is
critical for the education of contemporary managers and professionals.
. PRME is important because it challenges us to provide a context for debates on sustainability in our fundamental approach to our teaching and learning.
. PRME provides further impetus, support and legitimacy to pro- gramme quality assurance processes being undertaken by the ASB (such as assurance of learning as a component of the AACSB accreditation process).
. Emerging national and international higher education quality and accreditation requirements are increasingly reflecting the Principles and values of the PRME initiative.