Civilize the Business School: For a Civic Management Education

Management scholars have long exposed the inadequacy of management education in addressing the complex problems confronting business and society, including the ecological and climate emergencies. Concerns are expressed about the culture of competition, self-interest, greed and short-termism that still dominates the business school, despite the irreparable ecological damage that this culture has contributed to create, and the innumerable business scandals it has generated. To navigate the grand challenges of our time, management education needs to be shaken at its very foundations. In this essay, I unpack the process that generates these dysfunctional consequences to expose the root of the problem: assumptions of self-interest, instrumental rationality, capitalist organising and mechanistic worldviews generate self-fulfilling prophecies. Only once this harmful process is better understood is it possible to move beyond critique and support the virtuous cycles enabling functional outcomes. Contributing to the current debate around building civic universities and reframing the concept of civility systemically, I propose reconfiguring management education around four different principles: generalised reciprocity, substantive rationality, diverse organising and a system approach. I suggest that these are the pedagogical foundations for a civic management education, capable of producing cooperative humans, substantive business schools, fairer societies and thriving ecosystems.