The reality of geopolitics today is that the boundary between the corporation and government is now indistinguishable. The two have overlapped so much that we really should be training our future business managers on how to navigate and influence complex policy environments as well. A recent article by Jonathan Doh and Guy Pfeffermann in the Financial Times, titled “Top schools face globalisation challenge” , observes how business schools fail to address the different demands of leadership today. Business schools seem to concentrate too much on organisational and strategic leadership, while neglecting governance leadership, and stopping entirely short of policy-design leadership.
Unfortunately, business schools do not think to generate models that really look at this overarching form of leadership. It is interesting how many bright people you get walking into interesting jobs and yet they are not educated for them. The business school of the future is [...]

People are looking far and wide to identify the causes of the financial crisis. I recently described how a failure of policy design was one of the factors that lead to the financial crisis. Another factor that has been discussed widely is the role of business schools in creating the leaders who ostensibly brought on the crisis. Have these universities not fostered a proper sense of accountability and responsibility, and should they be teaching ethics? [...]

Last Sunday I came across an article in the Observer by Martin Parker ( If only business schools wouldn’t teach business , Nov 30th), outlining how Business Schools should rethink their position as well as their curriculum in this period of downturn. I found it appropriate and welcome.
The shareholder value philosophy of pedalling management techniques to literally thousands of students, and by so doing limiting their horizons to units of three months, is seriously flawed. The alternative is stakeholder value thinking and practice, which requires delving deep into concerns of corporate responsibility, the future role and contribution of boards, and the nature of the business/government interface. Such considerations have been given minimal attention.
So far, I am with Martin Parker. Think broader, dig deeper and see beyond quarterly profit targets. Yet, Martin Parker argues on behalf of Business Schools promoting a new capitalism. Why? [...]