Chapter 9

Conclusions and the Path Forward

The walls around many business schools remain high, eroding interdisciplinary education and research collaboration that might address some grand challenges facing society. In response, we . . . argue business schools should lower their walls to engage with other academic departments to address such grand challenges in a way that engenders social value.

—Currie, et al.¹

Keywords

Business education, higher education, change agents, liberal learning, professional programs, autonomy, social agency, self-concept

Introduction

This book has been about lowering the walls at Whittier College, but its lessons can be applied to other institutions. We were fortunate to have generous funding from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and it was primarily the faculty in Business Administration and Humanities who embraced the idea and did most of the labor. Our work is ongoing as we continue revisions to courses, explore new ideas, and apply our ideas to other professional programs (again with Mellon support). Our goals are to continue to push toward a new definition and type of professional curricula. With this ideal in mind, this chapter will provide some recommendations about getting there; however, we begin with our stories of how we became involved.

Lana Nino took a traditional path toward a profession, graduating from college with a Bachelor’s Degree in accounting. She joined Arthur Andersen & Co. and later became a Certified Public Accountant. To qualify, she had to take a series of tests that included an ethics exam. During her climb up the corporate ladder—in multiple positions as controller, director of internal audit, and chief financial officer—she experienced multiple challenges where she needed to have moral courage. She found that her biggest challenges in the work place were to practice multi-framing of situations and autonomy, none of which she had learned in her courses in business and accounting. Her next journey was to join academia, teaching at a liberal arts college. She soon also returned to the university to earn her doctorate in Higher Education at the University of California, Riverside. As described in an earlier chapter, she focused on business education as her topic for her dissertation. It was then that she began to realize the deficiencies in her own education, which influenced her career experiences in business. Even though she was educated as a professional, she felt she lacked many of the professional skills that she now thought she was supposed to pick up during her many years in undergraduate and MBA programs. She also recalled many other professionals she had encountered and worked with, including CFOs, controllers, and vice presidents in business, who fit the description in the literature of professionals who focused on expertise and lacked social agency. It was then that she decided to dig deeply into the literature on “professionalism” and the intended higher education path for professionals. Teaching at a liberal arts college and going to conferences steeped in that type of education (such as the Wye Faculty Seminar and several AAC&U conferences), she began to see the benefits of bringing the liberal arts into the classroom. More ­importantly, she began to see the urgency of educating business students as preprofessionals; always keeping in mind the professionals she dreamed they would become, and how much of a difference they would make in society. As a faculty member, she modified her teaching of accounting to empower students to think of the accounting curriculum with an eye toward professionalism. She asked students their thoughts on how the rules and regulations were constructed and how they can participate as future professionals in continuing that effort. As a department chair, she stressed the importance of integrating other disciplines within business courses resulting in new paired-courses and modules within business content. She also stressed the importance of connecting students with their community, implementing many programs for students to engage through internships and leadership programs.

Susan Gotsch took a different route to learn about professionalism, ethics, and business. After her undergraduate degree in history, she earned a Master’s Degree in political science. Her Ph.D. in sociology was steeped in theory, in particular that of Karl Marx, Max Weber, Emile Durkheim, and Erving Goffman. This is what she taught for a decade. When she was encouraged to become an academic dean, she read Bolman and Deal’s Reframing Organizations and found parallels to these theorists, whose works guided her through twenty years as academic dean. During her time at three small liberal arts colleges, she worked closely with faculty on curriculum, including the Humanities in Management Institute at Hartwick College. From these experiences, she knew that collaboration across disciplines was not only possible, but also fun and valued. When she joined the faculty ranks at Whittier College, she was invited to teach “Management and Organizational Behavior.” Exposure to the plethora of case studies and management scenarios pushed her to ask questions about ethics and management. Jeff Decker and Lana Nino (both in Business Administration) provided excellent guidance and learning. And as fate would have it, the Mellon Foundation was interested in the intersections of business and the humanities.

As we began our journey together, we were especially guided by two important studies. The first was the in-depth research and recommendations made in Rethinking Undergraduate Business Education: Liberal Learning for the Profession.² The second was Nino’s work that examined differences in certain elements of professionalism, comparing undergraduate business majors and students in other majors. Both pointed toward the need for change and both focused on the importance of the concept of “business as a profession” as an essential element of change. Colby and her colleagues provided strong recommendations about the business curriculum, which we have paraphrased to fit our institution: strong liberal education as part of the requirements; incorporation of “liberal learning” into the curriculum, focusing on intentional linkages; collaboration between business educators and faculty in the liberal arts that result in learning for all.³ We hope that our discussions about and examples of the curricular changes in Whittier College’s business administration major illustrate that it is possible to address these recommendations. But it has also been Nino’s research and guidance about “undergraduates as preprofessionals” that helped us drill down into what this means and how we can foster it. But how does one get started with change?

Being a Change Agent

Rosabeth Moss Kanter’s article “Leadership for Change: Enduring Skills for Change Masters” provides excellent advice about the stages of change.⁴ They begin with having the ability to be—in Drucker’s words—a social ecologist who can sense and deal with both dangers and opportunities. Being open to new ideas, and perhaps creating them, is important. Leaders of such efforts as curricular change need to be able to communicate a vision, and more importantly, engage others in spreading the ideas. Engaging others can develop into coalitions, which means that political strategies are important. Periodic “nurturing”—of those who are working toward change—is essential. And then there are often the “difficult middles [that] require persisting and persevering.”⁵ (p. 11) And finally, there is the need for people to be recognized publicly for their work. For us, there were bumps along the way, but we learned much from Kanter.

Advice About Change

To begin the process of change, we followed some suggested actions of Colby and her colleagues (Pp. 171–176). But we were also guided by recommendations for change agents written decades ago in Educating Professionals: Responding to New Expectations for Competence and Accountability. In the chapter “Priorities of Change in Professional Education” the authors list key principles that change agents should understand, as follows:

• Change is political, and thus not necessarily logical, and thus requires political strategies.
• Change is incremental and adaptive, not immediate and precipitous.
• . . . Change moves successively through several layers of support, thus making it imperative that “innovators” and “early adopters” be identified early and supported.
• Planning and implementation of change require participation by those most affected by it.
• Change requires persistence and flexibility from those who champion it.”⁶ (p. 326)

Needless to say, our goals and tasks seemed overwhelming. So we want to provide some advice and raise questions to think about, before you begin a similar journey. The following observations are meant to help colleagues on other campuses begin the conversations about professionalism and the business major. Curry and Wergin stated in their Preface for Educating Professionals that: “regardless of where the pressures for change originate, real change begins with the professional school faculty and its leadership.” (p. xiii) This certainly was our experience, as our beginnings were with ­business faculty and the College’s President. Thus we note that our recommendations may be more pertinent for deans or faculty or both, so we combine them as a way of encouraging this kind of collaboration.

In becoming change agents, it is not uncommon for faculty or academic deans who are attempting to change curriculum to focus—­borrowing from Bolman and Deal—on the structural, political, and human resources aspect of change. Forgotten are the cultural and symbolic elements, which are usually deeply imbedded, often harder to change, and often seen as the “soft” elements of change. So we begin with the advice that change agents should thoroughly understand the culture of the departments that will be involved or impacted, to be aware of the student culture(s) of these departments, to be familiar with the leadership and culture of faculty committees that will be involved, and to consider the overall culture of the institution. A second symbolic issue is whether there are faculty and administrative leaders who believe in the need to “humanize” business education. And are there faculty members, especially in the humanities, who could and would collaborate with business administration faculty? Are there “players” who understand the importance of institutional culture? This is not to say that the structural, political, and human resource frames are not important for change agents. But research in many fields—anthropology, literature, psychology, political science, religious studies, sociology, theatre—point to the importance of symbols and their cultural meanings.

Yet it is also essential to understand the political/power elements of change. As Curry and Wergin note: “professional schools are political systems . . . with a culture that inhibits change.”⁷ (p. 322) Needless to say, support from high-level administrators is essential, especially if you plan to seek external funding for your project. What does the Vice President for Academic Affairs think about integrating liberal arts into the business major? Are there other departments that might be engaged to help? Are there faculty members who are willing to lead the project? If the answers to these questions are encouraging, engage the most interested faculty in getting started.

Getting Started

Finding common interests with a colleague you respect is essential for getting started. It requires the good will of several players—in Senge’s terms—to engage in dialogue and find common ground. Two examples of modules illustrate this: Nino and McEnaney (history) were interested in ethical leadership; and Gotsch and Kjellberg (Philosophy) were interested in eastern philosophies. The results were not only modules (see Chapter 6), but also continued visits to each other’s classes. To the extent that institutions have faculty development funds, the dean could provide some time or financial incentives to encourage these activities. And if interdisciplinary learning is important, then department members and deans can evaluate a candidate’s commitment to such in the hiring and tenure processes.

Once ideas start percolating, it is also important to pilot some of the activities that are generated. It will be easy to find faculty in the humanities who strongly feel that business students should study ethics. Encouraging them to participate in some way is a good next step: asking them to work with business faculty to find case studies that have an ethical dimension, to be used, for example, in a marketing class. Other faculty may be immersed in service learning, and could thus exchange ideas with business faculty. Curriculum committees could be invited into discussion about interdisciplinary learning. Involve colleagues in discussions based on such readings as Khurana, Trank and Rynes, and Currie et al., which call for the increase of professionalism and interdisciplinary learning in business.⁸

Keeping Up the Momentum

It is common that during some phase of change, it is hard to keep going. There are lots of “difficult middles.” At these times, it would be wise to take stock and focus on which collaborations are likely to be successful and have the most impact. Also, encourage faculty to pilot an idea, module, or revised course. Begin to discuss the successes, but also examine possible revisions for the less successful. Ask students what they experienced in the changed business courses. And faculty in the liberal arts can be strong advocates for change—by encouraging others to work with business faculty to develop modules or develop a linked course. At each stage, you will want to have clear goals, faculty engagement, and some support for faculty development, so that you are able to encourage and lead others when momentum slows.

We would also agree with Sharon Daloz Parks, who urges leaders to use the metaphors of the arts, which she sees as “mere stepping-stones to a yet more significant shift—the transformation of the prevailing myth of leadership from hero to artist.”⁹ (p. 1) Her metaphors are good advice to those leaders who face the common challenges of “affirmation and resistance . . . working on the edge . . . interdependence with the ­medium . . . and improvisation.” (Pp. 9–13) We easily see these ­challenges in theatre, music, and art, but seldom look for them in ­leadership. Jazz has much to teach leaders: having a structure, but one that requires ­direction, listening to others, being intuitive about new possibilities, and ­innovation—or as Parks states:

Whether adaptive leadership is practiced in the corporation, the neighborhood, or within an international alliance, it does, ­indeed, require something very much like the artistry of skilled jazz ­musician—bringing tradition, intuition, technique, and the power of imagination and innovation to that edge where the toughest challenges and greatest possibilities are located.¹⁰ (Pp.13–14)

The changes that we made to the Business Administration curricula have been rewarding for faculty and students, and we will continue with the momentum. We believe that we are on the right track, as evidenced by various assessments we have done.

Assessment of the Results

Early in the project, several faculty and staff were fortunate to attend the “2012 Summer Institute on Integrative Learning and the Departments” that was sponsored by the Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U). Central to our work were intensive workshops on collaboration, integrative work on majors, and most importantly, developing assessment tools with which to examine our results. During the weeklong Summer Institute, we worked very closely with Jo Beld (Director of Evaluation and Assessment and Professor of Political Science at St. Olaf College). In Spring 2013, we were able to being Beld to campus, and she spent two days working with individuals and groups on ways to assess the outcomes of the changes we were making. These included faculty, the chair of the College’s Academic Assessment Committee, colleagues who are responsible for learning outcomes assessment, the Vice President for Student Life and the director of Student Life’s leadership programs. Jo Beld returned later in the year and continued to work with faculty on the assessment tools as shown in Table 9.1. Examples of students’ results are shown in Figure 9.1.

In the pairs “Humanistic Values in Management” and “Documentary Film Movements and Genres,” students were asked to indicate the level of impact that the pairs contributed to these abilities: prepared for ethical leadership, assessing own ethical development, using more than one perspective, resolving ethical dilemmas, and preparing to practice ethical leadership. The percentage of students who answered “High” or “Very High” ranged from 86 percent for “assessing own ethical development” to 100 percent for “using more than one perspective.” When asked about how the pairs helped to achieve certain elements of liberal learning, students’ perceptions ranged from 85 percent for “understanding other cultures” to 100 percent for “thinking critically.” Figure 9.1 below shows the full results.

Table 9.1 Paired-Courses Assessment

Figure 9.1 Learning Impact Questionnaire Result.

Table 9.2 Module Assessment

Faculty also prepared their own assessment tools for modules created in each other’s courses. An example of a module assessment is listed in Table 9.2. Similar questionnaires were used for other courses, and results are similar. For example, students in the pair “Sustainable Development and the Triple Bottom Line” and “Soils and Environmental Geomorphology” reported that the pair contributed “very highly” to their abilities about: “ethical decisions, communication with the team, bringing knowledge to the team, and critical thinking.”

In addition, students said that the pairs’ contribution was very high, especially in helping them: “offer multiple perspectives, understand other cultures, and do analyses from multiple fields.”

In closing, we offer recommendations that we consider important, and one’s that can help us and hopefully others, to attain the “end product” of the helping undergraduate business students develop all of the aspects of professionalism.

Recommendations

The following provides a succinct description of important elements that we have suggested in earlier chapters, organized by recommendations that call for using professionalism as a platform and presenting practical ways to develop professionals. Importantly, they involve both curricular and cultural elements.

1. Adopt a curriculum that would assist in the development of the professional. Business has a higher purpose in society other than an entrepreneurial one. Faculty should stress the higher purpose of business in the different sub-disciplines.
   • Professionals join their professions due to a calling and they have a stronger connection to their discipline if they can connect with the cause. Preprofessionals develop pride in their selected profession if they know the higher purpose. In Chapter 3, we discussed teaching for the higher purpose of business. In Table 3-2, we showed the difference from teaching expertise to teaching the higher purpose and expertise.
   • Build your own interdisciplinary courses or work with faculty in other disciplines to do so. Interdisciplinary courses enrich business curriculum and allow students to use multi-frames and different views of issues. Carefully examine if there are a few courses in the liberal arts that should be required for business majors.
   • Above, we talked about the difference between the current curriculum and a proposed professional curriculum. We propose that business schools specifically target two courses for the development of the individual. One course is the introductory course to business and society and the other course is a foundational business ethics course. In both courses, the curriculum should be modified and written with the future professional in mind. The list in Table 9.3 can be used to guide such change.
2. Business has a higher purpose in society other than an entrepreneurial one. Faculty should stress the higher purpose of business in the different sub-disciplines.
   • As mentioned before professionals join their professions due to a calling. This needs to be reinforced in the curriculum, as ­described above, as well as in the instruction provided by the ­faculty teaching the subjects. In Chapter 3, we discussed teaching for the higher purpose of business. In Table 3.2, we showed the difference from teaching expertise to teaching the higher purpose and expertise. We hope that educators can reframe their explanations to serve the higher cause.
3. Given that the AACSB recommends an approach to integrate ethics into all business subjects, we recommend that business faculty receive proper training on teaching ethics within their subject.
   • This can be accomplished by offering continuing education opportunities for business faculty, such as:
     • Conferences that deal with the liberal arts, for example the annual meeting of the Association of American Colleges and Universities, and/or the joint Phi Beta Kappa/American ­Conference of Academic Deans conference on the liberal arts
     • Participation in the Wye Faculty Seminar, which focuses on the humanities through readings of classical and contemporary works. Lana Nino attended this in (2008) and her experience was crucial to our project
   • Business faculties, who have had these opportunities, can provide on-campus workshops for their colleagues.
   • As part of this, business faculty should be encouraged to weave ethical themes into their courses (as recommended by AACSB)—perhaps by using case studies, modules, or team teaching. This may require some faculty development that examines the concepts of ethical sensitivity, ethical judgment, ethical motivation, and ethical action. By focusing their students first on ethical sensitivity and motivation, they invite them to: approach ethical situations by looking deeply into the circumstances; engage in multi-framing and visualization; experience the ability to put oneself into the situation; and understand various societal views on an issue. All these will help strengthen autonomy and social agency in each student.
4. Require a foundational course in business ethics.
   • Critical to a foundation in ethics is a foundational business ethics course, such as that described in Chapter 4. Students need to understand the discipline of ethics before they are ready to deal with ethical questions in their other business courses. One may choose to use business cases, but by using cases from other fields, students see that business ethics cases are not the only examples of ethical failures and gain practice in critiquing actions that are unethical.
5. Integrate more research and theory within the business curriculum.
   • We suggest that a business course such as one about managing organizations can serve as place for students to develop their capacities for interdisciplinary learning, multiple-frame thinking, and understanding how research and theory—beyond ­economics—are essential in the field of business. Careful ­selection of texts and case studies can contribute to students’ development of ­professional characteristics (#1 above), especially to strengthen ethical ­sensitivity and autonomy in business students.
   • Infuse leadership theories and research in various business classes or electives.Careful selection from the extensive literature on leadership is a good source to help students develop the self-concept they need to become strong, autonomous professionals. Some of this literature provides ways for students to learn more about their own leadership qualities—relative to the literature that describes qualities of good, ethical leaders. Focusing on this can influence students’ ideas about self-concept and also assist students to become better business managers and professionals.
   • Teach theoretical thinking and demand evidence of it in students’ assignments.
6. Provide opportunities for students to practice social agency.
   • The importance of social agency can be taught, but it also needs to be experienced. Learning about diversity, other cultures, and the influence of business on society are an important start for understanding social agency. But it is essential to develop applied methodologies that help students to develop social agency. By this we mean getting the student actually to practice social agency. One way is to use the literature that Gentile developed in Giving Voice to Values.¹¹ This innovative curriculum helps students to express their autonomy and voice their values. Their actions in doing so can be built on their professional identity, as molded by the humanities.
   • Other examples that can increase social agency involve engagement in communities and/or study abroad. The “where” is especially important if it gets the student out of her culture or his safety zone. Examples include service-learning courses, volunteer work in a nonprofit organization (especially if its clients are very different from the student), or study-abroad in areas such as the Middle East, Africa, Asia, or Latin America.
7. Build spaces for students to practice professional autonomy in the classroom and outside.
   • Classroom discussions should always include multi-framing and dialectical approaches to arguments. This helps students develop their voice. Business students especially get little time to do this in the classroom due the density of disciplinary material. If faculty members understand the importance of professional autonomy in students’ futures, they will create the time and space for them to practice it.
   • Provide opportunities for students to present research papers in class, perhaps in lieu of a final examination. Have students create teams and then debate a research topic from opposite views (e.g., defense spending, legalization of marijuana, increase or lower taxes in the U.S.). This is a very helpful exercise since students do more reflection in research.
   • Encourage students to present their research at peer-reviewed conferences.
8. Professional programs should function with the spirit of professionalism within their undergraduate and graduate programs.
   • Adopt a code of ethics for business schools and departments, and include faculty, staff, and students within its purview. Have students review and discuss the code of ethics in business classes before they sign it.
   • Have students join professional organizations early in their programs such as the AAA, AMA, or other. Students’ awareness of professional organizations allows them to observe professionals and commits them to joining a profession rather than just completing a major in college.
   • Engage business faculty in social agency. If students are able to observe their faculty serve in the community, they are much more likely to become engaged and develop care for their community and the broader society.

Table 9.3 Professional Focused Curriculum

Final Thoughts

Today’s relentless economic, technological, and cultural changes require a deeper look at how professional schools build and deliver their programs. Arguably, business education is more important than ever in U.S. higher education due to its significant influence on society. Adopting a professional model for delivering a business program is an urgent societal need, even if it requires more resources. However, many of the changes suggested in this book can be implemented by changing content and instructional approach of business texts. The mere awareness of the need to develop students’ autonomy and social agency can make a difference in the classroom. Even with the tide of online learning, a professional approach can still be implemented. Business faculties who begin to think of their students as preprofessionals can always modify their content and assignments to stress elements of professionalism in their online instruction. Deans and department chairs of business programs can monitor success of implementation. Most of our business faculty would welcome a change that would improve business graduates and thus society. Indeed the call for professionalism, although an old framework, is still what is needed today to drive change.

Notes

  1.  Currie, Davies, and Ferlie (2016).

  2.  Colby, Ehrlich, Sullivan, and Dolle (2011).

  3.  Colby, Ehrlich, Sullivan, and Dolle (2011).

  4.  Kanter (2005). This is the version that we used

  5.  Kanter (2005).

  6.  Curry and Wergin (1993).

  7.  Curry and Wergin (1993).

  8.  Currie, Davies, and Ferlie (2016); Trank and Rynes (2003).

  9.  Parks (2005).

10.  Parks (2005).

11.  Gentile (2010).