ABSTRACT
There is a growing body of concern amongst management development practitioners regarding the wider consequences of our work. Whilst we might describe our interventions with people in benign terms, such as enabling, developing potential, empowerment and such like, are we failing to see a bigger picture of our work? Might our work in fact have the consequence of refining individual skills and developing organizational capabilities to continue operating in ways that have serious human and ecological consequences? Corporate scandals such as Enron,1 Arthur Andersen,2 WorldCom,3 ImClone Systems,4 and mis-selling of financial products such as endowments,5 have focused attention on the ethics of managing. Events as far afield as Cancun, or even the UK Hutton Inquiry, have directed critical attention on the social relations of work organizations, and the impact of business on people’s lives. Such events provide accumulating impetus for those who argue for management education and development to integrate consideration of social and environmental terms of business.
