ABSTRACT

In July 2007, the UN Principles for Responsible Management Education were launched in Geneva. They call for the incorporation of universal values in curricula and research, and are offered as a guiding framework for academic institutions to advance the broader cause of corporate social responsibility. The Principles have been developed by an international task force of 60 deans, university presidents and official representatives of leading business schools. Business-school faculty members often seem to place greater weight on winning the approval of peers in their academic discipline than on gaining the approval of their business-school colleagues. Many business schools saw their founding mission as the professionalisation of the management of business, in much the same way as medical schools have institutionalised medicine. Professions usually have at least four elements: an accepted body of knowledge; a system for certifying proficiency of that knowledge before it can be practised; a commitment to the public good; and an enforceable code of ethics.