Revisiting unrealistic assumptions in business education from real phenomena in business organizations and society

ROCHA HECTOR; PIRSON, MICHAEL; SUDDABY, ROY

Hamburgo

Conferencia; Egos Colloquium; 2021

What is the role of Business organizations and Business education in overcoming the current crisis of capitalism? Following the call for revisiting ?the implicit assumptions about what drives managerial and organizational behavior? (Hollensbe et al., 2014:1228), we argue that the root of the crisis lies in the core assumptions taught in Business education in light of emergent phenomena that question them. In fact, there is a gap between assumptions on the purpose of Business organizations andr competition and real emergent phenomena and movements such as B Corps, the Economy for the Common Good, Conscious Capitalism, Collaborative Entrepreneurship, Democratic Socialism and The Blue Print for Better Business. Based on the call to work directly with leading experts in new areas of expertise in order to address urgent grand challenges in society (Terjessen an Politis, 2015), we interview the initiators of these phenomena that challenge the current building blocks of management research an teaching. We conclude that rediscovering the purpose of Business organizations, which encompasses but is not limited to profit increase, and prioritizing cooperation over competition are two key steps to create the conditions for channeling managers´ motivation and talents towards a more humane world. Phenomenon-driven research questions at the individual, organizational, societal and Business school levels are proposed at the end of the paper.