Dean Thomas Robertson published a great piece in the Financial Times earlier this week about the importance of social responsibility to the business school curriculum and Wharton’s efforts to be a center of innovation on these critical issues:

“Today we use terms such as “social impact” and “social responsibility” when discussing the ways in which businesses need to take into account not only their shareholders, but other stakeholders as well. Social responsibility is no longer relegated to the relatively small percentage of students who seek to work in the nonprofit sector. It has become integrated into our way of thinking in business education and in the coming years needs to be further developed…

…We would like to graduate students who are capable of generating financial returns, but at the same time who are concerned with social good, as this is part of the original mission of our school…

…We want them to be ethical and sensitive to corporate social responsibility issues. We hope they take a broader view and think about how their business decisions can contribute to the overall social good.”

Robertson had previously told the Associated Press that he intends to make Wharton “a force for good in the world.” The article also features comments from Net Impact’s Director, Liz Maw, who mentions that Wharton is hosting the conference next year.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 30th, 2008 at 10:04 am and is filed under Wharton News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.