2022/10/06 by Martin Kitchener, Tom Levitt, Lisa Thomas · 1 voice
Business, Management and Accounting · Decision Sciences · Social Sciences · #Ethics in Business and Education #Management and Organizational Studies #Nonprofit Sector and Volunteering
paper · doi:10.1016/j.futures.2022.103042
openalex publication_date 2022/10/06 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Building on recent suggestions that business schools’ instrumental (outcomes-focussed) strategies should be replaced by the pursuit of their purpose to enhance the public good, this paper answers the special edition’s call to consider business school futures by presenting a foresight exercise that first conceives, and then illustrates, ways that purpose-driven business schools can extend (deepen and broaden) their external engagement activity. From our review of previous research, we present a new typology of business school engagement approaches that has two dimensions: (a) strategic focus (instrumental-purposeful), and (b) engagement management (organic-co-ordinated). From our scan of the business school environment in the United Kingdom (UK) and France, we illustrate, with empirical examples, the two purposeful engagement approaches in our typology (organic and co-ordinated). These findings indicate a variety of ways that business schools of the future can better enhance the public good through extended engagement.