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It’s
a different world now than it was a little less than a year ago. The
economic crisis has made people rethink how business should operate.
Business schools also are being questioned about how well they prepared
the current generation of business leaders and what they can do to
assure improved performance and ethical leadership in the future.
Recently a cross section of business leaders and academics met at the
Robinson College for a roundtable discussion on these very topics.
Led by Dave Forquer, director of Robinson’s Executive MBA program, the
roundtable consisted of H. Fenwick Huss, dean of the Robinson College;
Dave Peterson, founder and chairman of
the consulting firm The North Highland Company; Dolores White, budget
and reporting manager for Southern Company Services and a graduate of
Robinson’s Executive MBA program; and Wayne Lord, former vice president
of corporate relations for Gold Kist and now a member of Robinson’s
executive education faculty.
FORQUER:
There is so much attention being paid to business education right now.
But before we start talking about the business school and how it should
respond, what is so different about today’s economy?
HUSS:
The perception is that this is a sector-blind recession. While we had
housing- and energy-related recessions in the past, this recession has
gotten everyone’s attention, and information about it is out there, top
of mind, wherever you go.
PETERSON:
The other thing about the recession is its magnitude. People’s
lifestyles now are at risk. Suddenly they
are paying attention. And when they look at pointing fingers, there is
a lot of blame that we in business all have to acknowledge we’re
responsible for. Business and business schools, among others, are
looking at how we can stop this from happening again.
LORD:
The third factor is the globalization of the world economy. In the past
we have not had global crises anything like the situation today. The
interlacing of the global economic and commercial fabrics is beyond
anything we’ve seen before.
Continued on next page
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