Monarch Business School believes that business skills and the research carried out by business students and faculty can be a factor for positive change. At its core, this is the understanding that businesses can serve society for the greater good. From a business school perspective this means a critical re-evaluation of the role of business in society, a focus on personal ethics and values as a central criteria, and the development of new business models and frameworks for a more equitable and sustainable future.
In recent periods, particularly since the financial crisis of 2008 coupled with many examples of ethical lapses in the C-Suite and boardrooms of corporations, the need for new business models and understanding of the role of business in society has taken center stage. The main business perspective taught by most business schools over the previous decades that managers are amoral actors simply performing corporate duties with a disconnect to their own personal values or responsibility is no longer tenable. The cost of externalities, in the form of pollution, climate change, ill-health, technological encroachment, and societal level dysfunctions, are stark reminders that eventually the cost of all the factors of production are ultimately accounted for whether or not they are included on a corporate P&L or Balance Sheet. Encouragingly, business schools are attempting to address or revisit main assumptions underpinning the role of business in society in an attempt to create more equitable business models for all stakeholders involved.
Monarch Business School Switzerland was formed in response to the need to take a more critical view of the role of business in society. In the curriculum and within research carried out by Faculty, Graduate and Doctoral candidates ethical imperatives are considered to be of paramount consideration. As an example, a study examining the level of cash compensation of corporate executives versus the profitability of their firms, one that would find interest in many business schools, is of no real value unless the social and ethical question is asked as to whether it is acceptable for one individual to be compensated +1000 times more than the average worker at their firm (note 1). This example becomes even more critical when considering the aforementioned externalities.
As such, research candidates at Monarch are encouraged to take a more holistic and extended view of business issues and include a multi-disciplinarian perspective going beyond the classical business domains and disciplines. In this regard, graduate and doctoral candidates at Monarch are encouraged to view themselves and their candidate colleagues as social anthropologists. In short, businesses are communities of people and the study of people is by definition an anthropological pursuit. People act, learn and change and in like fashion businesses in society act, learn and change. Bringing greater clarity and understanding to the nuanced perspectives of business models, systems and the actors involved is the task of the business graduate and doctoral candidate through structured research and execution of academic and professional skills.
Central to the philosophical orientation of Monarch Business School is the belief that the underlying traditional skill-set held by business professionals coupled with critical academic perspectives can effect significant change within the larger business world and society in general. Business schools have been very successful in developing pragmatic management practitioners who are able to use their talents and skills to create positive change. These same skills and energy for change are required to further uncover and develop new roles for business in society as new generations of practitioners emerge and underlying assumptions are challenged and revised.
Business models will continue to change. The role of business in society will continue to change (note 2). Monarch Business School Switzerland encourages discourse from all stakeholders to critically address these changes in the hope to develop more equitable and sustainable business practices for the future.
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Note 1: Disney CEO Bob Iger Makes 1,424 Times More Than His Typical Employee (And 25 other outrageous CEO compensation packages) http://money.com/money/5643063/disney-ceo-outrageous-salary-gap/
Note 2: Taylor B., “Forget Socialism Versus Capitalism. Here?s the Real Debate We Should Be Having.”, Barron’s, Feb 22, 2019. Retrieved from: Marketwatch