CSR for Management Institutes

“Practice what you preach” has rather been a cliche now. Management Institutes in this cliche are the Preachers, question is; Are they good Practitioner's? The last decade of business has raised many eyebrows on issues such as ethicality, governance, and moral responsibility.

The blame was brought back on the management institutes for guiding the prospective managers to be competition centric and hence making them instrumental in many corporate frauds and scandals. So what’s gone wrong? Is it the pedagogy? Is it the content? Is it the Competition?

Let’s consider a concept like CSR, which like management education has grown in the last decade. Ask a management student or graduate…..What is CSR? The most likely answer is Corporate Social Responsibility. Probe a little more; I won’t be surprised if most respond with reference to their specialization! MBA marketing would persuade it is a marketing Gimmick! An MBA Finance would term it stifling of funds to buy Honor! An MBA Human Resources would say “Everybody does it so we do it”

Sadly, but true you would notice a handful of them would actually appreciate the CSR concept. Most often than not the individuals who are part of the CSR department. But then do companies use CSR only as a Marketing Gimmick! If that was true, then by now the stakeholders would have dumped the concept into the corporate graveyard.

Another critical point to note is whether the management graduates & future managers educated to appreciate the concept of CSR! How many management institutes in the country have their own CSR initiatives? Very few…you can actually count them on your fingers.

The attitude of giving back to society needs to be nurtured amongst the management students today, so that they appreciate it when they become mangers tomorrow.

It is high time we realized that responsibility and sustainability go hand in hand.