The role business schools play in promoting corporate social responsibility: four diverse American universities combine theory and research with robust learning experiences to develop high-potential employees who understand and embrace CSR.

• Author: Vallario, Cynthia Waller
• Position: ETHICS

A business process that incorporates ethical decision-making, creates value for stakeholders and also manages social, economic and environmental risks is a tall order.

In response to the demands of the 21st century marketplace and the need to stay in step with peers, companies continue to seek the help of business schools in redefining what it means to be socially responsible, and teaching students to have a socially responsible mindset with decision-making skills that look beyond short-term benefits.

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Required courses in business ethics and social responsibility are de rigueur at American schools for both undergraduates and graduate students. Going beyond the basics, here are examples of how four quite different universities combine theory and research with robust practical learning to develop high-potential employees who understand and embrace corporate social responsibility.

Haas School of Business, University of California-Berkeley

A defining part of the culture at the Haas School is its commitment to teaching and exploring ethical and social responsibilities of business. This is accomplished through cutting-edge research and bringing realworld consulting challenges into the classroom. "About 40 percent of the graduate students come to Berkeley specifically because of its reputation as a premier CSR educational center offering innovative courses," says Jo Mackness, executive director of the Center for Responsible Business at Haas.

"We were probably the first business school to make ethics and social responsibility required core courses for both undergraduate and graduate students," notes Mackness, who was the Corporate Responsibility Integration Leader at Ernst & Young before joining Haas. "Students are taught to apply critical thinking, borrowed from other disciplines, to define the levers that trigger financial and social value."

Valuable practical experience can be gained through participation in a social responsibility investment fund, where at any given time 12 students manage a portfolio of $1.3 million (in real dollars). They are taught to create financial returns that are integrated with social and environmental returns--such as globalization and climate change--while examining controversies in investment and management theory. This course is open to students pursuing a Masters in Business Administration or Financial Engineering.

Haas students engage in outreach programs such as the Net Impact Club, a nonprofit international organization whose mission is to educate and equip individuals to use the power of business to create a more socially and environmentally sustainable world. This extracurricular activity, open to alumni and MBA students, is the largest club at the business school, boasting about 25 percent...