Business pedagogy for social justice? An exploratory investigation of business faculty perspectives of social justice in business education

Abstract

What needs to happen in business schools to create a space for social justice? In this article I explore business faculty members’ perspectives on social justice as a means of illuminating the ideological and institutional forces affecting pedagogy and examining the future for social justice within business schools. Participants identified three hegemonic forces driving business programs: profit-driven business ideologies, the particular character of MBA programs, and bias toward quantitative research in business programs. These forces negated the ways in which faculty engaged with social justice concepts and the ways in which they could teach and research within their respective business schools. I review these hegemonic forces and suggest that in order for social justice to be realized within business schools there has to be institutional redesign which could, potentially, be triggered by disruptive institutional work.