Towards purposeful business schools: Deepening and broadening external engagement

Abstract

Building on recent suggestions that business schools’ instrumental (outcomes-focussed) strategies should be replaced by the pursuit of their purpose to enhance the public good, this paper answers the special edition’s call to consider business school futures by presenting a foresight exercise that first conceives, and then illustrates, ways that purpose-driven business schools can extend (deepen and broaden) their external engagement activity. From our review of previous research, we present a new typology of business school engagement approaches that has two dimensions: (a) strategic focus (instrumental-purposeful), and (b) engagement management (organic-co-ordinated). From our scan of the business school environment in the United Kingdom (UK) and France, we illustrate, with empirical examples, the two purposeful engagement approaches in our typology (organic and co-ordinated). These findings indicate a variety of ways that business schools of the future can better enhance the public good through extended engagement.