A missing link, according to Wikipedia, is an “intermediary form of life that illustrates an evolutionary transition”.

Between business as was, and the evolving world of responsible capitalism, there must be businesses – and MBA students – that purposefully question the attitudes and practices of the old and devise and implement those of the new. It is a conscious, necessary phase of adaptation.

The idea for setting up this new blog came to me while reading a post by Stephen Frost of CSR Asia. I knew already that a good grounding in corporate social responsibility was hard to find in an MBA course, even at my alma mater. Stephen's post, however, brought home to me that students, for their part, are clamouring loudly for that grounding. It is the business schools that – for reasons best understood by them – are often reluctant or unable to meet that need.

Welcome, then, to The Missing Link, a course-by-blog in which I will aim to fill the gap between a traditional MBA and the knowledge needed to pursue the new responsible capitalism evolving before our eyes.

What will I cover in this blog?

After chopping through a potted philosophy of business with unfortunate, but for present purposes, necessary brevity, this blog will turn to its main focus: the development and implementation of responsible business policies and practices across a large enterprise.

More specifically, I’ll cover:

Introduction

• Confusions and crisis
• The biggest question of them all

Part 1: The big rethink

• Questioning what we think we know about business
• What is a business?
• What is a business for?
• How should business behave?
• How should conflicts between interests be reconciled?
• A new theory of the firm

Part 2: Defining CSR
A framework for action

Part 3: People

• Mission, leadership and culture
• Empathy and emotional intelligence
• Conflict, dialogue and organizational learning

Part 4: Governance

• Opening the corporate board
• Mediating between the firm, its stakeholders and neighbors
• Transparency

Part 5: Drilling down

• Understanding relationship risk
• Supporting decision making
• Performance monitoring and management
• Handling issues

If this all reads like the contents of a book, that would be because I am in the process of writing one. Please don’t imagine, therefore, that I will be able to cover any topic listed above in a single post.

Participating in this “course-by-blog”

If you are thinking of following these blogs as I get them written then I highly recommend that you do not make it a passive affair. I encourage all such “students” to register on APEsphere so that you can participate in discussions around the blog subject matter through the comments section under each post.

I will try and make good use of the fabulous responsible business resources available free at CasePlace.org, so you might want to register on that site, too. If you are an MBA student interested in responsible business then do take the CasePlace.org tour video to see what a great resource it is.

I also encourage you to form your own study groups to discuss the material being presented. If you mention “The Missing Link” somewhere in your profile on APEsphere then other users can search on that phrase and find you. This will help you to locate other students with a view to starting study groups – in person or virtually.

Guest faculty: yes, please

I cannot quite believe I have committed to set out an entire course online on corporate social responsibility. I also struggle to imagine that readers will find my uninterrupted stream of consciousness as riveting as they would find a more varied set of voices.

I would therefore be very grateful to hear from qualified guest faculty who would like to give up some of their time to write a blog post or two or record a podcast on either a topic in the list set out above or on ethical issues in a particular sector, company, or region, or relating to a particular kind of business impact (eg the environment, human rights, supply chains).

In my next post, I’ll kick off by asking why the subject of business responsibility needs to be revisited at all.