Programs to help students discern their vocation or calling are gaining prominence in higher education.

advertisement

According to a 2019 Bates/Gallup poll, 80% of college graduates want a sense of purpose from their work. In addition, a 2023 survey found that 50% of Generation Z and millennial employees in the U.K. and U.S. have resigned from a job because the values of the company did not align with their own. These sentiments are also found in today’s business school students, as Gen Z is demanding that course content reflect the changes in society, from diversity and inclusion to sustainability and poverty. According to the Financial Times, “there may never have been a more demanding cohort.” And yet, business schools have been slower than other schools to respond, leading to calls ranging from transforming business education to demolishing it.

Subscribe to the Daily newsletter. Fast Company’s trending stories delivered to you every day Privacy Policy | Fast Company Newsletters

What are business schools creating? Historically, studies have shown that business school applicants have scored higher than their peers on the “dark triad” traits of narcissism, psychopathy and Machiavellianism. These traits can manifest themselves in a tendency toward cunning, scheming and, at times, unscrupulous behavior. Over the course of their degree program, other studies have found that business school environments can amplify those preexisting tendencies while enhancing a concern for what others think of them. And these tendencies stick after graduation. One study examined 9,900 U.S. publicly listed firms and separated the sample by those run by managers who went to business school and those whose managers did not. While they found no discernible difference in sales or profits between the two samples, they found that labor wages were cut 6% over five years at companies run by managers who went to business school, while managers with no business degree shared profits with their workers. The study concludes that this is the result “of practices and values acquired in business education.”

But there are signs that this may be changing. Questioning value Today, many are questioning the value of the MBA. Those who have decided it is worth the high cost either complain of its lack of rigor, relevance and critical thinking or use it merely for access to networks for salary enhancement, treating classroom learning as less important than attending recruiting events and social activities.

Layered onto this uncertain state of affairs, generative artificial intelligence is fundamentally altering the education landscape, threatening future career prospects and short-circuiting the student’s education by doing their research and writing for them. This is concerning because of the outsized role that business leaders play in today’s society: allocating capital, developing and deploying new technologies and influencing political and social debates. At times, this role is a positive one, but not always. Distrust follows that uncertainty.

Not ethics, but character formation Business schools have often included ethics courses in their curriculum, often with limited success. What some schools are experimenting with is character formation. As part of this experimentation is the development of a coherent moral culture that lies within the course curriculum but also within the cocurricular programming, cultural events, seminars and independent studies that shape students’ worldviews; the selection, socialization, training and reward systems for students, staff and faculty; and other aspects that shape students’ formation. Stanford’s Bill Damon, one of the leading scholars on helping students develop a sense of purpose in life, describes a revised role for faculty in this effort, one of creating the fertile conditions for students to find meaning and purpose on their own.

I use this approach in my course on vocation discernment in business, shifting from a more traditional academic style to one that is more developmental. This is relational teaching that artificial intelligence cannot do. It involves bringing the whole person into the education process, inspiring hearts as much as engaging heads to form competent leaders who possess character, judgment and wisdom. It allows an examination of both the how and the why of business, challenging students to consider what kind of business leader they aspire to be and what kind of legacy they wish to establish.

Andrew J. Hoffman is a Holcim (US) professor of sustainable enterprise at the Ross School of Business and School for Environment & Sustainability at the University of Michigan. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.