- October 6, 2010
- 12:30 pm
- Anne Reilly
- no comments
Which Course Topics Should We Study?
Most School of Business Administration faculty work hard to keep their courses relevant and challenging. Thus, in addition to covering discipline-specific knowledge, we also incorporate topics reflecting current issues in the business world. One important goal: to illustrate how we at Loyola integrate responsible business leadership with our Jesuit focus on transformative education.
One of the most important challenges facing global business today is the challenge of finding good leaders. Thus, I might share with my Management class this reading from The Economic Times (January 15, 2010): “Why Peter Drucker Hailed Frances Hesselbein as the World’s Best Leader”:
You may never have heard of Peter Drucker, but many people consider him the most influential business thinker of the past century. He believed that Frances Hesselbein “could manage any company in America.” Ms. Hesselbein was the CEO of the American Girl Scouts for 14 years. (Yes, business schools study non-profit organizations like the Girl Scouts, just as we analyze for-profit corporations like Apple or Google). You can read about Hesselbein’s leadership style in this article, and learn that she was awarded the U. S. Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1988 for her service “as a pioneer for women, volunteerism, diversity and opportunity.” As a woman faculty member, I am especially interested in reading about successful women leaders!
Another article I might discuss with my MBA students focuses on research examining the relationship between wealth and emotional well-being, for both individuals and nations: “Do Wealth and Well-Being Go Hand in Hand?” (The Wall Street Journal, 11/07/08):
This article is a great way to start a conversation about the potential link between money and happiness, as we consider individual motivation and work behavior. As the article notes, B-schools are “more interdisciplinary and open-minded than many other parts of academe”—and we have no problem talking about money :).