February 8, 2024

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Ten of the Top Ideas Worth Teaching

Ideas Worth Teaching launched with the dream of bringing big ideas, about ethics, sustainability, and what business could do for society, into the classroom. Just like students graduating from business school, we are moving on from the classroom and in to a new focus on change-makers in the workplace. 

With our new LinkedIn newsletter, the Business & Society Navigator, we are doing just that. We are incredibly proud to have been able to support the next generation of business leaders as they began their journeys. We aim to continue to help forward-looking business leaders pursue positive change, bringing new ideas and new ways of thinking to the corporate world. 

As Ideas Worth Teaching comes to a close, this final issue showcases some of our readers’ favorite items over the years.

Thank you for sharing in this adventure, and we hope you join us as we navigate our way into the future. 

BUSINESS ETHICS

The Mind-Blowing Stupidity of Wells Fargo

The Week: Jeff Spross (2016)

How did Wells Fargo go so far off the rails?

TALENT MANAGEMENT

Why It’s So Hard to Train Someone to Make an Ethical Decision

Harvard Business Review: Eugene Soltes (2017)

How can classroom exercises better simulate real-world decision making?

TEACHING INNOVATIONS

In Age of Alternative Facts, a Scholarly Course on Calling Out Crap

STAT: Usha Lee McFarling (2017)

Is this NSFW course on critical thinking a new requirement for modern life?

PURPOSE OF THE CORPORATION

The Social Responsibility of Business Is to Create Value for Stakeholders

MIT Sloan Management Review: R. Edward Freeman, Heather Elms (2018)

Is “value creation for real people” the key to building better products, communities and companies?

TEACHING INNOVATIONS

Yale’s Most Popular Class Ever: Happiness

The New York Times: David Shimer (2018)

How did this professor hit the sweet spot between popularity and depth? By helping students make real personal and organizational change.

TEACHING INNOVATIONS

Capitalisn’t: The Moral Case Against the MBA

Chicago Booth Review: Luigi Zingales, Kate Waldock, Duff McDonald (2018)

Should MBA programs be obligated to produce business leaders who are both effective and socially aware?

TEACHING INNOVATIONS

Are Our Management Theories Outdated?

Harvard Business Review: Gianpiero Petriglieri (2020)

“It is impossible to build the future using the blueprints of the past.” Is it time to take a good, hard look at the essential underpinnings of management today?

FINANCE

Shifting from Shareholder to Stakeholder Model: Using Sustainable Investment to Align Profit with Purposefulness

Rotterdam School of Management: Dirk Schoenmaker, Willem Schramade, Jacqueline Nolan (2021)

Investors want to know: How prepared are firms for the coming transition to sustainability? This case asks students to conduct a critical investigation into the firm of their choice. Is their company part of the problem, or part of the solution? (free, login required)

TEACHING INNOVATIONS

Meet the Professors Breaking the Mold of Business Courses

The Aspen Institute Business & Society Program: Jaime Bettcher (2021)

How does “radically reimagining the role that business can play in our most persistent problems” support a more constructive and resilient future? This year’s IWT Award-winning educators help show the way.

FUTURE OF CAPITALISM

The Power of Capitalism

BlackRock: Larry Fink (2022)

Every company and every industry will be transformed by the transition to a net zero world. The question is, will you lead, or will you be led?