CKGSB Dean Xiang Bing describes the school’s philosophy toward corporate social responsibility during a keynote speech at the fourth Partners in Business Ethics Conference at the Leeds School of Business at the University of Colorado Boulder.
To meet humanity’s most pressing issues, business and academic leaders need to “go beyond how to do business to ask why to do business, beyond the creation of wealth to the application of wealth,” according to CKGSB Founding Dean and Professor of China Business and Globalization Dr. Xiang Bing.
Dean Xiang described the school’s philosophy toward corporate social responsibility during a keynote speech at the fourth Partners in Business Ethics Conference hosted by the Center for Education on Social Responsibility (CESR) at the Leeds School of Business at the University of Colorado Boulder on May 19, 2015.
CKGSB Founding Dean and Professor of China Business and Globalization Dr. Xiang Bing delivers a keynote speech at the fourth Partners in Business Ethics Conference at the Leeds School of Business at the University of Colorado Boulder.
A collaboration with the University of Illinois, Penn State and the University of Texas at Austin, this groundbreaking collaborative conference brought together deans and center/program directors from the world’s leading business schools with corporate leaders to promote ethically responsible business.
Dean Xiang spoke to a crowd of about 150, including the Lieutenant Governor of Colorado Joseph Garcia.
CKGSB Founding Dean Dr. Xiang Bing explains the school’s philosophy toward corporate social responsibility before his appearance at the 2015 Partners in Business Ethics Conference at the Leeds School of Business at the University of Colorado Boulder on May 19, 2015.
CKGSB has a “top of the pyramid” focus that encourages executives to go back to school to learn how to meet the challenges posed by social and technological disruptions. “Our approach is to transform business leaders to become more globally minded, and more socially and ecologically responsible,” Dean Xiang said. “We want to develop a new generation of leaders who can compete with compassion and empathy.”
CKGSB’s China CEO Program and EMBA programs have educated large numbers of chairmen and CEOs of leading Chinese companies in their industries, Dean Xiang said. “The reason we want to get those people back to school is not just to enrich themselves. Otherwise, we as a school would be contributing to the widening inequality.”
Dean Xiang added that CKGSB strives to promote social exchange among classes to mitigate social segregations. “We go beyond how to do business to ask why to do business, beyond the creation of wealth to the application of wealth. Wealth and associated leverage is applied not to create more privilege for the few, but to develop fair and equitable systems of opportunities for societies and communities.”
CKGSB EMBA students are required to perform 48 hours of community service, and the school’s alumni have contributed greatly to charity efforts such as the Sichuan earthquake relief and the Red Scarf Children’s Library Project. Creating sustainability and addressing climate change are also key focuses for CKGSB’s curricula.
“China is the largest emitter of CO2 and among the worst offenders when it comes to environment pollution and degradation,” Dean Xiang said. We need to move to Confucius-inspired humanism that encourages the “unity of man and heaven”, rather than viewing “man as the measure of all things,” he added.
CKGSB is dedicated to generating insights and programs to meet humanity’s most pressing global issues, Dean Xiang said. In doing so, CKGSB intends to promote “two-way traffic” from West to East and East to West in learning and value dialogues, so that Asian business values and ethics on the basis of Confucianism and other classic Asian philosophies are part of the discussion. “Business leaders should not just be instruments for creating shareholder value,” Dean Xiang said. “An enriched and self-reflective life, even an enlightened life, is equally important.”
Dean Xiang also sees cross-cultural communication as being essential for the future of humanity. “You have to promote different dreams and different ways of living for different talents to emerge. Not just the Chinese way or the American way or the British way. It’s essential for social and global good, for the common good.”
