Rebuilding social license by “working with governments and for society”: a strategy for a business school in a capital city

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to argue that for business schools to regain social license, their teaching and research must create positive social impact. The study adopts the perspective of an applied business schools, based in a capital city. It discusses a strategy to regain public support and to attract new students and new research partners. This study’s strategy is based on economic analysis and concepts of social license, using a balanced scorecard approach. The implementation of the strategy is informed by co-design principles and behavioural economics, in particular the UK BIT EAST framework. The study identifies three channels for achieving social impact to restore social license. Firstly, through the fields of research conducted – the application of business knowledge to social enterprise and government delivering social services; secondly, through broadening participation of students in business studies; and thirdly, taking an active role in informing public policy decisions. The study illustrates how co-design principles and behavioural economic approaches can be used to implement the strategy. This is a conceptual paper providing a process to develop a social impact strategy for a business school in an applied university. While the authors are confident that early signs indicate the success of the strategy, the study does not have or can present conclusive data. In this sense the study is speculative. This study provides two sets of questions – “check lists” – that allow business schools to design their contributions to social impact in a bid to rebuild social license and help to attract students and research partners. The study identifies three channels through which business schools can provide value to society. This study outlines channels for creating social impact by business schools in applied universities based in capital cities to restore social license and illustrates how such a strategy can be implemented.