GRAZIADIO IN THE NEWS

“Broadly, having people who have worked at the senior levels in business enriches the learning process for students,” says Dean Linda Livingstone, in an article highlighting the faculty appointment of former Patagonia CEO Michael Crooke, who oversees the Certificate in Socially Environmentally and Ethically Responsible (SEER) Business Practice program.

However, she acknowledges that the topic of social and environmental sustainability is one for which practitioner teachers are well suited. “Because it’s a newer field from an academic perspective, sometimes it’s harder for students to see how to apply these things in an organizational setting,” she says.

“So it’s important to have practitioners who can show them how to apply the skills they’re developing anywhere in an organization.”

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RECENT HEADLINES

Business school accrediting body AACSB International has tapped Dean Linda A. Livingstone, Ph.D., for several key influential appointments this year.

A member of AACSB’s board of directors since the 2009-2010 academic year, Dean Livingstone recently accepted an invitation to serve on the boards’ Executive Committee, which advises the chair and president and CEO on matters pertaining to the board’s business and staff operations. continue

Mr. and Mrs. Donald Sime, 1974.

Graziadio founding dean, Don Sime, passed away December 9, 2010, surrounded by his wife, children, grandchildren and great grandchildren. Dean Sime was instrumental in creating a key executive program at Pepperdine University.

Longtime Pepperdine friend Steve Olson recalled Don in a 2005 interview for Pepperdine People Magazine. “I met with Don and his plan [for the Graziadio School] sounded intriguing. So between the two of us, we actually put together maybe 25 people to start a program in the downtown area. This was actually the precursor to the Presidential/Key Executive MBA program.”

“Don’s vision for the school and his tireless efforts in the early years of what was then the Graduate School of Business and Management built a unique and lasting foundation on which we continue to build today,” said Dean Linda Livingstone, who said it would be a privilege to continue his legacy.

The Graziadio School of Business and Management will be forever indebted to Dean Sime’s vision, dedication and service.

RECENT HEADLINES

Dean Linda A. Livingstone has been appointed to a new Blue Ribbon Committee on Accreditation Quality (BRC) formed by AACSB International, the association of more than 1,200 educational institutions, businesses and other organizations in 78 countries responsible for business school accreditation.

The 20-member blue ribbon committee, representing eight countries, will evaluate the state of readiness of AACSB’s accreditation standards and processes to ensure the alignment of business practice and management education, the association said in a statement. The committee will also set appropriate expectations for quality and continuous improvement.

“Serving on the BRC affords an extraordinary opportunity to bring Pepperdine’s and the Graziadio School’s unique voice and perspective to advancing the standards by which we assure academic excellence among business schools internationally,” said Dean Livingstone.

“Business worldwide is reinventing itself. Our community of educators and I are committed to leading the kind of innovation and value creation in our schools that the marketplace now demands.”

Dean Livingstone joins a truly global task force of business and business school experts to review the international environment of industry and commerce, and make certain accreditation standards and processes effectively align with the many factors impacting businesses today and in the future. Co-chaired by Thierry Grange, dean and director general of Grenoble Ecole de Management (France) and Richard E. Sorensen of Virginia Tech’s Pamplin College of Business (USA), the BRC includes Executive Dean Tim Brailsford of the University of Queensland (Australia); Dean Carolyn Woo of the University of Notre Dame (USA), and Dean Yingyi Qian of Tsinghua University’s School of Economics and Management (China).

AACSB accreditation is the mark of quality distinction most widely sought after by business schools—less than 5% worldwide have earned the achievement. As the premier accreditation body for institutions offering undergraduate, master’s and doctorate degrees in business and accounting, AACSB’s mission is to advance quality management education worldwide through accreditation, thought leadership, and value-added services.

DEAN’S MESSAGE

Distinctive Leadership 2015
By Linda A. Livingstone, Ph.D.

The Graziadio School’s mission statement includes a pledge: We affirm a higher purpose for business practice than the exclusive pursuit of shareholder wealth.

This statement articulates, in part, our long-standing commitment as an institution to business ethics and values-centered leadership. For me, these are not merely words or website rhetoric. They attest to a guiding behavior and reality we cannot afford to undervalue in today’s world. Ethics in business is as sophisticated and complex as any financial problem, and getting more so.

I have been experiencing déjà vu lately.

From the boardroom to the halls of government and in the classrooms of business schools, ethics in business is once again receiving broad, laser-hot focus. We are witnessing an unprecedented erosion of trust and confidence in leaders, institutions and practices that solely view value creation in terms of achieving short-term, unsustainable results.

Lehman Brothers and AIG’s collapse resulting in catastrophic financial meltdown, recession and bailout, Toyota, BP and other crises over the all-too-brief last two years are fueling reforms in compliance and regulation, but also re-evaluation of the core guiding behaviors that led to these debacles. Not too long ago, 2002 in fact, the ethical fallout of Enron, Arthur Andersen, WorldCom and others was also a wake-up call met by additional regulation, litigation and beefed up ethics emphasis in companies, institutions and among educators.

Today, as eight years ago, some critics blame business schools as complicit in creating these debacles, seeing at their center far too many executives who earned coveted MBAs. They charge that management educators are too eager to placate companies that hire their graduates by emphasizing creative business mechanics meant to drive quarterly profits at any cost over strategic business decisions that both maximize value creation and minimize harm to all stakeholders. Whether these allegations are true or politicized media hyperbole, or falls somewhere in-between, Corporate America and management education are facing a crucible moment. Business schools, and the students who enroll in their programs, are responding with renewed scrutiny of curriculum and creative ways that reach beyond the requisite focus on the business case method. continue