Laszlo Zsolnai was keynote speaker at EDAMBA Annual Meeting & General Assembly on September 5, 2023 in Budapest. EDMBA is the European Doctoral Programmes Association in Management & Business Administration.
He presented the grand challenges of the Anthropocene (climate change, biodiversity loss, ecosystems collapse, global inequality, welfare deficiency, social unrest, and artificial intelligence) and argued that business schools should become the place of transformative learning to create new things with positive impact on nature, society, and future generations.
In the new reality of the Anthropocene the main functions of the business school should be redefined. In Zsolnai’s view these functions include (1) generating universal orientation across culturesand disciplines, (2) assisting the whole person development of students and faculty, (3) creating new forms of knowledge, (4) bringing forth responsible practitioners, (5) enhancing the problem-solving capabilities of society, and (6) catalyzing progressive social change in human-earth systems. In summary, business schools should do different things and should do things differently to adequately respond to the grand challenges of the Anthropocene.