Business leaders have tremendous power to influence our society, how it operates, whether it is equitable, and the extent to which it impacts the environment. And yet, we do not recognize or call out the responsibility that comes with that power.

The focus of Management as a Calling is to change our expectations of business leaders: teaching students that they will possess awesome power as business leaders, and with that power comes great responsibility and an obligation to create benefit for all of society. We face great challenges as a society today, from environmental problems like climate change, ocean acidification, and habitat destruction; to social problems like income inequality, unemployment, lack of a living wage, and poor access to affordable health care or education. Solutions to these challenges must come from the most powerful institution on earth, the market, as it is influenced by its most powerful entity: business. Though government is an important and vital authority of the market, it is business that transcends national boundaries, possessing resources that exceed those of many nations. Business is responsible for producing the buildings that we live and work in, the food we eat, the clothes we wear, the forms of travel we use and the energy that propels them.

With its unmatched powers of creation, production, and distribution, business is positioned to bring the change we need at the scale we need it. If there are no solutions coming from the market, there will be no solutions at all. And without visionary and service-oriented business leaders to push forward, the market will never even try to find them.