Responsible Leadership / Management Education  

GIBS became a signatory to the United Nations Principles for Responsible Management Education (PRME) on 11 November 2009. The PRME is a voluntary initiative to stimulate responsible management education, research and thought leadership and is inspired by the UN Global Compact.

The main purpose of the PRME is to mainstream corporate responsibility and sustainability into the business curriculum by adapting curricula, teaching, research and institutional strategies. It is convened by several organisations, including the European Academy of Business in Society, of which GIBS is already a member.
There are 286 academic institutions signed up to the PRME, of which UCT Graduate School of Business (October 2009) and Stellenbosch Business School (2008) are the only other South African Business Schools involved.

The PRME requires GIBS to:

• Make the PRME part of the institution's operations, curriculum and research;
• Report annually on the progress made to all stakeholders; and
• Publicly advocate the values of the PRME.

The suggested process for institutionalising PRME involves the following steps:

• Obtaining the commitment of the top administrators;
• Identifying champions among faculty, administrators and students or outside stakeholders (e.g. financial  donors) to assist in adoption and implementation;
• Developing a vision of what must be achieved in curricula, research and advocacy;
• Identifying key aspects of the organisation's activities that can be changed;
• Planning and building the operating, accountability and reporting systems to put the vision into practice;
• Integrating and aligning efforts across the organisation and in its key decisionmaking processes by forming a multiple stakeholder, multidisciplinary approach team, including administrators, faculty and students; and
• Annually assessing and reporting progress to all stakeholders.

A PRME signatory is invited to engage in a variety of ways to maximize the benefits of participation. In this regard, GIBS has participated in various activities, such as PRME Webinars, the United Nations PRME Conference in New York, USA in June 2010, and sponsoring the Association of African Business School's conference on responsible leadership in Cape Town in April 2011.

This initiative within GIBS is an important step in ensuring that the content of its teaching and research is socially relevant and responds to the emerging issues facing business and society.

The SIX Principles

Principle 1
Purpose: We will develop the capabilities of students to be future generators of sustainable value for business and society at large and to work for an inclusive and sustainable global economy.

Principle 2
Values: We will incorporate into our academic activities and curricula the values of global social responsibility as portrayed in international initiatives such as the United Nations Global Compact.

Principle 3
Method: We will create educational frameworks, materials, processes and environments that enable effective learning experiences for responsible leadership.

Principle 4
Research: We will engage in conceptual and empirical research that advances our understanding about the role, dynamics and impact of corporations in the creation of sustainable social, environmental and economic value.

Principle 5
Partnership: We will interact with managers of business corporations to extend our knowledge of their challenges in meeting social and environmental responsibilities and to explore jointly effective approaches to meeting these challenges.

Principle 6
Dialogue: We will facilitate and support dialogue and debate among educators, business, government, consumers, media, civil society organisations and other interested groups and stakeholders on critical issues related to global social responsibility and sustainability.

We understand that our own organisational practices should serve as an example of the values and attitudes we convey to our students.