Agents of Change: Using Transformative Learning Theory to Enhance Courses in Business Ethics and Social Entrepreneurship.

How can we catalyze “entrepreneurial thinking” and cultivate a deeper understanding of social responsibility and sustainability in business education? Academic scholars have begun to explore the key characteristics and origins of an “entrepreneurial mindset” through new streams of research in the areas of “entrepreneurial cognition” and “design thinking”. Similarly, modern scholarship on “sustainable business” and “creating shared value” has offered a new sense of direction for research on social responsibility. If only a simple lecture or power point presentation could convey all the real-world complexities involved in actually creating shared value, or in effectively balancing “people, planet and profits.” If only we could identify the cognitive traits, skills, and abilities of the world’s most successful entrepreneurs and bottle them in an “entrepreneurial tonic” to be administered in our business school programs.