Toronto – An unique MBA course, which analyzes one firm from many perspectives, taught by Prof. Sarah Kaplan at the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management is one of nine business school courses honoured with a 2020 Ideas Worth Teaching Award from the Aspen Institute Business and Society Program. The award honors faculty who are redefining business education, providing learning experiences that equip managers of tomorrow with the context, skills and decision-making capabilities needed to lead in an increasingly complex business environment, and world.
“The 360° Corporation” is an elective MBA course that engages students in developing an integrated understanding of both private and public value creation. Prof. Kaplan’s latest book is based on the course. The 360º Corporation: From Stakeholder Trade-offs to Transformation addresses the social impact of business and how corporate social responsibility can be a source of innovation and resilience.
“My goal with this course, and with the book I wrote based on it, is to get students and leaders to grapple with the trade-offs that businesses create. I want them to understand that there aren’t simple solutions. There isn’t an easy rule book to follow. Instead, I guide them to find ways to innovate and thrive within the trade-offs in order to work towards a more productive balance between business and society,” says Prof. Kaplan.
Prof. Kaplan is Distinguished Professor; Director, Institute for Gender and the Economy; fellow of the Michael Lee-Chin Family Institute for Corporate Citizenship; and, professor of strategic management at the Rotman School. She is a co-author of the bestselling business book, Creative Destruction. Her latest book, The 360° Corporation: From Stakeholder Trade-offs to Transformation was published in 2019. Her research has covered how organizations participate in and respond to the emergence of new fields and technologies in biotechnology, fiber optics, financial services, nanotechnology and most recently, the field emerging at the nexus of gender and finance. Her current work focuses on applying an innovation lens to understanding the challenges for achieving gender equality. Formerly a professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School (where she remains a Senior Fellow), and a consultant and innovation specialist for nearly a decade at McKinsey & Company in New York, she completed her doctoral research at the Sloan School of Management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
Additional details about each of the nine award-winning courses and faculty, including their syllabi, are available online at www.ideasworthteachingawards.org.
The Aspen Institute Business and Society Program (Aspen BSP), founded in 1998, works with business executives and scholars to align business decisions and investments with the long-term health of society — and the planet. Through carefully designed networks, working groups and focused dialogue, the Program identifies and inspires thought leaders and “intrapreneurs” to challenge conventional ideas about capitalism and markets, to test new measures of business success and to connect classroom theory and business practice. The Business and Society Program is most known for the First Movers Fellowship, for dialogue on curbing short-termism in business and capital markets, and for fresh thinking about the Purpose of the corporation. For more information, visit www.aspenbsp.org.
The Rotman School of Management is part of the University of Toronto, a global centre of research and teaching excellence at the heart of Canada’s commercial capital. Rotman is a catalyst for transformative learning, insights and public engagement, bringing together diverse views and initiatives around a defining purpose: to create value for business and society. For more information,visit www.rotman.utoronto.ca.
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For more information:
Ken McGuffin
Manager, Media Relations
Rotman School of Management
University of Toronto
E-mail mcguffin@rotman.utoronto.ca