Content written by Kirk Kardashian and published by Tuck Business School
MBA News Digest Comment: None.
Extracted Content: For the past few years, clinical professor Curt Welling D’71, T’77 has been teaching a popular course at Tuck called Business and Society.
Behind that rather simple name is a tectonic shift in the business landscape that is causing firms of all sizes to ask existential questions about the impact of their operations on people and the environment. Should soft drink companies, for example, bear some responsibility for increased rates of obesity and type-2 diabetes? Should manufacturers be expected to ensure their products don’t end up in a landfill? Should firms pay for the greenhouse gasses they emit into the atmosphere? More broadly, the course explores how companies’ implicit license to operate is under scrutiny in this changing social dynamic. “I teach that course twice a year and it’s always well subscribed,” says Welling, who, prior to returning to Tuck, was a managing director at Credit Suisse and Bear Sterns, and the president and CEO of the AmeriCares Foundation. “We’ve seen a steady increase in the interest of students to study these issues.”