A Globally Responsible Gateway Initiative

Website hosted by the GRLI

About The Tipping Point Initiative

The Tipping Point initiative aims to engage more than one-third of recognized business schools globally before 2030 in rapid and radical content revision that serves people and planet in a regenerative way, and that reorients business and business education along the way.

Sparked by an opportunity to apply for the MacArthur 100&Change grant, business education networks and associations from around the world coalesced to endorse an application anchored by the GRLI, GMI, IAJBS and oikos International.

Our shared context?

The world, humanity and all living things is faced with a complex, convergent interplay of environmental degradation, climate change, social inequality, and economic instability.

How do we learn to live and make a living on this planet without destroying it?

Without significant changes in how future leaders are educated, economic disparities will continue to widen, planetary boundaries will be further breached, exacerbating global instability. For nearly a century, business schools have focused on maximizing profit and growth, often neglecting the consequences of exploiting finite resources and ignoring the social costs of unchecked expansion. While innovative theories and practices that prioritize sustainability and social responsibility have been developed, they are not being implemented at the scale necessary to make a meaningful impact. The slow pace of change in business education is due to entrenched bureaucratic processes and a focus on traditional, profit-driven models, with limited coordination across institutions to align curricula with the pressing needs of society and the planet. To address these challenges, it is crucial to rethink and rapidly update business education.  This transformation is essential to create a more just,equitable, and sustainable world.

Our collective response

While some institutions have made strides in integrating sustainability and social responsibility into their curricula,these efforts are often isolated and slow to scale. Similarly, initiatives aimed at systemic transformation of business education are equally challenged and under-resourced.

By engaging business school change makers in a rapid and radical revision of course content, and the commitment to pay their learning forward to at least two other schools we’re aiming to have at least 800 business schools globally (more than 1/3rd of internationally accredited schools) engaged in broad and fundamental transformation of business and business education by 2030. A tipping point!

By fostering a shift in mindset and operational models alongside course content, we aim to reorient business and education towards global responsibility. The ultimate measure of success will be widespread and systemic change in how business is taught and practiced globally, and the adoption of regenerative business models as the norm.

Who is helping make this happen?

The following networks and associations are endorsing the initiative. Those marked with ( ) also added their voice to the application video:

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‘50+20 not only raises the sights for those charged with the development of our future leaders, but also provides a clear roadmap for delivering on that ambition. As such, it is an important contribution to a journey of transformation that affects not only the future of business, but the very planet itself.’- Paul Polman, Unilever, US
‘The 50+20 initiative is an ambitious effort that highlights the urgent need for radical change in what we teach and how management education is delivered today. In a world that faces so many different and fast-evolving challenges, the initiative is indeed timely and needed.’- Peter Bakker, World Business Council for Sustainable Development, Switzerland
‘We now finally have a blueprint that can be used as a foundation for a new contract between business schools and society. Changing the way we educate our business leaders for tomorrow will change the world for the better.’- Rakesh Khurana, Harvard Business School, US

50+20 Resources

The 50+20 Agenda booklet in executive summary style is available for free download in English, Spanish and German, while the complete book can be purchased by following the links.

The philosophy of the collaboratory forms the key feature of the 50+20 vision and involves a circular space that is open to concerned stakeholders to meet on equal terms for any given transdisciplinary issue. The collaboratory embodies the overarching philosophy that unites the three proposed new roles of management education for the world into a concrete action research and learning approach. As such, it represents an open-source metaspace: a facilitated platform based on open space and consciousness building technologies. A collaboratory is conducted without formal separation between knowledge production and knowledge transfer, while focusing on visceral real-life issues and developing solution in a process of engagement that is driven by challenges, not theory.
(FR) The 50+20 Collaboratory – methodology and approach for short one-time sessions
The philosophy of the collaboratory forms the key feature of the 50+20 vision and involves a circular space that is open to concerned stakeholders to meet on equal terms for any given transdisciplinary issue. The collaboratory embodies the overarching philosophy that unites the three proposed new roles of management education for the world into a concrete action research and learning approach. As such, it represents an open-source metaspace: a facilitated platform based on open space and consciousness building technologies. A collaboratory is conducted without formal separation between knowledge production and knowledge transfer, while focusing on visceral real-life issues and developing solution in a process of engagement that is driven by challenges, not theory.
The 50+20 Collaboratory – methodology and approach for short one-time sessions
Management Education for the World speaks to everybody concerned or passionate about the future of management education: consultants, facilitators, entrepreneurs and leaders in organizations of any kind, as well as policymakers and others with an interest in new and transformative thinking in the field. In particular, teachers, researchers, students and administrators will find it an invaluable resource on their journey.
Management Education for the World (Mandarin)
Management Education for the World speaks to everybody concerned or passionate about the future of management education: consultants, facilitators, entrepreneurs and leaders in organizations of any kind, as well as policymakers and others with an interest in new and transformative thinking in the field. In particular, teachers, researchers, students and administrators will find it an invaluable resource on their journey.
Management Education for the World
The GRLI has been at the core of the development of the 50+20 vision and implementation of the agenda “Management Education for the World”. 50+20 is not an organization but a vision and movement that seeks to learn of new ways and opportunities for management education to transform and reinvent itself. 50+20 asks critical questions about the state of the world, the emerging societal issues, the dominant economic logic, the purpose of business, the crucial role of leadership, and the challenges facing management education. The project emerged from parallel projects that originated in different parts of the world:
The 50+20 Agenda – Management Education for the World (2012) – Free download

Innovation Cohort

In May 2013 a group of deans and directors of business schools and corporate learning and development specialists met at EFMD’s Brussels headquarters drawn by the question how do we drive change towards management education that serves a world in transition? They envisioned a shared journey and programme for business schools, other educators and corporate university leaders to build on insights developed through the 50+20 vision. A founding Innovation Cohort met during 2014/15 and starting in 2017 this initiative has been driven under the banner of the GRLI Deans & Directors Cohort.