The Aspen Institute's Business and Society Program will launch the Chinese Business School Initiative at a watershed conference Dec. 15 and 16th that will bring together top government officials as well as administrators at China's top business schools. Their mission: Help China develop business leaders with the ethical frameworks, substantive knowledge and functional skills necessary to lead successful enterprises, contribute to social progress and improve environmental conditions in China.

"As the private sector grows in China, the government, media and general public are raising expectations about the contributions that business can make to the Harmonious Society," says Judith Samuelson, executive director of the Aspen Institute's Business and Society Program. "For the private sector to help drive productive and sustainable development of the Chinese economy and society, business leaders will need a new array of skills. Chinese business schools are responsible for educating many of these leaders, but currently lack focus on business responsibility and opportunity around key social and environmental issues."

Adapting the playbook from its successful 10-year effort to encourage Western business schools and firms to embrace and teach concepts such as environmentalism and sustainability, Samuelson, her MBA-trained staff, and a group of leading authorities on Chinese business and society will sponsor the organizing conference in Beijing on December 15-16 2006 to engage key stakeholders representing local schools, government agencies, and other organizations in Chinese business education and explore five program strategies:

■ A series of baseline and follow-up surveys to identify the current state of business education and the current thinking of students, teachers, and businesspeople.

■ A teaching innovation program supporting pilot projects on MBA campuses that develop effective ways to strengthen students’ knowledge, skills and attitudes.

■ An international academic research program and scholars network to increase understanding of the central role of enterprises in building Chinese society and economy.

■ A public and mass media program featuring a corporate speaker series.

■ An ongoing policy dialogue among business school leaders, government officials and other stakeholders.

The Initiative is hosted by the Aspen Institute’s Business and Society Program, and co-hosted by both the Chinese organization SynTao and the Chinese State Environmental Protection Agency’s Center for Environmental Education and Communication. In a country where government support is crucial, the initiative also has received vital and explicit support from The Chinese National MBA Supervisory Committee, Peking University’s Guanghua School of Management, Tsinghua University School of Economics and Management, AACSB International [the major international MBA accreditation body], and UN Global Compact.

Start-up funding has been provided by Citigroup Foundation, but Samuelson says the initiative will require additional ongoing funding from well-respected companies and organizations.

The template for the initiative comes from a decade's worth of success the Business and Society Program has had in the Americas and Europe influencing the business education curriculum and corporate thinking on issues like sustainability, the environmental and corporate social responsibility.

"It's a natural for us," Samuelson says. "There's so much attention being paid to environmental issues in China, and we've been pretty quick to connect dots that you need business leadership to tackle any problem that involves industry. The Chinese are certainly the experts on their country and their education system, and we're the leading international resource helping executives and educators explore new pathways to sustainability and values-based leadership, so a partnership makes good sense. We have unique capabilities and credibility to help China's business schools create a new business education model appropriate for Chinese society."

Samuelson stresses that the approach will be collaborative, not preachy, in nature.

"Our work is about creating an opportunity for dialogue, and providing the resources for those leaders who have to make the Chinese system work," she says. "It's not about saying, 'this is what you have to do.'"

In addition to Samuelson, other Aspen Insitute experts spearheading the China project will be:

-- Rick Bunch, who has has 10 years experience working with business schools and non-profit organizations to help them integrate sustainability and corporate social responsibility into management education programs. From 2003 to 2005, Bunch was executive director of the Bainbridge Island Graduate Institute <http://www.bgiedu.org/>, near Seattle, Washington.

-- Bernard Yeung, the Abraham Krasnoff Professor in Global Business, Professor in Economics, and Professor in Management at New York University Stern School of Business. He is also the Director of the NYU China House, Director of the Global Business Institute at Stern, NYU and the honorary co-chair of the Strategy Department of the Beijing University Guanghua School of Management. He teaches multinational enterprise economics, economics of strategy, global business environment, and international finance at both the doctoral and MBA level.

-- Rich Leimsider, Senior Program Associate for MBA Curriculum Change at The Aspen Institute's Business and Society Program. Leimsider uses his Harvard MBA and experience as a social entrepreneur to help manage the Beyond Grey Pinstripes program. Pinstripes is the Aspen Institute's report card on business schools, and includes the Faculty Pioneer Awards and the industry-leading website: www.beyondgreypinstripes.org. Mr. Leimsider has been building contacts in China in the business, non-profit and education sectors.