In 2022, Corporate Knights published The Social Purpose Transition Pathway, a report that graded companies on how well they were implementing their social purpose. This year, we have carried the social purpose theme to the educational realm.

A social purpose business model goes beyond focusing on profit and considers the value that is being generated for society. In a classroom, it translates into curriculum that teaches future business leaders how to use assets, resources, competencies, products, services and influence to create solutions to society’s social, environmental, socio-economic or socio-ecological challenges. A crucial order of the day.

In partnership with Coast Capital and the Canadian Purpose Economy Project, we asked and analyzed the responses to two optional questions in this year’s Better World MBA: do you teach the social purpose business model in your core curriculum, and does your business school itself have a social purpose statement?

What we found

1. The social purpose business model is not yet widely represented in the mission statements or curricula of business schools. Most business schools do have mission statements, but clearly defined social purpose statements are rare.

Of the 209 schools in this year’s universe, 19.6% had mission statements that were weakly aligned with social purpose, and 45 schools had unequivocal social purpose mission statements.

Among the leaders receiving an A grade in our assessment is the Sprott School of Business at Carleton University, which incorporates social purpose into its mission, “Business for a Better World,” aimed at creating shared prosperity and propelling equity and justice. “This isn’t just a forward-looking statement; it’s a dedication to cultivating business leaders who can effect meaningful change.”

For the question about curriculum content, of the 44 MBA curricula we reviewed, almost half had some social-purpose-related material, but only two schools contained sufficient evidence of social purpose content in their course descriptions to merit an A grade in our assessment. Those leaders included Griffith in Australia (also our top-ranked program in the Better World MBA this year) and Frankfurt School of Finance and Management.

2. The social purpose business model is widely misunderstood by business schools and is often conflated with an emphasis on sustainability performance, triple-bottom-line accounting, adherence to ethical standards and other non-financial metrics of company performance that do not by themselves make a purpose-driven company.

Social purpose course integration scoring and results

Social purpose statement scoring and results

Read the full Better World MBA methodology, including social purpose criteria.

Ralph Torrie is director of research at Corporate Knights. Sanna Uppal is a research analyst at Corporate Knights.

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