Leading with purpose: developing the first business school for public good

Kitchener, Martin ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6249-557X 2025. Leading with purpose: developing the first business school for public good. Lindgreen,, Adam, Irwin, Alan and Poulfelt, Flemming, eds. How to Lead Academic Departments Successfully, Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar, pp. 89-105. (10.4337/9781035333387.00017)

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Abstract

It is a tragic irony that while some university business school faculty are calling for corporations to place organizational purpose before profit, their own organizations face mounting criticism for prioritizing the pursuit of outcomes, such as accreditations and revenue, over purpose. This chapter presents a personal account of my attempt to lead a process of purposeful change at Cardiff Business School in the United Kingdom. It begins with my characterization of business schools as university departments in urgent need of repurposing. In the second section, I introduce the corporate purpose literature and synthesize from it, three approaches to support the development of purposeful organizations: the chief purpose officer role, purpose statements, and multi-capital reporting. In the third section, I describe the role these approaches played as Cardiff became the first business school to focus on enhancing public good. The chapter concludes with some reflections and lessons that may be useful for academic leaders wishing to develop purposeful university departments.

Item Type:	Book Section
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	Schools > Business (Including Economics)
Publisher:	Edward Elgar
ISBN:	9781035333370
Last Modified:	07 Jan 2026 12:03
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/183654

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