Guest Speakers: A Win-Win Outcome for Business Management Education?

Approaches to the teaching of responsible management for business management students have been evolving over the last ten years, resulting in a growing shift from lectures and the acquisition of academic knowledge to student-centred activities and the development of softer employment skills; the skills that educators perceive as a prerequisite for students’ career success. One approach to this favoured by students is the incorporation of a guest speaker.
Whilst students’ appreciation of infrequent guest speakers within a lecture series is generally accepted, there is little consideration of potential benefits for the individual volunteering as the guest speaker. To close this research gap, this paper adopts a wider perspective on the value of guest speakers and considers whether becoming a guest speaker can benefit the business practitioner (the individual volunteering as the guest speaker) and their organisation as well as the students, thus offering a win-win outcome.
Through this exploration of the value of guest speakers within responsible business learning and teaching, this paper will contribute to, and develop, two strands of discourse; firstly, on how business practitioners and/or their organisation can benefit from engaging with Business Schools as guest speakers, and secondly, on novel approaches to learning and teaching for responsible business that can promote students’ knowledge and skills to enable them that to survive in the real world after graduation. It will therefore be of interest to educators seeking innovative and inspirational new approaches to education, to those seeking shared value creation through smart partnering with Business Schools, to managers seeking opportunities to develop their Corporate Social Responsibility objectives and impacts, and to those who simply want a new challenge.