Migration should be the heart of teaching in business schools

Students and lecturers could benefit from exploring the interrelationships between migration, business and society, according to researchers from Vienna University of Economics and Business (@WU_Vienna). 

The researchers, Aida Hajro and Milda Zilinskaite, say that teaching migration in business schools can provide a way to reshape students’ ways of thinking about complex relationships between companies, nation states, intergovernmental organisations, civil society and industry.

This is because migration is a good example to use when teaching responsible global leadership and political CSR as it can contest accepted knowledge, and push learners to acquire more holistic or new ways of generating meaning.

Furthermore, the researchers add that leading accreditation bodies suggest that in coming years we will see a dramatic increase in the number of students who have migration backgrounds – meaning these insights will become ever more pertinent.

“Under the influence of decolonisation, demographic changes such as aging populations, economic growth, and the creation of the European Union (EU), has meant that this region has emerged as a global migration magnet. In 2019, Europe hosted around 82 million international migrants comprising of around 30% of the total global number,” says Hajro.

The researchers add that the various aspects of contemporary migration are not only important factual learning inputs, they draw the learner’s attention to new realities, the learning outcome is that it may change students’ thinking about migration and its implications for business and management.

“As management scholars, we should be at the forefront in educating future business practitioners and leaders about these important issues. It is time to give migration the kind of attention it deserves in business education,” says Zilinskaite.

Migration is and will remain a permanent feature of economic growth and societal change, and the researchers believe that tackling migration as a topic can put learners on a path that leads to those much-needed profound conceptual changes.

This paper is especially relevant for any business school professionals teaching or creating curriculums today.