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.
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Front Matter
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Part I: Challenges of being an academic leader
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Part II: Transformational and performance leadership
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Part III: Inclusivity, team spirit and career development
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Part IV: Building, leading and funding research groups
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Part V: Collaboration with other disciplines and practitioners
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Part VI: Leadership in different contexts
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Part VII: Personal leadership reflections
