Unisa’s Department of Science and Technology (DST)/National Research Foundation (NRF) South African Research Chairs Initiative (SARChI) in Development Education, is continuously being affirmed for its transformative efforts. A recent appreciation from the higher education sector in South Africa has come from the University of Cape Town (UCT).

Professor Kosheek Sewchurran (pictured right), Programme Director, Executive MBA course: Graduate School of Business, UCT stated his affirmation with this letter:

“Business education plays a role in society by generating new knowledge and understanding of how concepts related to planning, organising and strategising assist with designing purpose, resilience, optimising resources and institutionalising new regimes of common sense in public and private enterprise.

Over the decades the business education paradigm acquired quite narrow assumptions of how human beings became motivated, how sustainable development ought to be pursued, how generated value ought to be shared with all stakeholders and how current public and private interests ought to be harmonised to ensure the prosperity of future generations. The paradigm seemed to encourage ambivalent behaviour while we yearned for transformation.

In South Africa we experienced the effects of this acutely in areas such as mining and agriculture. We can see how the business and paradigm, in both, private and public enterprise did not ensure abundance for all its people, nor did it protect their long-term socio-psychological development or the equitable sharing or emergent value. This has contributed to a gradual worsening and fragmentation of social systems, and regimes of common sense to a point were it threatens the prosperity of future generations.

As an academic responsible for business education and leadership development, I could sense that the master narratives of Karl-Marx, Ngugi Wa Thiongo, Franz Fanon etc. needed newer more contemporary interpretations to allow us to find plausible, resonant small-wins and inspiration.

The programmes and research emerging from the efforts of SARChI Chair in Development Education offered me inspiration and insight. And I have benefited immensely from the work the Fellows of the SARChI Chair led by Professor Catherine Odora Hoppers, Professor Howard Richards, Dr Gavin Anderson, and Dr Evelin Lindner, namely on Rethinking Thinking; Unbounded Organisation, and on the Dignity Economy.

Specifically, on the Executive MBA programme at the Graduate School of Business I am exploring how the constructs of unbounded organising can be used as a basis for a new organising paradigm to stabilise and make practical the emerging ideas of social impact bonds to organise the pursuit of unbounded problems.”

Prof. Catherine Odora Hoppers (Incumbent of the SARChI Chair in Development Education at Unisa)

Professor Catherine Odora Hoppers, incumbent of the SARChI Chair in Development Education at Unisa, is acutely aware that change does not come overnight. She says, “As long as we live, we must try to work for justice. Universities and other centres of knowledge production and knowledge dissemination have roles to play in consensus-building processes and in the related processes leading to a higher and more humane, more functional standards of legitimacy in bringing yesterday’s silenced into tomorrow’s conversations. In so doing, it shows how collective deliberation and honest fact finding can make it unnecessary and counterproductive to use violence to get justice. This is what the SARChi Chair in Development Education seeks to do, and will continue to do.”

The SARChI Chair in Development Education is housed by Unisa but it has always been intended as a resource for all universities in this country and further afield. ”We are very happy to note that the insights generated in the ferment of our retreats and in the TAPROOT series contribute so practically to transformation process at other institutions of higher learning. We are extremely proud that the theoretical advances made by our Distinguished Fellows now find wider application. The Chair will continue to catalyse transdisciplinary learning in pursuit of societal transformation,” says Hoppers.

Professor Howard Richards (USA/Chile–PhD in Economics, Phd in Educational Planning, Phd in Law), Dr Gavin Andersson (South Africa–PhD in Organisation Analysis), and Dr Evelin Lindner (Norway/Germany–Phd in Medicine, and PhD in Psychology) spent several months last year and this April 2014 in Cape Town on the invitation of the Graduate School of Business on their efforts to change mindsets in the Executive MBA programme.

*By Kirosha Naicker