Bruno Dyck
Asper professor’s timely perspective on sustainable management leads to international award
Asper professor Bruno Dyck has received an Expanded Reason Award in Teaching for his outstanding contributions to research and teaching. The awards are an initiative sponsored by the Vatican Foundation Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI and the University Francisco de Vitoria in Madrid with the aim to celebrate and encourage innovation in interdisciplinary research. The awards recognize researchers and teachers who demonstrate how theory, practice and fundamental philosophical questions can be integrated to create a more holistic understanding of a subject.
Dyck was selected as a recipient due to his innovations that focus on sustainability and have benefited students world-wide through the textbooks and related research he has published. His most recent book is an award-winning co-authored textbook, “Management: Financial, Social, and Ecological Well-Being.” This book describes three different approaches to management, each based on a different moral-point-of-view: 1) Financial Bottom Line (FBL) management, 2) Triple Bottom Line (TBL) management, and 3) Social and Ecological Thought (SET) management.
The book builds on Dyck’s extensive pedagogical research coupled with his studies of SET management theory and practice. The professor’s research demonstrates that teaching multiple approaches to management increases students’ critical and ethical thinking, and reduces their materialism and individualism, thereby countering opposing tendencies in business schools.
From a teaching perspective, Dyck finds that students appreciate learning about different approaches to management. After the course, about 5 percent of students self-identify as FBL managers, 75 percent as TBL managers, and 20 percent as SET managers. A highlight for Dyck is when, after the course is completed, students tell him that they do not identify with one of the management approaches described in the textbook, but rather that taking the course has helped them to better understand their own personal moral-point-of-view and how they want to express it in their careers.
On winning the award, Dyck feels a sense of gratitude for the Asper School of Business (where he has worked for the last 29 years), mixed with validation: “The Award makes me happy for the Asper School, and thankful for my students and colleagues who have encouraged this work over the years,” says Dyck. “It’s always great to get international recognition that we are doing important things to make the world a better place.What makes the Expanded Reason Awards particularly valuable, and quite unusual, is that they explicitly recognize the importance of trans-disciplinary research and teaching, which I believe are crucial if we are to address the social and ecological challenges facing humankind. It is an honour to contribute to this goal, and I hope that this award will encourage others to do the same.”
Dyck will be presented with the award in Madrid in September.