Courses - INSEAD Progress Initiative

"Markets are not...a full solution to any problem. The obvious problem they don't meet is the concerns of the welfare of individuals who may get lost in the operations of the system - the distributional question."

Quote attributed to our esteemed friend and mentor, Prof. Ken Arrow.
 

Your decisions on strategy, operations, and governance will drive your contribution to performance. But it is your choices on those very same dimensions—strategy, operations, and governance—that will drive your contribution to progress. 

Decisions are about material information (what’s in it for me?); choices are about moral identity (who am I?). Accordingly, just as you need competence to make good decisions, you need character to make good choices. So, unlike typical courses that aim to deepen your competence, IPP is designed to help you deepen your character.

Today business leaders, consultants, financial specialists, and entrepreneurs ought to know What is progress and how does it come about? What is the role of enterprises, entrepreneurs, and executives? Why shouldn’t enterprises focus on performance and leave progress to governments and civil society? How might I engage fruitfully in this? This is where moral reasoning and moral role come to the fore.

Moral philosophy is fundamental to notions of progress, and discuss core principles from moral philosophy will help you understand why and how enterprise and its executives are implicated in progress. 

Drawing on moral psychology, this elective explores what it means to engage your character and not only your competence in the context of business.

Whereas courses on ethics and sustainability tend to explore "the right thing to do" in a given situation, this course will explore whether and why you should do it. The aim here is to explore the relationship among the self, moral identity, emotions, choices, actions, and character. This is a key to shifting mindset from “need to do” to “want to do.” 

Over two months, small teams of 3–5 MBAs collaborate with host organizations across sectors and geographies to address strategic or operational challenges that demand a balance of economic output and social impact. Practicum participants are specially trained in frameworks for aligning business success with societal good.
In P3, in the Integrating Performance & Progress course, students are introduced to the concepts of progress, integration, character, and 2nd stage rationality.
In P4, the Choosing to Care & Caring to Choose course draws on moral psychology and answer what it means to engage your character and not only your competence in the context of business.
In P5, students select the elective that corresponds to his/ her chosen domain (e.g., diversity & inclusion, labour adjustment, circularity, thoughtful consumption, data & privacy)
And in P6, students will draw on the theories, models, and reasoning approaches they learnt during the courses, and formulate views and recommendations to the host organization.