Business schools are called the officer training schools of capitalism. This is because they have supplied many talented individuals and leaders to the corporate system and capital market system, which are major components of the economic system called capitalism.

Experts worldwide point out that capitalism is at a turning point due to growing concerns about sustainability and widening inequality. In particular, frameworks taught at business schools—such as market-oriented economic theory based on neoliberalism that has swept the world over the past 50 years, shareholder primacy that defines corporate purpose as maximizing shareholder profit, and agency theory that positions managers as agents of shareholders—have promoted efficiency and innovation while also contributing to disrupting the balance between economy and society and coexistence with the planet.

In 2018, the Business Roundtable, an American business organization, announced a return from shareholder primacy to stakeholderism, and the importance of the “stakeholder economy” was discussed at the 2020 Davos conference. However, with headwinds against ESG investment centered in America and backlash against “woke” and “wash” movements, the path forward is not necessarily clear.

Can humanity achieve a more just, more sustainable, and more inclusive future? What roles and responsibilities can corporations and capital markets that underpin capitalism assume toward realizing a better future? What are corporations in the first place, and for whom and for what purpose do they exist? Who are entrepreneurs and managers, and what responsibilities should they fulfill to whom? What about asset managers and asset owners in capital markets? How should business schools, the officer training schools of capitalism, evolve their educational approaches?

The Center for the Future of Capitalism is a research center established through collaboration between Shizenkan and IESE Business School in Spain, which share these concerns.

The Center’s core activity is promoting the Future of Capitalism (FoC) project. The project aims to build a global dialogue platform on the roles and responsibilities of corporations and leaders toward realizing a more just, inclusive, and sustainable future, while also serving as an experiment to envision the future of business school education.

The project was launched in 2021 by co-founders Tomoyoshi Noda, President of Shizenkan, and Franz Heukamp, Dean of IESE Business School, with the cooperation of Anil Sachdev, CEO of the School of Inspired Leadership (India), and Edison Conrado, Dean of FGV Brasília at Fundação Getulio Vargas (Brazil). Top leaders from around the world who support the mission provide cooperation and support, including Paul Polman, former CEO of Unilever; Jay Coen Gilbert, co-founder of B Lab USA, which promotes B Corp certification; John Elkington, who proposed the Triple Bottom Line and is called the godfather of sustainability; Edward Freeman, Professor at the University of Virginia and pioneer of stakeholder strategy theory; and Colin Mayer, Professor at Oxford University and global authority on purpose-driven management.

Today, this project has evolved into a network with participation from over 20 business schools across five continents, with the IESE-Shizenkan Center for the Future of Capitalism serving as the operating body.

The FoC project operates a fully online global MBA course titled “Future of Capitalism Program: Exploring Roles and Responsibilities of Business Enterprises and Leaders” annually from January to April. While the course is operated as an elective MBA subject at Shizenkan and IESE, hundreds of business school students from five continents participate, including from the University of Pretoria in South Africa, Lagos Business School in Nigeria, University of Dhaka in Bangladesh, National University of Singapore Business School, Seoul National University Business School in Korea, IIM Bangalore in India, EGADE Business School in Mexico, Royal Roads University Business School in Canada, École des Ponts Business School in France, and Vlerick Business School in Belgium.

The program features world-leading experts who speak on the future of capitalism, capital markets, corporations, and business as instructors and speakers. Past speakers have included Dr. Johan Rockström, proponent of planetary boundaries; Professor Rebecca Henderson of Harvard Business School, known for her work on reimagining capitalism; Professor Raj Sisodia, co-founder of Conscious Capitalism; Dr. Kate Raworth, Oxford environmental economist and proponent of doughnut economics; Dr. Kohei Saito, promising Marxist philosopher and proponent of degrowth theory (Associate Professor at the University of Tokyo); Dr. Muhammad Yunus, Nobel Peace Prize laureate recognized for the microfinance movement; Hubert Joly, former Best Buy CEO who advocates people-centered management; Dr. Stefano Zamagni, Director of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences; Pavan Sukhdev, who has long focused on corporate externalities and proposed new management models; Christian Heller, who leads the Value Balancing Alliance of advanced companies promoting measurement and evaluation of corporate value creation and impact; and Dr. Roman Krznaric, Oxford University philosopher who advocates for responsibility to future generations and the importance of long-term thinking.

Currently, the FoC program is open to the public, with global recruitment of approximately 50 special auditors (free of charge) each term. Those enrolled in business schools worldwide or interested in business schools who possess the spirit and passion to pioneer the future as leaders can apply to the program even if they are not from participating schools. Those interested can find more details here (Future of Capitalism website).

Course Contents (2026 ver.)