Reflect, Rethink, and Redesign: Responses to Privilege in Management Education

Abstract

“We are privileged in our role as management educators.”—A sentence that we hear often at conferences and business school gatherings. Rarely do we think about what the privilege we talk about might mean and it certainly means different things to different people. It depends on how our relationship with privilege was formed and developed, whether awareness of privilege exists, and what one’s experience with privilege has been. The lived experience of being privileged and living a privileged life is a complex social construct. Mostly, the term privilege is attached to wealth and high status (Petriglieri, 2012), yet there are many other ways of perceiving and experiencing privilege or the non-existence of it, although some might argue that we all have some kind of privilege (Jourdan, 2021). “Whether you have a little or a great amount, privilege gives you power to be heard, to shape norms, to give means and opportunities to others. That is, power to give access to privilege” (Petriglieri, 2012, para. 13). In this editorial, we offer some context for the standing conversations within management education and our wider society related to privilege. Additionally, we highlight two areas for our growth and professional development as management educators—namely self-awareness and systems’ knowledge. We conclude with brief descriptions of the seven articles in this special issue.