Social equilibriums can be both positively and negatively affected through the actions of social enterprises and social entrepreneurs and have both intended and unintended consequences. Many learners have considered only the light, or positive, viewpoint of social enterprise and social entrepreneurship. There are also potential dark aspects. In our increasingly ‘woke’ world, it is critical that we spur discussion of both light and dark issues. To deepen critical thinking about the implications of giving to ‘do good’, learners should consider potential dark motivations to increase the social enterprise’s competitive advantage through ‘green-washing’ tactics which could create dynamics of dependency, unneeded/unwanted assistance, or the disruption of local economies. The participants in the exercise experience the consequences of their decisions along with debrief opportunities for dark-light language. The authors provide a suggested pre-exercise reading assignment to prepare learners, the exercise and debrief guidance.

Research suggests the current generation of learners (called Zoomers or Gen-Z) takes a values-driven approach to their careers. Increasingly, this generation seeks out workplaces that center issues of sustainability, social responsibility, diversity, equity and inclusion. The preferences of Gen-Z suggest that building business programs that focus on “the right work” are both relevant and necessary to meet the expectations of this generation. It is unsurprising, then, that leading business education associations like AACSB have placed emphasis on building education programs that have a positive societal impact. In this article, we outline our programmatic approach to help learners engage in the “right work” and to address calls for building business programs that engage in more responsible, ethical, and sustainable models of management education. In sharing our approach, we 1) emphasize the value of using a programmatic design to facilitate curricular change, and 2) demonstrate how transformative learning theory can provide a practical way of reenvisioning business programs that address the concerns of Zoomers.