The Social Business Guidance Unit: A Case of Service-Learning Within the Ignatian Pedagogy

Abstract

.

The university work influences many areas of society: It generates jobs and influences employers; it is related to both internal and external publics; it takes part in economic processes and in local and regional decision-making process. This chapter presents a concrete case of a mission-driven approach in modern business education: the Social Business Guidance Service (SBGS), a service-learning structure created at a business school. The SBGS comprises a practical dimension (utilitas) because students have to apply their professional knowledge to concrete managerial problems; a social dimension (iustitia) as this service is concerned with organizations working with excluded people and other related problems. It also has a humanist approach (humanitas) as allow students meet people different from their lifestyles, people who often have real problems to foster their living (economic, stigma, social inclusion). Finally, there is a spiritual dimension (fides), as invite students to reflect on the sense of their acts.