Living Our Values
Living Our Values
Actions, not words
Since our founding in 1969, society’s relationship with institutions has fundamentally shifted. Business is now recognized for its incredible power to transform lives and create common purpose – but only when led by authentic, competent leaders who demonstrate genuine care for all stakeholders.
As a business school we don't just study this crisis of trust – we actively work to address it. While we remain accountable to all the traditional measures of academic excellence, we also leverage our platform as a laboratory. Through initiatives like The Dialogue Project and Fuqua.ai, we are exploring the ways leaders and organizations restore faith when they operate with transparency, authenticity, and stakeholder commitment.
Talking isn't enough. We must enable real action. We have an obligation to serve as a living model for our students in demonstrating what an organization can look like when it earns trust daily through competent, caring leadership. Our graduates don't just understand the trust deficit; they're equipped with authentic leadership skills, ethical AI fluency, and moral courage to rebuild institutional faith one decision at a time.
Polarization
In our hyper-polarized society, the role of business has become a fundamental issue made even more critical by recent research suggesting business is now the most trusted institution - and the *only* institution viewed as both ethical and competent - ahead of government, the media and even NGOs. Not only is public trust high in business, the data also show that the public is looking for business to help solve some of society’s most pressing challenges.
Complicating this picture is the high degree of polarization in society, which ensures nearly every issue becomes politicized making it difficult to move forward. With one out of every two adults in the U.S. employed by business, companies have an important platform to reduce polarization itself and improve the conditions for civil discourse. Companies face increasing pressure to play a role in social issues or to take a public stand, so we must prepare future leaders to navigate within this context.
In response Fuqua is fostering an initiative to engage and activate the business community. The Dialogue Project at Duke is developing topical conversations between our faculty and business leaders, exploring the creation of case studies and other educational content, enabling access to senior executives for our students, gaining exposure to ideas and industry best practices, and identifying data for faculty research.
The Dialogue Project at Duke
The Business of Building a Better Society
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Every day, successful businesses bring people together with diverse experiences and points-of-view to work toward common goals. The Dialogue Project, a long-term Fuqua initiative to explore the role business can play to reduce polarization and improve civic dialogue, explores how these skills can be expanded more broadly in our society. Our goal is to equip business leaders with new tools required to succeed in the emerging stakeholder economy.
Racial Equity
As we acknowledge the long history of racism in the United States, Fuqua collectively committed to leading the way in our industry, our community and in each of our lives in building an equitable and inclusive environment for all.
We are fortunate to be guided by faculty expertise which has sparked conversations on these topics throughout the world.
Fuqua Research Insights
The Business of Fairness, Justice and Race
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In this series, seven Fuqua faculty members go deep on their research in the underlying issues of fairness, justice and race. They explore racism from a variety of angles, including how to have conversations about these topics at work, why bias persists and how systemic racism is perpetuated in unconscious ways in financial markets.
Gender Equity
Business schools have the opportunity to make tremendous impact in how future leaders think about ensuring equal treatment in the workforce, and Fuqua has made this a priority in our own institution as well as across our industry.
We have been actively leading the charge for inclusivity in business education and have taken deliberate action to make our programs more accessible to working families. Our students also work directly with our deans in finding ways to encourage more women to apply to our programs and to make sure everyone feels supported and included when they join our community.
We are fortunate to be guided by faculty expertise which has sparked conversations on these topics throughout the world.
Fuqua Research Insights
The Unintended Consequences of "Lean In"
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Fuqua research on the intersection of gender and business has inspired international conversation. In one notable finding, two of our professors discovered the unintended consequences of telling women to “lean in” at work and how that was putting a burden on women to solve inequity.
Immigration
Innovation requires that the best and brightest talent can study – and ultimately work – where they choose. As a pipeline for talent to U.S. companies, the nation’s business schools have been early indicators of concerning trends in student mobility that have downstream implications for business itself. We are leading initiatives explaining the importance of immigration to economic competitiveness, and taking action to support our international students.
Early Warning Signals: Winners and Losers in the Race for Talent
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Developed as part of our Talent Mobility Initiative, this white paper paints a comprehensive view of mobility issues and their implications for economic development in several regions of the world, in particular the U.S., U.K, Canada, China and India. Informed by economic research, application data, business school leaders, domain experts, and other sources, the report makes policy recommendations on both a global and U.S. level to encourage mobility. Many of the policy recommendations relate to ways students can secure work permission after graduation.
White House Initiative
Best Practices for the 21st Century Workplace
Student Experience
Being a Woman at Fuqua
Thought Leadership
Some of the world’s most renowned scholars in diversity and inclusion call Fuqua home. Their scholarship is generating insights like the unintended effect of "Lean In" messaging, the impact of military service on some job-seeker's prospects, and the negative perception of male leaders who ask questions.
