Poverty as a legitimate management topic: The student voice

Abstract

Our research investigates student perceptions of the legitimacy of poverty (SDG 1) in management curricula and students’ self-perceived role in addressing poverty globally. Students affirm the importance of poverty within their curricula, yet as we further investigate, we find that students report low exposure to SDG 1 as well as lower desire for exposure to this SDG relative to the other SDGs. Furthermore, our research finds that students feel that businesses are responsible for acting to reduce poverty, and as business students this means that they see this as a future responsibility of their own. Yet they report low personal agency for poverty alleviation as a student or as a graduate of a management program. We find as well that of the four “voices” we investigated, the faculty voice is the least influential in shaping student commitments to poverty alleviation. Because there is a disconnect between student perception of value and student desire for coverage of poverty in the curricula, we explore new avenues for influence on student perceptions of poverty during their studies.