Sustainability and accounting education in the Greek context

Abstract

PurposeSustainable development (SD) is becoming an important area of research in accounting education. This paper examines if postgraduate accounting students in the Greek context present different awareness of SD issues and if this is related to their Master’s orientation. Moreover, it compares the results with other similar studies.Design/methodology/approachAn online questionnaire was designed based on Ebaid (2022) and Aleixo et al. (2021), and distributed to two different Master’s orientation programs. Then, descriptive statistics and contingency table analysis were performed to illustrate the main differences regarding the students’ responses.FindingsThe results indicate that the examined postgraduate students recognize the importance of SD for their future careers and require more knowledge about this issue. Moreover, it is presented that most of the postgraduate students adhere to the core sustainability principles (i.e. recycle, reuse and reduce), while only the students of environmental, social and governance (ESG) Master are significantly and actively engaged in social and environmental activities. Collectively, the results show that postgraduate students in Greece are more familiar with the term SD compared to participants in other similar studies in different contexts.Practical implicationsPlanners and decision-makers in higher education institutions could benefit from the findings to reconsider accounting education by introducing new courses and/or Master’s programs to promote knowledge and action for SD.Originality/valueThis is the first study, as far as we know, that examines the issue of sustainability and accounting education on postgraduate students.