Unlocking the potential of broad, horizontal curricular assessments for ethics, responsibility and sustainability in business and economics higher education

Abstract

As business education around the world is becoming increasingly focused on integrating ethics, responsibility, and sustainability (ERS) into curricula, measuring and disclosing ERS inclusion in course content is becoming a pressing task. This article provides insights on how a ‘broad, horizontal’ approach to ERS curricular assessments can inform internal strategy development in higher education. The results of a case study at a Belgian university show that such an approach better captures the contributions of a business/economics faculty in integrating ERS themes in course content. The case highlights how such an approach yields insights useful for internal strategy development (i.e., by identifying programmes with high and low levels of integration, and by understanding how variables, such as instructor characteristics or specialised ERS programmes, affect levels of integration). As business/economics higher education comes under increasing pressure to conduct ERS curricular assessments (e.g., for accreditations, rankings, etc.) it is important to reflect on how and why such assessments are carried out.