Sustainability In Management Education Research Articles

Market demand for sustainability in management education

Purpose – This paper aims to contribute to the ongoing debate about the relevance of sustainability in management education through exploration of the needs and expectations of a key group of business schools’ stakeholders – senior executives of leading corporations. Design/methodology/approach – The paper presents findings from a survey regarding sustainability within management education returned by executives from a wide span of global companies. The study includes 194 survey responses by senior executives from companies that are signatories of the United Nations Global Compact. Findings – Results from a survey of executives from leading multinational enterprises reveal widespread recognition that sustainability issues are increasingly important for effective management, thus that managers must be appropriately trained for these emerging challenges. Survey results also indicate the kinds of skills and qualities seen as valuable by corporate leaders. Research limitations/implications – It is not possible to extrapolate from this study the aggregate sentiment of all senior business executives, but the sample of 194 respondents is significant. Practical implications – The expressed demand from business leaders provides context for business school faculty and administrators involved in the development of appropriately trained professionals. Originality/value – The study provides indication of demand from a significant subset of influential executives, providing support for the on-going progress of the integration of sustainability topics and training in the curricula of business and other fields.

Integrating Sustainability in Management Education

Over the last decade, numerous modules, courses, and programs in Management Education have integrated sustainability into their curricula. However, this “integration” has translated into very diverse forms and contents. This article aims to clarify these ambiguities. It maps four forms of sustainability integration in Management Education. These four distinct forms are (1) discipline-based integration, in which the anchoring point is the business discipline (sustainability is added as a dimension of this body of knowledge); (2) strategic-/competitive-based integration, in which the anchoring point is the strategy of the organization (sustainability is viewed as a potential contributor to the firm’s competitive advantage); (3) integration by application, in which managerial tools and approaches from business disciplines are applied so as to contribute to addressing a sustainability challenge; and, last, (4) systemic integration, in which the anchoring point is a social-ecological-economic challenge defined from an interdisciplinary perspective. Implications of this chapter for the design of courses and programs and the practice of sustainability in Management Education are twofold. First, this article contributes to going beyond the prevailing tendency of studies in the field of sustainability in Management Education to focus mainly on tools and applications. In doing so, this article helps frame these challenges on the level of course and program design. Second, this article helps management educators map what they are intending to achieve by the integration of sustainability into the Management Education curriculum.

Deans' Message

This past June, it was our honour to host the 1st PRME Canada Regional Meeting at MacEwan University’s City Centre Campus. At this meeting—e3=earth education economics—students, academics and business people from across Canada met as the nation-wide discussion regarding sustainability in management education began.

A comparative study of sustainability management education in China and the USA

This study investigates differences between business schools in different institutional settings, using top-ranked Chinese and US business schools as the bases of analysis. To assess the divergent educational approaches, this study investigates the (1) number of sustainability-related courses per school, (2) design and arrangement of sustainability-related course curricula, (3) content of sustainability-related courses, and (4) teaching methods in sustainability-related courses, across differing institutional settings. The findings reveal differences in the curriculum designs of the two countries, which likely reflect differences in their local institutional settings and their interpretations of sustainability. This study offers several implications and recommendations for further research.

Addressing the business‐sustainability nexus in postgraduate education

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to present a pedagogical approach for designing a coursework curriculum that aims to meet the growing need for skilled professionals that have competencies in both business and sustainability, and that understand the nexus between the two.Design/methodology/approachThe paper uses a pedagogical approach discussed in the education for sustainability literature to analyse the CESM program. The pedagogical approach focuses on developing students' knowledge, skills and attitudes (behaviours) in sustainability.FindingsThe Knowledge‐Skills‐Attitudes (KSA) framework is a suitable pedagogical approach to guide the design of sustainability management education programs that prepare students for systemic organizational change. A KSA approach to designing sustainability management education curricula can also address the criticisms of current business management curricula by other scholars.Originality/valueThe discussion of the MCESM program in this article provides guidance to faculty on one approach to creating sustainability‐centric business curricula and may provide a catalyst for sharing learning experiences in integrating sustainability into existing business curricula. It may also provide some ideas for developing new programs that address the business and sustainability nexus.

Business sustainability and undergraduate management education: an Australian study

The academic literature arguing that there is an urgent requirement for businesses to become more sustainable is rapidly expanding. There is also a demonstrated need for managers to develop a better understanding of sustainability and the appropriate strategies required to improve business sustainability. In addition, there have been international calls for educators to address sustainability in their programs. The aim of this study was to investigate the extent to which business sustainability was incorporated into undergraduate business and management courses in Australian universities. The high percentage of international students enrolled in these courses suggests our findings have implications beyond the Australian context. Students currently studying these courses are the managers and leaders of the future and their knowledge and skills will influence the extent to which business sustainability will be achieved. The findings demonstrate that more than half of Australian universities did not explicitly identify sustainability as part of their business/management curricula and those universities that did address sustainability did so, in most cases, only in a limited way.

Sustainable Stakeholder Capitalism and Redesigning Management Education

Sustainable Stakeholder Capitalism and Redesigning Management Education

From the Guest Editors: In Search of Sustainability in Management Education.

From the Guest Editors: In Search of Sustainability in Management Education.

From the Guest Editors: In Search of Sustainability in Management Education

From the Guest Editors: In Search of Sustainability in Management Education

Management Education for Global SustainabilityManagement Education for Global Sustainability, edited by WankelC. and StonerJ.. Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing, 2009.

Management Education for Global SustainabilityManagement Education for Global Sustainability, edited by WankelC. and StonerJ.. Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing, 2009.

A Principle-Attribute Matrix for Environmentally Sustainable Management Education and Its Application

The environmental threats humanity faces have led businesses to increasingly commit to improve their environmental performance and to increasing attempts to address environmental issues in management education. This article presents a matrix of (a) principles that can underlie and (b) attributes that can be generated by environmentally focused management education and uses the matrix to identify topics, assignments, and assessment mechanisms that can be incorporated into environmental management education. Particular focus is given to skills related to facilitating organizational change. Environmental change—related course projects are suggested as particularly helpful in the development of these attributes, and use of service learning applied to campus sustainability issues is suggested as offering significant opportunities for engaging students in change-oriented projects. Observations related to implementing such projects based on the author's experience with them are offered. The article's concepts and ideas can provide guidance to instructors wishing to incorporate environmental sustainability into their management courses; an application with respect to human resources is included.

Extending Sustainable Management Education: Florida's Model for Regional Programs

Extending Sustainable Management Education: Florida's Model for Regional Programs

Sustainable tourism management education in Europe

In order to support the development of sustainable tourism throughout Europe, the Tourism Unit, DGXXIII of the Commission of the European Communities funded a number of projects in this field during 1995. This report explains one of these projects, which involved the development of educational resources to examine the issues in and approaches to sustainable tourism management and the practical application of these ideas in different European contexts, and then the dissemination of these resources to tourism educators throughout Europe. The project involved collaboration between the University of Deusto (Ana Goytia), Spain; Loughborough University (Ian Henry and Guy Jackson), UK; Sheffield Hallam University (Bill Bramwell), UK; and Tilburg University (Greg Richards and Jan van der Straaten), The Netherlands. The resources on sustainable tourism management are being disseminated through the network of the European Association for Tourism and Leisure Education (ATLAS).