An Insight Into Challenges of Teaching a Business and Sustainability Course: The Lessons Learnt the Hard Way (original) (raw)
Related papers
Vezetéstudomány - Budapest Management Review, 2021
The emerging concept of responsible research and innovation (RRI) in some ways always relates to sustainability. In the transition towards sustainability, the authors need to build responsibility for both society and the environment in higher education and management education. Non-formal approaches to learning provide an opportunity to transform a student’s ‘head, heart and hand’, including at the social level as well. This paper showcases the role of experiential and transformative learning in higher education practice. Two of their courses are described and analysed, which are intended to familiarise students with the problem of sustainability within economic higher education. The authors share the theoretical and practical experiences of designing, teaching and assessing these courses. They aim to contribute to the discussion on how business education could be producing useful and credible knowledge that addresses problems important to nature and society.
Weaving Sustainability Into Business Education 19
2012
The imperative for addressing complex sustainability challenges through education underpins the UN declaration of the 2005 to 2014 Decade of education for sustainable development. Sustainability has been burgeoning as a theme for business schools worldwide with increasing numbers of courses and specialisations on sustainability in degrees such as the Master of Business Administration (MBA) programs. However, in the current 2007-08 Beyond Grey Pinstripes Global 100 ranking of social and environmental issues in MBA programs, only one Australian university is listed (Aspen CBE 2007). The aim of this preliminary empirical research is to explore the essential linkage between the sustainability requirements of business and curriculum offerings. The findings in this paper support the call for holistic embedding of sustainability in business education to develop current and future business leaders’ capacities and competencies in shifting towards corporate sustainable development.
Integrating Sustainability Into a Business Course
2013
By means of a case study and the results of a large student survey, this paper will highlight the importance of sustainability and illustrate how sustainability was integrated into the introductory business law core course at the Seidman College of Business course. Hopefully the insights and experiences with sustainability implementation will be of value to other faculty members who are contemplating the incorporation of sustainability into their courses.
Beyond the Curriculum: Integrating Sustainability into Business Schools
Journal of Business Ethics, 2015
This paper evaluates the ways in which European business schools are implementing sustainability and ethics into their curricula. Drawing on data gathered by a recent large study that the Academy of Business Society conducted in cooperation with EFMD, we map the approaches that schools are currently employing by drawing on and expanding Rusinko's (Acad Manag Learn Educ 9(3):507-519, 2010) and Godemann et al.'s (Approaches to changing the curriculum 2011) matrices of integrating sustainability in business and management schools. We show that most schools adopt one or more of the four approaches outlined by Godemann et al. (Approaches to changing the curriculum 2011). However, we also argue that a fifth dimension needs to be added as the existing matrices do not capture the systemic nature of such curricular initiatives and how these are influenced by internal factors within the business school and external factors beyond. We suggest calling this fifth dimension 'Systemic Institutional Integration' and demonstrate that any business school which aims to integrate sustainability further into the curricula cannot succeed without the following: (1) Systemic thinking and systemic leadership, (2) Connectedness to business, the natural environment and society and (3) Institutional capacity building. Utilising further literature and the answers provided by the deans and faculty, we discuss each factor in turn and suggest ways forward to a successful systemic institutional integration of sustainability and ethics into management education.
Teaching sustainability to business students: shifting mindsets
International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education, 2008
PurposeThis paper seeks to describe a framework used to help MBA students understand and reconcile the different sustainability perspectives.Design/methodology/approachA review of the corporate sustainability literature is undertaken to develop the sustainability framework.FindingsThe sustainability framework relates basic concepts and assumptions within the ecocentric, ecological modernization and neoclassical paradigms to organizational practice and behavior. For the most part, the MBA students have only been exposed to neoclassical economic thinking within the other MBA subjects. The aim of the sustainability framework is to shift the students' thinking by engaging with sustainability from different perspectives, rather than presenting one version of sustainability to them. The framework has proven to be useful in developing critical and reflective thinking and discussion.Originality/valueThe paper provides a summary of sustainability concepts as applied to business practices...
Metropolitan Universities, 2018
This theoretical paper discusses how the assumptions of critical reflection (CR) and transforming learning (TL) can help develop reflexive professionals in sustainability within management. The central argument is that a purely pragmatic and technical conception in the teaching and learning of sustainability does not sufficiently contribute to the development of professional managers with strong sustainability principles and standards. Therefore, it is important to employ CR and TL because they provide elements that contribute to advancement from the current teaching and learning approach, an approach based on problem solving, to another approach based on problem-posing. The reflections presented in this paper may provide elements that can help teachers, educators, university deans, and coordinators of management courses to rethink the way in which business schools, which are often the drivers for professional managers in metropolitan areas, are addressing sustainability education.
Environment, Development and Sustainability, 2022
This paper presents in detail a critical reflexive discourse on a transformative learning activity that engaged 140 students of the "Risk Management and Green Business Strategy" module at the University of Turin. During the course, students were asked to find, analyze, and propose a solution for a self-identified challenge working in close partnership with local urban companies on sustainability issues. Following a project-based learning approach, this paper compares two different group of students. The treatment group, i.e., the students following the ESD module, was then compared with a control group represented by the students from the traditional course of the previous year, in terms of their willingness to orient their future career on sustainability topics. Findings point out clear impacts on the study of sustainability-related disciplines (i.e., + 372% of thesis on sustainability) and on long-term career orientation of students on sustainability-oriented master and jobs.
To challenge the world view or to flow with it? Teaching sustainable development in business schools
Business Ethics: A European Review, 2013
This paper explores the fundamental question of what 'responsibility' means to different sets of world views adopted implicitly by business students. The exploration adopts the stakeholder theory and three subsets of the Friedman mentality to explain how individuals may value sustainability initiatives. Subsequently, it explores whether it is better to flow with the dominant economic-driven world view as prescribed by the business school or to challenge it in order to cultivate business students with sustainability-driven values. The conclusion highlights implications for business and management education, as well as the role of entrepreneurship to promote sustainability values.
Educating For Sustainability: Developing Critical Skills
Journal of Management Education, 2003
This article explores the contribution a pedagogical approach based in critical theory can make to education for sustainability in business schools. In addition to the regular business and environmental management curriculum that provides tools for incremental improvement, we advocate introducing a radical change perspective aligned more with the "strong" sustainability paradigm. Concepts from critical theory can be usefully employed to bridge weak and strong sustainability paradigms. A critical skillset incorporating reflexivity, critique, and social action/engagement is elaborated and illustrated through the incorporation of these skills in the framing of an environmental management/sustainability elective and through exercises.