Abstract:

The majority of the most crucial global challenges can be traced back to corporate unsustainable past and present behaviors. Given its important future role on achieving a more sustainable society, it is important that future managers embrace sustainability as a core element of company values. In order to achieve that shift, it is necessary a greater involvement of institutions devoted to the education of future managers. Recent studies on sustainability teaching suggest that obtaining meaningful results requires involving not only cognitive but also emotional and spiritual aspects of the students [1, 2]. The seminal work of Shrivastava [1] emphasized the role of passion for sustainability as an essential attitude for students to become responsible leaders in the future. Montiel et al., [2] propose a genre-based framework to foster students’ cognitive and emotional skills. However, before adapting the curricula and the content of management courses to these new methodologies, it is recommendable to achieve a deeper knowledge into the factors that are most likely to influence students’ future behaviour as company managers. Hence, the objective of this study is to delve into the different potential antecedents of students’ behavioral attitudes as future managers. More specifically, current work aims to test a model which includes affective (i.e., environmental passion, emotions), cognitive factors (i.e., subjective knowledge) and social norms.

We developed a questionnaire and collected data from students enrolled on different management-related courses at the University of Almería. Students were asked about their attitudes toward sustainability within the company, passion for sustainability, subjective knowledge, and perceived relevance of sustainability for their friends, relatives and teachers. The students also were asked to provide some demographic (i.e., gender, age, degree) and behavioural data (i.e., engagement on sustainability related behaviors) which will be included in the research model as control variables. We performed stepwise regression analysis in order to observe the relative influences of each group of antecedents.

The results of current work provide evidence on which factors show a greater influence on fostering positive behavioural attitudes towards sustainability as future managers. These results show the relevance of several antecedents that influence attitudes towards sustainability. In addition, we provide insights about the best way of implementing new teaching methodologies, such as the ones proposed in Montiel et al., [2] and Antolín-López et al., [3]. Such teaching methodologies are considered as important sources of improving emotional and cognitive learning, which in turn will improve behavioural attitudes towards sustainability.

References:
[1] P. Shrivastava. “Pedagogy of passion for sustainability,” Academy of Management Learning & Education, vol. 9, Issue, 3, 443-455, 2010.
[2] I. Montiel, R. Antolin-Lopez, P. Gallo. “Emotions and sustainability: A literary genre-based framework for environmental sustainability management education”, Academy of Management Learning & Education, vol. 17, Issue, 2, 155-183, 2018.
[3] R. Antolin-Lopez, N. García-de-Frutos, M. M. Gálvez-Rodríguez, J. Tarifa-Fernández, A. Sáez-Martín. “Emotional learning in business & sustainability education: a classroom methodology proposal,” Proceedings of EDULEARN 18 conference, 2018.

Keywords:

Education for sustainability, attitudes towards sustainability, passion for sustainability, emotional learning.