Abstract:

The increase of sustainability problems and frequent controversial practices of organizations and managers have made it evident the need of rethinking management education in order to effectively respond to the pressing environmental and social challenges societies face (Samuelson, 2013; Stoner & Wankel, 2009). Management education plays a key role in the formation of more responsible future leaders that include environmental and social issues as reference criteria in their decision-making (Akrivou & Bradbury-Huang, 2015)

Despite the effort of business schools and universities worldwide to legitimate sustainability as a key component of the business curricula in recent years, an effective integration of sustainability across the business disciplines remains a challenge (Starik et al., 2010). Many business schools fail to develop and integrate ethics, responsibility and sustainability within all major academic areas (Christopher, 2017). However, it might have a negative effect on the perceived importance of sustainability in management practices and the willingness of students’ to learn about corporate sustainability.

This study focuses on exploring students’ attitudes and willingness to learn corporate sustainability. Specifically, we analyze the effect of the degree of integration of sustainability in different business disciplines, the role of the instructor, and course design on students’ willingness to learn corporate sustainability. We test these relationships in a sample that comprises more than 300 responses of students enrolled in different undergraduate and master level degrees of the Faculty of Economics and Business Administration at the University of Almeria, Spain. Our findings provide relevant insights on how to engage students more effectively in the process of sustainability management learning.

References:
[1] Akrivou, K. & Bradbury-Huang, H. (2015). Educating integrated catalysts: Transforming business schools toward ethics and sustainability, Academy of Management Learning & Education, 14(2), 222-240.
[2] Christopher, E. (2017). Meeting expectations in management education: Social and Environmental pressures on managerial behaviour. Call for book chapters, Palgrave Macmillan.
[3] Samuelson, J.F. 2013. Putting pinstripes in perspective. BizEd, May/June 66-67.
[4] Starik, M., Rands, G., Marcus, A.A., & Clark, T. S. 2010. From the guest editors: in search of sustainability in management education. Academy of Management Learning & Education, 9(3): 377-383.
[5] Stoner, J. A., & Wankel, C. 2009. The only game big enough for us to play. In C. Wankel, & J.A.F. Stoner, (Eds.), Management education for global sustainability. New York: IAP.

Keywords:

Sustainability management education, students’ attitudes, sustainability learning.