The business case and barriers for responsible management education in business schools

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to gain a greater depth of understanding of both the pressures and barriers for embedding responsible management education (RME) within business and management schools.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper utilises a longitudinal case study design of six business/management schools.

Findings

This research identifies a set of institutional pressures and barriers for RME in the business schools selected. First, the pressures appear to come from a number of external business school sources and the barriers from a series of organisational resource and individual factors.

Research limitations/implications

RME cannot be seen as just a bolt on. The orientation needs to change to view RME as requiring a shift in culture/purpose/identity. Due to the barriers this will require systemic organisational change at all levels and an organisational change process to bring about implementation.

Practical implications

The results clearly show these market pressures are no passing fad. Failure to respond in a systemic way will mean business schools will run into serious problems with legitimacy.

Originality/value

This paper fulfils a need for an in depth study of a number of business schools to identify the barriers to RME. This is now a critical issue for schools and this research has provided a number of practical recommendations which will help business schools overcome the identified barriers.

Citation

Doherty, B., Meehan, J. and Richards, A. (2015), "The business case and barriers for responsible management education in business schools", Journal of Management Development, Vol. 34 No. 1, pp. 34-60. https://doi.org/10.1108/JMD-06-2013-0082