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1 – 4 of 4Stephanos Anastasiadis, Stephanie Perkiss, Bonnie A. Dean, Leopold Bayerlein, Maria Alejandra Gonzalez-Perez, Alec Wersun, Pilar Acosta, Hannah Jun and Belinda Gibbons
Sustainability is one of the leading challenges of our age, and higher education plays a vital role in supporting the implementation of sustainability initiatives. There has been…
Abstract
Purpose
Sustainability is one of the leading challenges of our age, and higher education plays a vital role in supporting the implementation of sustainability initiatives. There has been substantial progress in business schools introducing sustainability into courses with extant literature detailing case studies of sustainability education and student perceptions of their learning. The purpose of this paper is to address the gap in literature from educators' perspectives on their experiences of introducing sustainability teaching using specific teaching tools for sustainability.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper presents a case study on a sustainability teaching tool, WikiRate, that was embedded into business and management courses at seven higher education institutions from across the globe. Interviews were conducted after course delivery to gain insights into the practical challenges of designing and implementing a sustainability education activity.
Findings
The findings show that educators perceive sustainability as a complex issue, presenting a challenge to teaching in university systems whose normative curricula are rooted in instrumental problem-solving. Furthermore, educators described challenges to their own learning in order to implement sustainability into curricula including the need for compromises and adaptions.
Originality/value
This empirical study reports on educators' experiences embedding sustainability into their courses through an innovative teaching tool, WikiRate. This paper has implications for reframing how we can approach sustainability education and presents discussion ways to teach complexity without reduction or simplification.
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Keywords
Sigrun M. Wagner and Stephanos Anastasiadis
This chapter addresses the research question of whether multinational enterprise (MNE) lobbying can contribute to sustainable development.
Abstract
Purpose
This chapter addresses the research question of whether multinational enterprise (MNE) lobbying can contribute to sustainable development.
Methodology/approach
It presents the results of two case studies, from different perspectives, whose results strengthen and complement each other. Both studies use interviews as their main source of data within triangulation, and both adopt iterative processes for their analyses: one uses data coding, the other takes a narrative approach.
Findings
The findings suggest that whilst companies see both costs and opportunities in environmental regulations, this is not perceived by their policy-making counterparts. Furthermore, company-internal communication suggests that lobbying and corporate social responsibility (CSR) are not joined up, which leads to mixed (external) messages sent from the company to policy-makers and the public.
Research limitations
The chapter focuses on one industry (automobiles) in one host country setting (EU).
Practical implications
Policy-makers, as well as companies that want to contribute to sustainability, could usefully adopt the concept of internalising external costs as a minimum proxy for sustainability. Companies that wish to promote sustainable development, or even wish to act in a consistent manner, might usefully examine their assumptions about the political process. This is particularly the case with MNEs as they operate in numerous jurisdictions.
Originality/value
The chapter integrates the MNE literature and the literature on international business (IB)–government interactions. The findings underline the importance of addressing both environmental issues and the relationships between policy-makers and MNEs, an area that can be further developed by extending the scope of the study to other industries in further research.
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