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1 – 4 of 4Katia Lobre-Lebraty and Marco Heimann
We explore how sustainable management education (SME) can help prepare future leaders to manage crises effectively. Precisely, the intricacies of articulating moral and economic…
Abstract
Purpose
We explore how sustainable management education (SME) can help prepare future leaders to manage crises effectively. Precisely, the intricacies of articulating moral and economic imperatives for businesses in a manner that engages students in sustainable behavior are a serious challenge for SME. We study how to integrate reminders of moral and economic imperatives in a socially responsible investment (SRI) stock-picking simulation created for SME.
Design/methodology/approach
Adopting an experimental design, we analyzed how the reminders affected the average environment social governance (ESG) integration in the portfolios of 127 graduate students in finance over a twelve-week period.
Findings
Our results show how essential it is to balance the two imperatives. The highest level of sustainable investment is attained when utilizing both reminders.
Practical implications
Our findings have practical implications for implementing and organizing SME in business schools to educate responsible leaders who are able to effectively manage crises. Learning responsible management is most effective when students are exposed to the inherent tension between moral and economic imperatives. Hence, our findings corroborate the win-win conception of SME.
Originality/value
No management decision study has experimentally measured the effects of SME practices on students' actual behavior. Our research fills this gap by complementing previous studies on the effectiveness of teaching practices, first by drawing on behavioral sciences and measuring changes in students' actual sustainability behavior and second by introducing moral and economic imperatives into an innovative teaching resource (TR) dedicated to SME.
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Organisational responses to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals depend on the competency and mindset of business leaders to lead responsibly. This study is informed…
Abstract
Purpose
Organisational responses to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals depend on the competency and mindset of business leaders to lead responsibly. This study is informed and underpinned by the Principles of Responsible Management Education. This study aims to examine how embedding the “sustainability mindset principles” within a university programme can contribute to responsible management education and, by extension, leadership development.
Design/methodology/approach
An illustrative case study using 84 students was applied, including undergraduate, postgraduate and executive Master of Business Administration students. An exploratory, qualitative design was followed, primarily adopting focus groups.
Findings
Evidenced learning gains in connecting sustainability knowledge with personal beliefs and behaviours, provide a compelling basis for educational and business practitioners to focus on the sustainability mindset principles (SMPs). Mapping of mindset against leading global competency frameworks provides important theoretical insight. Learning is illustrated through multiple dimensions (i.e. cognitive, behavioural and affective) to inform leadership development approaches.
Research limitations/implications
The mapping of sustainability competency frameworks against the SMP, alongside qualitative research insights, provides a compelling basis for further research into the learning gains from embedding the mindset principles. The situated nature of the study and the lack of longitudinal measurement of what students take forward into their lives and workplaces is a limiting factor to be considered.
Practical implications
This study evidences the value of “whole-person” learning for responsible management, which can helpfully inform the design of both educational and workplace leadership development programmes.
Originality/value
This study is original in the pedagogic examination of the learning dimensions of the SMPs in a Business and Management programme. It also offers new insights in terms of the implications for leadership development.
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Matilde Lafuente-Lechuga, Javier Cifuentes-Faura and Úrsula Faura-Martínez
This paper aims to identify the current situation of higher education institutions in Spain regarding the introduction of the Sustainable Development Goals in the classroom, and…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to identify the current situation of higher education institutions in Spain regarding the introduction of the Sustainable Development Goals in the classroom, and what is the role of mathematics in this task.
Design/methodology/approach
A review is made of how the concept of sustainability has evolved in higher education, its gradual introduction in the University and the way in which this subject is approached in the field of mathematics.
Findings
The study concludes that higher education has a key role to play in designing strategies that lead to the global sustainability of the planet. This implies major changes in degree curricula, assessment, competences and teacher training. Cross-disciplinarity and interdisciplinarity between different subjects within the same degree is a strategy for students to analyse the Sustainable Development Goals using mathematical techniques.
Social implications
The University as an institution must train socially responsible professionals who are aware of the importance of promoting a sustainable world. Changes should be made to introduce values in the classroom that promote and encourage sustainability. Training should be seen as a continuous process that leads to the preparation of professionals committed to society and nature and who develop strategies aimed at improving the planet through values.
Originality/value
Through practical activities, the Sustainable Development objectives can be analysed from several subjects of the same degree, emphasising the interdisciplinary and transversal nature that should be the central axis of higher education. Each subject can develop a strategy for change in favour of sustainability that will be reinforced and increased by working together on the proposed teaching practice. In this way, the contents of the different subjects are not isolated, but rather the student can see how there is an interrelationship between them and with real life.
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Barbara Tomasella, Anne Wylie and Devi Gill
The purpose of this paper is to understand how higher education institutions (HEIs) educate future leaders with social impact contributing to the sustainable development goals…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to understand how higher education institutions (HEIs) educate future leaders with social impact contributing to the sustainable development goals (SDGs). HEIs have an interest in developing leaders with social impact, but there is a lack of knowledge on the best teaching and learning strategies to engage students with social action aimed at the SDGs. This paper fills this gap by addressing the question of how HEIs can shape the sustainability mindsets of future leaders with social impact contributing to the SDGs.
Design/methodology/approach
This research used a mixed method research design, including a quantitative survey and qualitative semi-structured interviews of UK students involved in HEIs experiential learning programmes, focused on social impact and entrepreneurial action, developed in partnership with the organisation Enactus.
Findings
This research highlighted the importance of experiential learning, as it develops the knowledge, values and competency underpinning the sustainability mindset of future leaders contributing to the SDGs, in particular their emotional intelligence.
Originality/value
This research shows that HEIs can educate future leaders with social impact contributing to the SDGs, through real-world experiential learning that develops their sustainability mindset; in terms of aligning the curriculum to the SDGs, more focus on the systems perspective of the sustainability mindset framework is needed.
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