Sustainability, as one of six (economic, ethical, social, stakeholder, sustainability, and discretionary) dimensions of corporate social responsibility (CSR) is frequently espoused in large finance organisations' corporate reports. In this case study on finance board directors, conducted in the lead‐up to the Royal Commission into Misconduct in the Banking, Superannuation and Financial Services Industry (hereafter Commission), sustainability assumptions were not found to be a day‐to‐day consideration for the majority of directors. Directors' primary assumptions, their values‐in‐use, were finance first, followed by risk and defence. Finance, in terms of short‐term profitability, was considered before all espoused values such as customer centricity, integrity, trustworthiness, and professionalism. Within the study there were a small number of directors who did prioritise sustainability, which they closely integrated with the economic (finance) dimension. The additional prioritisation of sustainability led to better integration of the other CSR dimensions and a reduced difference between what is said (espoused) and done. While other CSR and finance studies have focused on “how much”, this study provides unique insights into the “why” of the finance industry's values‐in‐use preceding the 2018 to 2019 Commission which exposed some of the “what” and “when” of director behaviour.

This case study details how and why integrating storytelling, empathy, and inclusive practice shifted QSuper, a large Australian finance organisation, from minimal awareness to moral awareness then moral capability in the delivery of services to Indigenous customers. During the Royal Commission into Misconduct in the Banking, Superannuation, and Financial Services Industry, QSuper were recognised for their exemplary service with Indigenous customers (Hayne, Interim report: Royal commission into misconduct in the banking, superannuation and financial services industry, Volume 1. Commonwealth of Australia, 2018; Transcript of Proceedings, 13 August, Commonwealth of Australia, 2018). This position was in stark contrast to the inaccessible service offerings of other financial organisations where some used predatory practices to sell unethical financial products to Indigenous Australians (Hayne, Interim report: Royal commission into misconduct in the banking, superannuation and financial services industry, Volume 1. Commonwealth of Australia, 2018; Hayne, Final report: Royal commission into misconduct in the banking, superannuation and financial services industry, Volume 1. Commonwealth of Australia, 2019a). Storytelling garned from visiting customers in remote communities and other meaningful activities involving inclusive practice to facilitate ethical decision-making in finance is different to standard functionalist finance approaches (Schinckus, Int Rev Financ Anal 40:103–106, 2015). Two empathetic questions asked within QSuper complementing the storytelling, were: “What is the right thing to do by the customer?” and “How would I feel if this were my mother?” Exploration into the lived reality of moral capacity is important based on the Commission finding many of the 490,000 finance staff do not know how to provide ethical services to vulnerable customers, in particular remote Indigenous customers (Australian Bureau of Statistics. Labour force, Australia, detailed. ABS. Retrieved from https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/labour/employment-and-unemployment/labour-force-australia-detailed/latest-release, 2021; Hayne, Final report: Royal commission into misconduct in the banking, superannuation and financial services industry, Volume 1. Commonwealth of Australia, 2019a). Furthermore, there is minimal literature on the role of Indigenous storytelling to heighten moral awareness in the finance industry which was found to lead to better ethical outcomes.

The focus of this paper is the development of a capstone management course and the application of educational action research through continual learning. In this article, we use the continual learning frame of plan, do, study, and act to underpin an educational action research design on the development of a capstone management course. As part of an Active Learning Trial, the development of the capstone experience has been captured in the embodiment of that experience. Our aim is to guide other academics in developing their own capstone course, particularly, within management with extension into other disciplines. Through continual improvement, we stress the importance of integrating the primary voice of the students, to emphasize the active learning and to optimize a meaningful experience in connecting theory to practice – the key to the capstone experience. Examples of how to gain feedback and integrate classroom improvements are given. To do this we present two cycles where we applied and practiced continual learning and educational action research to understand and evoke improvements within the course. These changes are evidenced through aggregated student feedback.