Integrating corporate social responsibility into the business and marketing curricula in Spanish universities

Abstract

To a great extent, the future success of corporate social responsibility (CSR) will depend on the attitude of future generations, as these generations will influence relations between business and society, whether as citizens, customers or managers. Therefore, business and marketing educators can play a fundamental role due to the impact of the incorporation of social, ethical and environmental practices into the design of their curricula. This study analyzes comparatively the presence of CSR stand-alone subjects in business and marketing curricula offered by Spanish universities. An exploratory and descriptive web-content analysis and logistic regression of the curricula of undergraduate and postgraduate degrees at all universities in Spain was conducted. This study reports that marketing curricula emphasizes the integration of ethics stand-alone courses in their study plans in comparison with business degrees whilst CSR and environmental issues are less embedded than ethics. Also, statistical findings show that CSR education is greater in private universities in Spain as well as in undergraduate curricula in comparison with postgraduate degrees.