Teaching sustainability to business students: shifting mindsets

Abstract

Purpose -This paper seeks to describe a framework used to help MBA students understand and reconcile the different sustainability perspectives. Design/methodology/approach -A review of the corporate sustainability literature is undertaken to develop the sustainability framework. Findings -The sustainability framework relates basic concepts and assumptions within the ecocentric, ecological modernization and neoclassical paradigms to organizational practice and behavior. For the most part, the MBA students have only been exposed to neoclassical economic thinking within the other MBA subjects. The aim of the sustainability framework is to shift the students' thinking by engaging with sustainability from different perspectives, rather than presenting one version of sustainability to them. The framework has proven to be useful in developing critical and reflective thinking and discussion. Originality/value -The paper provides a summary of sustainability concepts as applied to business practices and describes how this is used in teaching sustainability to business students.

Understanding Sustainability Through the Lens of Ecocentric Radical-Reflexivity: Implications for Management Education

“…A greater focus on the biophysical foundations of organizations and the complexities of the feedback between businesses and natural systems will require radical changes to current academic and business practices and ways of thinking Tregidga et al 2015). A move towards ecocentrism where humans are connected with, rather than predominant over, nature is necessary (Purser et al 1995;Shrivastava 1995;Stubbs and Cocklin 2008); as is taking what Marcus et al (2010, p. 405) describe as an embedded view where ''business, society, and nature are viewed as nested systems'' i.e. business is embedded within society, and society within nature.…”

The Impact of Flipped Learning on Cooperative and Competitive Mindsets

“…Schools are still used to teaching business as a "zero-sum" or "winner takes all" game and lack experience in considering it from the wider view of corporate sustainability. Therefore, it is indispensable that new teaching methodologies are developed to alleviate these issues and to promote the understanding of sustainability [24,67].…”

Teaching Sustainability through Traditional Wisdom:A Conceptual Framework for Business Studies

“…Benn and Dunphy 35 elucidated that stand-alone courses or short programmes on sustainability are effective ways to integrate sustainability into the curriculum of the graduate programme in management and discussed mindsets and multi-disciplinarity as the top roadblocks in achieving this. Stubbs and Cocklin 15 describe an integrative structure that helps management students to comprehend and integrate the various facets of sustainability and also propose that the business students are always exposed to neoclassical economic approach throughout the curriculum which lays emphasis upon utility and economic growth and needs to be changed. The students need to be made aware of multi-dimensional view of sustainability than the isolated approach.…”

“…Instead of being an appropriate market mechanism for creating human satisfaction, consumption has become a central cause of unsustainability, in both environmental and human terms'. The literature focuses on the need for corporates to usher in the path of sustainability 6,8,[11][12][13][14][15] . The motive to choose the path of business sustainability is both due to the self-interest concern and altruism [16][17] .…”