Sustainability In Business Education Research And Practices

In a world where corporate governance scandals have become the everyday, the role of business schools in producing the managers of today – and tomorrow – has come into sharp focus. Today's managers and the MBAs that will follow them are in need of an education that grounds business ethics and the overarching concerns of sustainable development into the curriculum. As some, but by no means all, organisations are coming to realise, bad performance in environmental protection, labour practices and human rights is no longer a "soft" issue but one that can hit the bottom line with a vengeance. So, what is the state of the art in teaching business sustainability worldwide, and what teaching practices and tools are achieving successful results? This book begins to answer these questions and more.There are many challenges facing educators in the field of sustainability. It is an evolving field still in its infancy as a management discipline; and there is also the need to combat the unstated but often underlying assumption that many environmental and social issues represent non-valued-added effort. Teaching Business Sustainability acknowledges this problem, while helping students explore the various ways in which the theoretical value of business sustainability can result in valuable and value-added practical outcomes.A wide mix of approaches is therefore indicated; while many of these are experimental and on the leading edge of management learning, they all share an experiential (and often a team-based) element, and attempt to bring together the theory in a way that makes it relevant to practitioners in the field. The implication is that, whenever possible, educators need to link the learning to the students' immediate and pressing "real-world" realities. This applies equally to undergraduates or high-level executives. However, in the absence of immediate examples of such realities (as may often be the case in undergraduate settings) educators need to introduce experientially based approaches that recreate such settings in the classroom.The book also argues the case for holistic and interdisciplinary learning. It is clear from much of the literature on sustainability that the concept does not easily lend itself to being pigeonholed and that it crosses many of the functional areas of business. Indeed, it goes beyond just business learning to encompass many fields such as ecology, engineering and biology. If students are to move beyond the narrow perspective that conventional business studies often entail, they need to be introduced to the wider vision that an interdisciplinary approach engenders.The final point that emerges from this collection is that experiential learning of business sustainability often can, and should be, fun! Be it a heated exchange in a case-study discussion, a role-play exercise or a hands-on student consulting project, much experiential learning seems to excite the imagination of the students and to release their creative juices.The 23 contributions to Teaching Business Sustainability have been divided into three thematic groups. In the first section, 'Theory, Critique and Ideas', the authors explore and critique some of the overarching ideas and thinking behind the teaching of sustainability. The next section, 'Learning from Current Practice', contains the experiences of a number of educators and the successful and leading-edge approaches that they have used. The final section then outlines tools, methods and approaches that can be used to teach business sustainability. This last section also serves as an introduction to a second volume – Teaching Business Sustainability Vol. 2 – which provides educators of sustainability with a series of case studies, role plays and experiential exercises. Teaching Business Sustainability is an invaluable resource both for educators working in a wide range of academic disciplines, looking for inspiration and guidance on how to teach business sustainability, as well as for organisations looking to reinvigorate internal management education programmes to factor in corporate responsibility and sustainability issues.

As the impact of climate change becomes more evident and dire, business leaders, educators, students, and academic leaders are deciding what they need to change and do to survive and thrive in a new and dramatically different environment. This book sets out how to transform business education and integrate sustainability practices into curriculum and a wider academic culture. While some universities around the globe are still teaching business practices that have contributed to human and environmental crises, pioneering educators and higher education institutions are researching, developing, and implementing programs to transform business education and practices. With stories from 26 administrators, researchers, and faculty across the globe, this book inspires business educators with innovative tools and creative solutions to address challenges in the business world and society. These pioneers are helping students and business ventures change the way they conduct business to survive and thrive in a fast-changing global environment. Their unique and personal journeys offer tools, models, lessons-learned, and inspiration for change. The book will both inspire and guide faculty members, administrators, students, and alumni to transform business education for a sustainable future.

Schools are unique places. They pay a central role in the formation of young people. The importance of how young people are educated and how they are encouraged to live and learn cannot be underestimated. This book advocates for the fostering of agency not only amongst school personnel but also amongst younger generations for health and sustainability. It provides the reader with a new lens with which to discover health promoting schools and education for sustainable development. It invites the reader to look more deeply into both and to accompany the authors on a journey of discovery of the real potential for each to enhance the practice of schooling.

This book gathers inputs from a variety of researchers in the field of sustainable development in the widest sense across the UK, from business and economics, to arts and fashion, administration, environment and media studies. The book also describes research, curriculum innovation, and campus greening in a comprehensive way. Many universities in the United Kingdom are currently engaged in high-quality research on matters related to sustainable development. Yet there are relatively few publications that provide a multidisciplinary overview of these efforts and projects, and in which researchers from across the spectrum of the natural and social sciences have the opportunity to present their research methods, the results of their empirical research, or exchange ideas about on-going and future research initiatives focusing on sustainable development. Addressing this important gap in the literature, this book contributes to the further development of this rapidly growing field in the United Kingdom and beyond.

'To summarise, this book has a clear academic justification and is aptly outlined with examples of creative and relevant ideas that could easily be adapted and implemented in many fields - particularly for those subject areas that were intentionally omitted. Readers can easily navigate to their field of interest and the book would be a highly recommended resource for many, including the student market, academics, practitioners, policy makers and senior managers.'Nancy El-Farargy, A Guide to Publications in the Physical Sciences

This cutting-edge book finds that alternative teaching and learning methods, such as Responsible Management Learning and non-linear decision-making gameplay, can encourage deep learning, integrated thinking and a transformative consumer research perspective. Forward-thinking, it emphasises the importance of infusing the values of the United Nation’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals into future curriculums, and discusses the eco-centric, embedded, transdisciplinary and personally transformative learning and teaching required to achieve these.