Integrating Sustainability Into MBA Programs: A Multiple Stakeholder Approach
Suzanne Benn, Dexter Dunphy, Soochen Low and Robert Perey, School of Management, Faculty of Business
This paper reports on an action research project designed to integrate sustainability into the MBA program at UTS. This project was designed to raise awareness of the relevance of sustainability to the subject material among academic staff in the UTS Graduate School of Business. Ten leading or core subjects have now introduced sustainability in one form or another into their teaching materials. The paper documents the methodology used in the project, our results and identifies the enabling factors and barriers to success.
Teaching goals
Our project addressed the question of how best to heighten awareness of sustainability and thus mainstream sustainability into existing MBA programs. In our project, we explored the possibility of taking a multiple stakeholder approach that involves lecturers, tutors, course directors, industry leaders in curriculum development concerning sustainability within the business school. We consulted with a wide range of lecturers in the MBA program on how to best modify or develop case material that would serve to highlight sustainability issues within their specific subject areas.
Source of the idea
Our research is linked to a key issue of debate in the academic literature on the methodology of developing sustainability curriculum in business schools. Is the meaningful integration of sustainability into business schools dependent upon the development which challenges the capitalist system of production as well as key assumptions of traditional management learning (Banerjee 2004; Springett 2005)? Or does success depend on the perceived relevance of the sustainability material to the existing business school criteria? Thomas (2005), for instance, has pointed out that if sustainability is to be integrated into managerial decision-making models then it must be perceived by students as legitimately addressing the goals of profit-making in the normalized business context. Or is successful integration dependent upon a context-specific approach, a reliance on systems-thinking skills, and stakeholder engagement as relevant issues and topics for skills development (Roome 2005)? In a sense these differing positions reflect different definitions of success: on the one hand, success is measured in terms of encouragement of ideological critique and reflexivity (eg Springett 2005), while on the other it is measured in terms of perceived legitimacy (eg Roome 2005; Thomas 2005). To explore these ideas we collaborated with four other leading business schools in an action research project funded by Commonwealth Department of Environment and Heritage through Australian Research Institute in Education for Sustainability.
Project Evaluation
Qualitative feedback was obtained from lecturers and students on the success of the initiative in terms of the perceived interest and relevance of the case content in each subject.
References
Banerjee, S. B. (2004) ‘Teaching sustainability: a critical perspective’, in C. Galea (ed), Teaching Business Sustainability, Greenleaf Publishing: Sheffield.
Roome, N. (2005), ‘Teaching sustainability in a global MBA: Insights from the OneMBA’, Business Strategy and Environment, 14, pp 160-171
Springett, D. (2005) ‘Education for sustainability in the business studies curriculum: a call for a critical agenda’, Business Strategy and Environment, 14, pp 146-159.
Thomas, T. (2005), ‘Are business students buying it? A theoretical framework for measuring attitudes toward the legitimacy of environmental sustainability’ Business Strategy and Environment, 14, pp 186-197
Dr Suzanne Benn is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Management at UTS. She coordinates the subjects Managing for Sustainability and Organisational Change and Development in the MBA Program.
Distinguished Professor Dexter Dunphy is a leading figure in organisational change in Australia and researches organisational change for sustainability at UTS.
Robert Perey is a postgraduate research student in School of Management and lectures in the MBA program at UTS.
Soochen Low is a research assistant and a part-time lecturer in School of Management. She is in the final year of her MBA studies at UTS.