Developing a Sustainability Mindset in Management Education

Kerul Kassel, Isabel Rimanoczy

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781351063326
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Betriebswirtschaft
• Subtopic: Business allgemein

With an expanding awareness of the challenges of sustainability, featured more in the daily news than in higher education textbooks, scholars and faculty have been called to connect their syllabi to the 'real world'. This book doesn't just offer the 'why'; it offers the 'how' through presenting the definition and model of the 'sustainability mindset' to help educators frame curricula to facilitate broad and deep systemic learning among current and future leaders.

A sustainability mindset is intended to help individuals analyze complex management challenges and generate truly innovative solutions. The sustainability mindset breaks away from traditional management disciplinary silos by integrating management ethics, entrepreneurship, environmental studies, systems thinking, self-awareness and spirituality within the dimensional contexts of thinking (knowledge), being (values) and doing (competency).

This book is aimed at professors, faculty members, instructors, teaching assistants, researchers and doctoral students in higher learning management education programs. Chapter contributors are all teaching professionals from programs around the world, who have been doing research and creating curricula, assessments, tools, and more for the students in their classes, and the book will be globally applicable.

Part I

Theoretical foundations for sustainability mindset in management education

1
A Sustainability mindset model for management education

Kerul Kassel, Isabel Rimanoczy and Shelley F. Mitchell

Introduction

The connections between climate-related events and social and economic impact have been increasingly featured in the media, and also addressed by corporations and educators. For too long, we have taken for granted the services rendered by the biosphere and the variety of negative social impacts incurred through management practices. There is also an expanded public awareness that it is impossible to engineer infinite growth and profit without attending to planetary and civilizational constraints. The disciplines of management and management education, traditionally anchored in the economist model of maximizing shareholder value and validating selfish behaviors (Hühn, 2013; Moosmayer, 2013), which are aware of their contribution to the problems, are in the process of revising educational approaches and content.

Management literature has long sought to provide an objective, empirical perspective. Yet the practice of management, and in particular management for sustainability, is within the realm of social science, complex (Lissack, 1999) and messy (Sayer, 2000). It presents paradoxes, ambiguities, uncertainty, lack of data and a welter of complex interconnected variables. Integrating the topic of sustainability into management education thus involves incorporating psychological, social, organizational, ecological, policy and other dimensions, from the micro to the macro levels.

In this foundational chapter we explore the current shortcomings in management education to develop a new generation of globally responsible leaders; we suggest what may be missing for a sustainability mindset; and we provide recommendations that can help educators in developing such aspects among current and future leaders. We first review related literature, then propose a definition and model. We explore the four content areas of systems perspectives, ecological worldview, spiritual intelligence and emotional intelligence, and their respective developmental goals of the proposed mindset, and finish by reflecting on how educators are facilitating this mindset in the context of management education and leadership development. In presenting the sustainability mindset concept, we introduce the dimensions as a type of phoropter to clearly focus on the being (values), thinking (knowledge) and doing (competency) in each of the four content areas. The dimensions, components and developmental areas we suggest as comprising sustainability mindset inform a broader, more complex understanding of management practices and their impact on the organization, community and broader world. Such a mindset, we believe, incorporates a more deeply ethical stance, a wider human, biospheric and chronological scope in consideration, and a more balanced approach to leadership and the use of power than much of the current management education curriculum is able or aims to instill in students.

By mindset we mean the lenses with which individuals view the world and their role/place in it, as well as underlying assumptions, beliefs and values that inform that lens. Yeager and Dweck (2012) posit that mindset is an implicit theory, core assumptions that are rarely made explicit which “create a framework for making predictions and judging the meaning of events in one’s world” (p. 303). Building on this work, we posit a sustainability mindset as incorporating a systemic approach to understanding, one which goes beyond technical knowledge, in understanding the interconnections of a healthy ecosystem and a thriving society (Van Lopik, 2013, p. 108). In addition, a sustainability mindset is shaped by values and personal purpose.

What the authors found missing in management education to prepare students for a rapidly changing world was the goal of thinking, being and acting in new ways. The inadequacy of the dominant management maxims and their (unexamined) underlying assumptions and values, as well as the predominant focus on the cognitive aspects in education, motivated the authors of this chapter to describe a more integrated and holistic developmental goal: a sustainability mindset that represents a paradigmatic shift for traditional management education. Our contention is that the application (doing) of any learned theory (knowing) must be informed by awareness about the values, beliefs and assumptions underlying that knowledge, the perspectives of stakeholders, and be motivated from a personally held sense of purpose (being).

In the following sections we offer a brief review of trends in management and management education, including corporate social responsibility and related topic areas, and reflect on the need for a sustainability mindset in learning and education. We then offer a brief overview of the concepts of mindset and sustainability, followed by our definition of the sustainability mindset. We present the content areas, dimensions and components including the theoretical frameworks that support those dimensions, and propose a model for developing it, as well as a call for a paradigmatic shift in management education to meet the urgent demands of our time.

We conclude with suggested applications of the model for educators, as well as avenues of future research.

Trends in management and management education

With increasing attention on the social, environmental and economic impacts and injustices of management practices, management education has started to look for ways of connecting the traditional neo-liberal principles guiding capitalism with corporate social responsibility (CSR). Over the last several decades, management education has utilized management practice as a sometimes unquestioned source for forwarding management principles. For example, “doing well by doing good” has been introduced into courses of marketing or strategy, highlighting the opportunity of creating competitive advantage for the firm, instead of a systemic or ethical reason (Laszlo, 2008; Willard, 2002, 2005, 2009). This approach has been called “the business case for sustainability” (Salzmann, Ionescu-somers, & Steger, 2005). Reinhardt (2008) suggested viewing “environmental problems as business issues” with the decision criteria as whether resolving these issues will “deliver positive returns or … reduce risk” (p. 37). As such, corporate attention boils down to “when it really pays to be green” (p. 53), and “Far from being a soft issue grounded in emotions or ethics, sustainable development involves cold, rational business logic” (Magretta, 2008). Practicing CSR then becomes an obligation of the firm, rather than a strategic option, only if it enhances shareholder value (Tudway & Pascal, 2006).

A growing body of literature examines the underlying assumptions of this perspective. Among the earlier contributors are Post and Altman (1994), who suggested a tripartite model of compliance-based, market-driven and values-driven set of motivations for environmental management programs. In reviewing the history of CSR literature, Sison (2009) suggested a two-category typology, that of a liberal-minimalist mindset that emphasizes rights and freedom from the constraints of state intervention versus a civic/communitarian mindset that privileges duty and a “freedom to participate in social goods and decisions” (p. 235).

Other scholars have proposed frameworks of moral reciprocity versus financial performance orientation (Sharp & Zaidma, 2010) or have reconciled the extremes of utilitarian ethics against duty ethics, through a holistic “middle way” (Ketola, 2008) of virtue ethics, in which the motives, nature and history of an individual’s or organization’s behavior determine the presence or absence of virtue. A recent review of the CSR literature revealed that existing research exhibits a narrow research scope, a low degree of interdisciplinary integration, with a pointed emphasis on financial consequences and performance, and low consideration of managerial implications of climate change in management research (Linnenluecke & Griffiths, 2013).

More recently, business management schools have begun to evaluate their underlying assumptions in approaching education. In 2007, the United Nations–sponsored Principles for Responsible Management Education (UN-PRME) originated after the Global Forum for Business as Agent of World Benefit, hosted at the Weatherhead School of Management at Case Western Reserve University. Prompted by a reflection that a majority of corporate scandals had been led by alumni of U.S. business schools, UN-PRME is not only a set of principles, but is also a global engagement platform for academic institutions with the purpose of inspiring responsible management education, research and thought leadership (Forray, Leigh, & Kenworthy, 2015). With more than 663 university signatories, the Principles are intended to instill capabilities and values supporting the creation of sustainable value among management students, integrated into curriculum and research, and embedded through partnership and dialogue with industry, media, consumers, governments and other stakeholders. While some question the degree to which adhering to the Principles implies a real shift in the focus of management education away from the traditional goals of growth and profit, it is undoubtedly a major first step into a new direction.

Accreditation bodies are also mandating change (Wu, Huang, Kuo, & Wu, 2010). In 2013, in its update to standards for business schools, the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) added social responsibility and sustainability to the first paragraph of their standards preamble. The organization also added these topics to the eligibility criteria in their core values and guiding principles and in the general skill areas and general business and management knowledge sections of their learning and teaching accreditation standards.

Management education shortcomings

A 2010 (Rimanoczy) study of sixteen business leaders championing sustainability initiatives indicated that the management education of the leaders interviewed had created a fragmented understanding of reality. This made it initially difficult for them to think of the interconnections between business and sustainability in the three realms of the triple bottom line: economic prosperity, environmental health and social well-being. This and other research points to the deficiency in management education for equipping students to address global challenges and develop an understanding of the complex interrelationships at play (Gintis & Khurana, 2007; Spitzeck, 2011). Furthermore, while ethics courses are present in many management education programs, they tend to explore theoretical frameworks and fail at examining the values and assumptions behind our collective or personal behaviors, including who, and what, matters in business decision-making (Adkins, Gentile, Ingols, & Trefalt, 2011).

The issue of whom and what to include determines focus and goals with regard to who benefits and who does not. When the objective is to maximize the return on investment, it leads to the disregard for consequences and impacts on other stakeholders (Freeman, Wicks, & Parmar, 2004). “Negative externalization” exemplifies the disconnection between the economic goals and the social and ecological viability, and the costs are carried, knowingly or unknowingly, by others who have not agreed to it. Yet, the organization does not exist in a vacuum. Its success is linked to the well-being and engagement of its employees, the strength of the communities within which it operates, the financial ability of its customers to afford its products, and the health of the biosphere in enhancing security to its operations (Kassel, 2014).

Time perspective is a cogent component, as well. Among the most highly prioritized management values is very short-term financial metrics. While quarterly performance, annual gains and exponential growth are rewarded, an emphasis on rapid and explosive growth in the near term has often had a negative impact when viewed over an extended span of tim...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Figures and tables
• Contributing authors
• Foreword
• Introduction
• Acknowledgements
• Part I Theoretical foundations for sustainability mindset in management education
• Part II Curricular examples of embedding sustainability mindset within management education
• Part III Integrating sustainability mindset in programmatic learning goals
• Index