Sustainability in management education: the influence of contextual, organizational and curricular elements

Abstract

This paper considers Higher Education as a key element to encourage actions and changes. It emphasizes the education of managers. This is based on the supposition that organizations and their actors are essential in promoting positive outcomes in society. In this context, this paper proposes to answer the following question: How can contextual, organizational and curricular elements collaborate to the topic of Sustainability in Management Education? Thus, the aim of this paper is to analyze to what extent context, organizational and curricular elements collaborate for the Management Education from the Sustainability perspective. Therefore, to achieve this a case study was carried out at a private university in Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. The data collection was divided into four phases: analysis of Administration course Syllabus; interview with the key people in the institution’s administration; focus group with students; application of a questionary to students. Besides, secondary data from the institutional website and documents of the institution were considered. The main results show there is an institutional movement that emerges from the communitary characteristics of Higher Education Institution (HEI) and from external evaluations. There are also socioenvironmental practices, but the HEI is usually viewed as a means of innovation and not necessarily as a means of sustainability. The Business Administration curriculum went through changes that include the insertion of specific courses in these areas, which coincide to the concern expressed by the students.