No. 60-2012 ICCSR Research Paper Series – ISSN 1479-5124
Embedding Sustainability in Business Schools: The State of the Art in Teaching & Learning, Research, and Operations
Stephen Brammer, Annie Powell and Andrew Millington
Research Paper Series International Centre for Corporate Social Responsibility
ISSN 1479-5124
Editor: Rob Caruana
International Centre for Corporate Social Responsibility
Nottingham University Business School
Nottingham University Jubilee Campus Wollaton Road
Nottingham NG8 1BB United Kingdom
Tel: +44 (0) 115 84 66798
Fax: +44 (0) 115 84 68074 Email: [email protected]
http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/business/ICCSR
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Embedding Sustainability in Business Schools: The State of the Art
in Teaching & Learning, Research, and Operations
INTRODUCTION
What ails the modern business school? A reading of recent literature, in many cases
written by very prominent business and management scholars, suggests that
business schools have, perhaps paradoxically given their growth, scale, and
prestige, lost their way in a number of key respects. In respect of their pedagogic
roles, Mintzberg (2004) has been a prominent and consistent critic of the MBA
degree, because of its tendency to emphasise facts, case knowledge, and technical
skills instead of experiential knowledge heavily informed by managerial practice.
Opinion is divided among commentators regarding the origins of this trend. Starkey
et al., (2004) see the problem as being to some extent driven by the wider contexts
within which universities, particularly those in the UK, operate, noting that “the
business school is the cash cow in a university system increasingly squeezed of cash
from the public purse. Overseas students flock to the UK to study for degrees in
business and management, to the extent that the financial health of many UK
universities is heavily dependent upon this activity, and, particularly, on the
premium-priced MBA” (Starkey et al., 2004, 1521). For others, “business schools
are too close to private corporations, with a consequent loss of critical distance.
Business schools have morphed into pale imitators of management consulting firms
working on short-term problems prescribed for them by their clients” (Ferlie et al.,
2010, 62). Regarding the knowledge creation role of business school research,
commentators are similarly critical. As Khurana and Spender (2012) note, the
”explosion of management research literature and PhDs … has produced little in the
way of insights about the real dilemmas facing business managers - indeed little that
practicing managers see as at all relevant to their problems” (Khurana and Spender,
2012, 5). The deficits of academic research are, according to some, a by-product of
a career system that privileges publications in mainstream journals such that
“esoteric research [is] more persuasive to the academic hierarchy than that with
practical relevance” (Ferlie et al., 2010, 62). Other commentators attribute the
failings of business school research to a sort of discipline envy whereby business
school academics “prefer to adorn their work with scholarly tables, statistics and
jargon because it makes them feel like real academics” (Skapinker, 2008).
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Notwithstanding these assessments of the failings of the contemporary business
school, recent critiques have emphasised the particular failings of business schools
in relation to developing an awareness and capacity among managers to
appropriately engage with ethical, environmental and social issues. For example,
Rakesh Khurana‟s recent book “From Higher Aims to Hired Hands” provides a
compelling historical analysis of the roles and purposes of business schools, arguing
that while they once aspired to educate morally and socially sensitised leaders, the
skill base of today‟s typical graduate is much narrower, more technically skilled, and
less socially embedded. Many critiques of the role of the business school emphasise
the role of the dominant neo-classical economics paradigm within many business
school curricula, with its clear establishment of the priority of increasing shareholder
value above that of creating value for other stakeholders. Empirical evidence for the
potential harm caused by the widespread adoption of the dominant paradigm is
increasingly available. As Etztioni (2002) notes, an “Aspen Institute study of about
2000 graduates of the top 13 business schools found that B-school education not
only fails to improve the moral character of the students, it actually weakens it. The
study examined student attitudes three times while they were working toward their
MBA's: on entering, at the end of the first year, and on graduating. Those who
believed that maximizing shareholder value was the prime responsibility of the
corporation increased from 68% upon entrance to 82% by the end of the first year”.
This has not gone unnoticed in light of recent crises and scandals. Enron, for
example, famously recruited the best MBAs from highly ranked and prestigious
business schools (Hamel, 2001). Accordingly, as Salbu observes, business schools
“too often turn out ambitious, intelligent, driven, skilled over-achievers with one
underdeveloped aptitude. Too many of the business leaders we graduate are hitting
the ground running, but we have forgotten to help them to build their moral
muscles” (Salbu, 2002, p. xiv). Hence, as Starkey et al., (2004) note, “the business
school ideal is increasingly seen as educationally, culturally and ethically bankrupt”
(Starkey et al., 2004).
These concerns have prompted much introspection into the roles and responsibilities
of business schools and a substantial amount of research charting business school‟s
responses to the criticisms they face. A number of recent studies have examined the
prominence of ethics, environment, sustainability and related concepts within
business school programmes, and the MBA in particular. Broadly, this research has
indicated that both business schools and their students are receptive to the
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introduction of units addressing the wider social role of business and management
and that the prevalence of modules that deal with these issues is growing (e.g.
Christensen et al., 2007). However, there remains relatively little comprehensive
and in-depth analysis of the extent and character of embedding of sustainability
within business schools and very little evidence of the underlying motivations,
processes, and rationales associated with doing do. In light of these gaps in our
knowledge, in this chapter we report the outcome of a major new piece of empirical
research into the embedding of sustainability into the pedagogic activities, research
agendas, and operations of business schools in the UK. We draw upon telephone
interview data with over 120 senior managers, generally Deans and Associate Deans
responsible for MBA programmes, in 80 UK business schools.
The chapter is structured as follows. The next section outlines our methods in more
detail, including a discussion of the sample, the approach taken to data collection
and analysis. Subsequently, we discuss the main findings of the research, beginning
with an overview of the penetration of sustainability within business schools and the
strategic perspective afforded by interviews with business school Deans, before
discussing what our evidence indicates regarding the extent and nature of
embedding of sustainability within teaching, research and operations. A final section
concludes.
METHODS
Sample
Our sampling universe was defined as all UK business schools. In this, we included
schools of management and schools that included business and management studies
alongside other disciplines (e.g. Schools of business and economics). This sampling
splits into two broad groups – the 32 signatories of the UN Principles for Responsible
Management Education (UNPRME) which we hereafter refer to as “Aspirational”
schools, and the around 80 non-signatories to UNPRME, which we hereafter refer to
as the “Non-Aspirational” schools. Within each school, we sought to interview both
the Dean (or school director, or equivalent) and the Associate Dean for the MBA
programme (or equivalent role title). Interviews with deans were intended to offer a
perspective on overall strategic commitments to embedding sustainability, while
interviews with MBA programme directors were intended to shed some more
detailed light on implementation within a core strategic programme. Overall, we
managed to secure interviews with at least one key officer in 30 of the 32
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aspirational schools, and 50 non-aspirational schools. The final sample included
interviews with 67 deans (including 27 of the 32 deans of aspirational schools), and
55 MBA programme directors. Hence our overall response rate is very encouraging,
and the breadth of the sample encompassed affords both a broad and a deep insight
into how schools are embedding sustainability.
Data Collection
Potential participants in the research were contacted initially by email and the
introductory message provided a brief description of the study. If and when an
organisation replied positively, we sent another letter describing the topics likely to
be addressed during the proposed telephone interview and a remainder of the
agreed date and time of the interview. Where our initial email messages failed to
bring a response, we followed up with a letter by post and telephone calls. It was
emphasised that all responses would be treated with the utmost confidence and that
the views of particular individuals and organisations would be anonymised unless
prior permission for attribution was sought.
The research was carried out using a telephone interviewing approach. Telephone
interviewing enables data to be collected from geographically scattered samples
more cheaply and quickly than by face-to-face interviewing. In addition, because
telephone interviews are administered this method helps to avoid some of the
limitations of postal surveys (Lavrakas, 1993). In particular, telephone surveying
tends to lead to a rise in response rates and a reduction in the incidence of
incompleteness, misunderstanding, and inappropriateness in responses when
compared to postal surveys (Lavrakas, 1993). Saunders et al (2007) offer possible
criticisms of telephone interviewing and to counter these consistency and
effectiveness in the interviewing approach were assisted by using a single
researcher, who is highly experienced in interviewing, to carry out all of the
telephone interviews. Issues of integrity and competence were assisted by the
reputation of the research team and the researcher. This was particularly important
in gaining useful responses since respondents could arguably have strong motives
for creating a positive impression of themselves and their schools‟ work. In fact,
many offered extremely candid responses.
On average, interviews lasted 35 minutes and ranged from 20 minutes to 1hr.
Respondents were asked if they were willing for interviews to be recorded so that
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complete records of the telephone interview could be obtained and in order to
relieve the interviewer of the responsibility of taking notes during the interview. All
respondents agreed to this proposed procedure. Transcribers then transcribed
interview tapes verbatim and the resulting transcripts were analysed.
Data Analysis
In order to impose a coherent structure on the analysis of this data, the data was
first organised into the constituent questions and then a form of conceptual content
analysis of the interview transcripts was employed whereby the existence and/or
incidence of particular predetermined concepts is recorded and analysed
(Krippendorf, 1980; Carley, 1990). The first step in such an analysis is the definition
of a set of relevant indicators, phrases, or terms that relate to the underlying
phenomenon being studied. Of particular importance in this context were statements
made about important drivers (e.g., accreditation, rankings, student pressures), and
comments concerning benefits encountered when embedding sustainability (e.g.
market attractiveness). The process of assigning particular respondent comments
into categories requires a detailed reading of a significant sub-sample of the data
and, since such processes are highly subjective, the interviews were repeatedly read
and coded. This process then allowed the systematic analysis of the themes present
within the 122 interviews and to comment coherently on the incidence of particular
opinions expressed by respondents.
FINDINGS
Overall Engagement with Sustainability
Before embarking on a detailed thematic analysis of the interview data, it is worth
briefly reflecting on the overall sense of interest in, and commitment to,
sustainability among the very broadly drawn participants in our research. Stepping
back from the detail, the overall level and variety of engagement is both striking and
encouraging. It is notable, something we return to below, that schools across
various spectra of UK business school life – teaching versus research intensive
schools, aspirational versus non-aspirational schools, big versus small schools – all
expressed a significant level of involvement with sustainability. The ubiquity of
engaging with sustainability was encapsulated by one respondent that, when
reflecting on sustainability said “It becomes more central everywhere. Imagine doing
a ten year discussion of the future strategy of whatever organisation it is and
ignoring issues of sustainability, are you mad?”
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The View from the Top: Sustainability in Business School Mission,
Vision, and Strategy
The early stages of our interviews with deans explored their perceptions of the
strategic positioning of their school in broad terms and in relation to sustainability in
particular. Many schools shared a significant set of strategic aims – for example, the
aim to achieve high rates of student satisfaction and employability through
excellence in education, and the aim to produce internationally esteemed research
outputs. It was also striking for how many schools strategic thinking was currently
being revised or developed, often in light of new senior appointments. Notably,
sustainability was relatively seldom explicitly articulated as a core part of a school‟s
high level strategic goals. However, there were some significant exceptions, one
dean stated that “we summarise it with the strap line responsible leadership for a
complex world. So that is our strap line. In a sense that is at the heart of what we
do. It is about educating students for those kinds of roles”, while another related his
school‟s mission to the wider university mission as follows: “our mission as a
university is centred around social justice, our mission as a business school is to
inspire a more responsible sustainable future, so what I always say to parents and
as the new students come in and other people is I know that a lot of universities talk
about the world of work, preparing their students for the world of work, we look at it
more for the work of the world, so we want to develop students with a knowledge of
business and economics but also environment and social”. In one case, a specific
leadership role had been created for sustainability, with a dean highlighting that “we
are probably one of the only business schools in the UK that have an associate dean
for sustainability. And we have using our top management group, you can probably
correct me on that but I am not aware of similar high level appointments at other
business schools”.
Embedding sustainability at the heart of a school‟s strategy was seen by some as
being somewhat risky. One dean noted that sustainability “is not a major part of the
strategy. We are certainly not an eco-versity or an eco-business school. We are
developing it as an emerging part of our strategy”, while another went further
observing that “I think it is a bit like the university fee issue, is that no one would
want to come out necessarily on their own first of all and say we are a school of
sustainable business management although that has so many different connotations
because actually we are all schools of sustainable business management because
you want businesses to sustain, we all know what we mean about sustainability
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agenda and I think there has always been that danger that to hang your hat too
firmly on this agenda pushes you into a different domain, because it is not quite yet
mainstream. One of the very interesting things that we have seen through the
recession in the last few years is some companies kind of said it is hard economic
times, we can’t focus on the sustainability agenda at the same time”.
How is “Sustainability” Conceptualised and Operationalised in
Business Schools?
Academic research in the fields of business ethics, corporate social responsibility,
sustainability, and related concepts has long been frustrated by continuing,
occasionally fervent, debates regarding the meaning of “sustainability” and related
concepts. Many definitions of sustainability emphasise the reduction of
environmental impacts at the macro level, particularly so as to preserve inter-
generational equity. For instance, sustainability has been used to capture the notion
of "an economy [...] in equilibrium with basic ecological support systems [...]"
(Stivers, 1976:187), and the idea that sustainable activities are those that “the
needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet
their own needs” (Brundtland, 1987). At the same time, a wide range of issues and
units of analysis have been thought of within the broad concept of sustainability.
Thus, as Gladwin notes, “the notion of sustainable development will remain fuzzy,
elusive, contestable, and/or ideologically controversial for some time to come"
(Gladwin et al., 1995). Methodologically, our approach was to allow respondents to
offer their own interpretations of the term “sustainability” as far as was possible, in
order to solicit as broad a variety of perspectives on current activities and practices.
While the debate about the meaning of sustainability continues to be had within the
context of academic research, it appears that this also remains a live issue within
current business school practice. One dean noted that defining sustainability “is
actually problematical issue, we [were] approached us with the view to producing a
course on corporate social responsibility and corporate sustainability and all the rest
of it, the problem we had was we couldn’t get to grips with what it was meant to be
about”, while another noted that “every time somebody tries to define what
sustainability is it just collapses, but I think there are principles of sustainability so
what I would like to see is business schools and everybody else move away from
trying to define what sustainability is because you end up with simplistic nonsense”.
While a number of schools continued to wrestle with the meaning of sustainability,
most schools had managed to define what sustainability meant for them, and had
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sought to embed this definition into their activities. What is most striking, as
demonstrated in table 1, below, is the breadth of issues and phenomena captured
within respondents‟ understanding of what sustainability meant. Most prominent
among respondents observations regarding sustainability were observations
regarding the relationship between sustainability and “environmental” or “green”
issues on one hand, and between sustainability and “ethics” or “values” on the
other. To some extent, schools tended to adopt one or other approach within their
curricula. However, some schools, while recognising the multi-faceted nature of
sustainability tried to achieve integration between them. As one dean notes, “when
we are talking about it here, we couple together the areas of social responsibility
and sustainability because we don’t see a real separation between those. If you like,
the scientific issues and the ethical issues cross over into each other so it doesn’t
make sense to look at them separately”. Beyond the main thrust of sustainability as
ethics or in relation to environmental issues, a very broad set of notions of
sustainability were articulated, many of which reflected particular disciplinary or
subject orientations. For example, some economists tended to emphasise
externalities in relation to sustainability, those involved in entrepreneurship and
regional development emphasised the economic development elements to
sustainability, while strategic and development perspectives tended to emphasise
long run survival and security respectively.
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Table 1: The variety of conceptions of “sustainability” adopted in
business schools
Do you mean the green? When you are talking about sustainability do you mean green and climate or do you
mean things like professional sustainability of stuff which we do which is nothing to do with green, do you
mean green?
We teach sustainability of business, nothing to do with climate, environment, ecology, nothing. It is about
things like is your cash flow sustainable. I am trying to get at what you mean. I don’t want to confuse the
agenda. You are talking about the green agenda when you are talking about sustainability?
Ethics is taught primarily through, well it is embedded in business, in that sense we don’t teach, we are not
the Arthur Daley school of management really, so we believe that you have got to have a certain trust to
develop relationships in business which is based upon ethical behaviour if you like.
Oh probably, well I suppose sustainability for us has come out of business ethics, what we would call business
ethics, which I guess we probably first started teaching 16 or 17 years ago. And ethics has evolved into
corporate social responsibility into sustainability.
Sustainability as legal
compliance
I am interested in the economic development rather than sustainable economic development because that is
not my interest but I am interested in developing the economy, and hopefully by doing it legally which is
what I call sustainable.
Sustainability as business
continuity
We have for example if you were doing strategic management sustainability will be a key issue that you look
into in terms of how do organisations plan for the future, that would be a key theme because even if you are
talking about competitive advantage you are talking about sustainability and sustainability of competitive
advantage and the challenges of that
Sustainability as regional
economic development
Well to some extent I would say, we have a centre for local and regional enterprise and that does a lot of work
on small businesses, their impact on localities and regions and also looks at policies, national policies and
how they might affect regions and there has been some work done in that area by one or two people on
sustainability issues
Sustainability as relating to
externalities
Now what we have […] in the business school is any current sort of trendy notion which follows the market
like ethical behaviour, in the wake of Enron and so on there was this great drive towards teaching ethics, and
of course nobody can define what that is either, what we take as the hard nosed economists viewpoint,
people have got to understand about externalities and how governments try to deal with them. One
externality is the depletion of natural resources and that is a kind of sustainability issue. But we don’t actually
separate out sustainability in any of the courses as a subject in its own right.
Sustainability as security
I have for example applied research centre around sustainable agriculture, I have a sustainable regeneration
research centre which is very into low carbon, location independent working, regeneration within urban
developments, all of those sorts of things. So in that sense it is represented in all sorts of different parts of
the, we are also very into human security and I have people who do work around areas such as precarious
workers, illegal trafficking of people, sustainability of things like food chains, water supplies, faith and its
relationship to human security and sustainability.
Sustainability and "green
business"
Sustainabiilty as "ethics"
What is unclear when analysing the data is whether the variety of perspectives being
articulated reflects a strategic interpretation of sustainability that is designed to
emphasise the extent to which schools are engaging with these issues, or whether
the breadth of the conceptions of sustainability seen in the data reflects “genuine”
engagement with a complex and multi-faceted concept.
Moreover, the breadth and lack of clarity of the concept of sustainability was felt by
some respondents to generate significant challenges regarding its becoming more
widely embedded within business schools, especially where it was seen as being
contradictory with the main thrust of school‟s mission. One dean noted that “it
seems to me there is a strict tension between virtually any kind of sustainability
including my social enterprise version of sustainability, [and] making a profit. And I
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don’t’ expect to resolve the tension but it does mean that we have got to be careful
what we do”, while another observed that “there is the kind of essential difficulty of
certain versions of sustainability being utterly incompatible with [….] capitalism and
that is a fairly difficult one for a management and business school to deal with”.
Other respondents echoed another strong theme in academic research on
sustainability – that the breadth of its definition provided necessary scope and
flexibility that facilitates engagement with sustainability and the development of the
concept itself. As Gladwin points out “rather than lament or withdraw from this
embryonic state of affairs, we hope that management scholars will proactively
embrace the unfolding process of paradigmatic debate, for the advance of all
sciences requires conflict between competing schools of thought" (Gladwin, 1995).
Top-Down or Bottom-Up?
A significant element of our analysis focused on exploring the processes by which
business schools become engaged with sustainability, and the underlying
motivations associated with doing so. Most discussions exposed two central
processes by which sustainability has been, and was being, embedded in business
schools. On one hand, it was very widely recognised that the interest, commitment,
and engagement of individual faculty members was critical in bringing sustainability
into business school life. It was recognised, particularly in research intensive
institutions, that staff freedom to pursue arenas of their own interest in research and
teaching was central to the sort of academic environment being created. This
manifested itself in the data in several ways, most positive, but some potentially
concerning. Firstly, in a number of schools embedding of sustainability had
originated in the personal commitment and conviction of a core group of staff that
have led successful initiatives. On dean attributed the progress that had been made
in respect of embedding sustainability to “the fact that we have got these people in
the school with specialist knowledge and interests and passion for social projects”.
Many deans and MBA directors spoke of specific individuals and groups within their
schools that had lead particular projects, modules, partnerships or initiatives that
had incorporated sustainability in their schools. Consistent with these findings, one
dean summarised the secret of successful embedding of sustainability as follows: “It
is very simple; I think it works best when we have got passionate members of staff
involved in doing it”. Staff ownership was recognised explicitly as an important
precursor to deeply embedding sustainability in a number of cases, with one dean
highlighting that “I think it is very easy to have strategy at university level and also
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faculty level, school level. But if your staff don’t buy into that, if your staff don’t own
that then it becomes very difficult to realise that” and another dean arguing that “I
think you can force change if you really want to, but if you want it to be successful I
think you need people that actually buy into it as important and actually have a
commitment to it as a principle, and then help to drive it through”.
Table 2: Processes of engagement with sustainability
That is exactly right; if it weren’t for the fact that we have people who are enthusiastic about this
topic from a research point of view then it wouldn’t be feeding in to our engagement and our
teaching.
I think mostly it is the personal values of the academics who research in this area, they have a very
strong normative commitment to sustainability in addition to wanting to do good science, they are
driven to study this by a commitment to sustainability itself.
We don’t tell people what to teach. I have got 90 odd professional faculty and essentially they choose
what they teach and how they teach it. All I do is look at the outcomes at the other end of it, so I don’t
know how many people incorporate anything, there is no requirement for them to do so, well there is
no requirement to incorporate anything very much apart from some kind of relevant managerial
applications.
Originally it was a university wide initiative, so the school would have been reporting back to learning
and teaching via its own learning and teaching committee to the university central learning and
teaching committee. And as you know in universities we have all kinds of processes for monitoring
what is going on. So for example any new programme that we are putting forward for approval would
have to specify how sustainability is covered within it. Our annual monitoring review of the
programmes would also be reviewing how we are dealing with sustainability within those
programmes.
We had a vice chancellor who brought the agenda with her basically, so it was led from the top and it
was I will say an agenda that would have naturally had a lot of sympathy from within the institution
anyway and that may have been a smart move on her part to pick on it because of that and then there
were pockets of people all over the institution who were already doing work on this sort of stuff and
supportive.
I think it would be true to say the initiative got real traction when the new deputy vice chancellor was
appointed about 18 months ago and he has really championed the sustainability initiatives through
the university.
University Policy
Encouragement
Staff-Led "Bottom-
Up" Process
The observation that in many cases sustainability had been embraced through a
bottom-up process that began with the interest and involvement of staff clearly
brings both positive and potentially negative things to embedding sustainability in
business schools. On one hand, it suggests many schools have found it relatively
easy to make strong progress in respect of embedding sustainability because of its
resonance with staff interests. On the other hand, academic cultures that reflect a
commitment to being staff-led as far as possible may threaten the ability of the
sector to more fully embrace sustainability where such commitment and expertise
doesn‟t currently exist, and the loss of key staff may also undermine successful
initiatives. As one dean noted, “I want our strategy of sustainability to itself be
sustainable. And let me give you an example, we had a research centre within the
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school that looked at sustainability but bizarrely they became unsustainable because
there was a lack of succession, a lack of planning and a lack of commitment”.
A second prominent theme in the evidence related to the strong levels of support for
sustainability present at the highest levels in universities, which, in a number of
cases, had strengthened in the wake of recent senior appointments. In virtually
every case, respondents expressed the view that wider university processes were
seeking a fuller embedding of sustainability, especially in relation to the university‟s
own estate and procurement.
Embedding sustainability: problem solving or opportunity
seeking?
A significant theme in many discussions regarding how schools were approaching
sustainability related to the underlying motivations associated with seeking to more
broadly embed it. One prominent theme in respect of motivation relates to recent
events in the business environment and the impact that these have inevitably had
on the issues that inform business education. From this comes a sense of needing to
remain “contemporary” in the nature of the offerings that a school provides. As one
dean noted “I think part of the driver is around some of the current debates about
management and leadership and how some of that agenda I think has shifted. And
part of the driver for us is ensuring that our programmes are contemporary and fit
for purpose”. Another dean argued that “there is a wider issue, which is that I think
the nature of the discourse around management and the role of business is being
set in a different political social context and issues of sustainability are much more
the currency of contemporary debate more widely. I think it is the role of the
management school to be responsive to those trends and to engage with them, not
just as a follower but in some sort of sense of leadership and that I think for us is
the next big challenge”.
Corporate scandals of the 1990s and 2000s, the recent financial crisis, and the
prominence of global warming all occurred frequently in discussions of the way in
which embedding of sustainability was increasingly necessary. One dean highlighted
that “no business is an island and you have to think in broader issues and that is
where things like the recent international financial crisis for example has been a very
significant topic for those modules but so has corporate social responsibility because
it is all about things going on outside your business that can impact on your
business, whether or not you necessarily think about it in those terms”, while
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another pointed out that “part of producing world leading research that does have
an impact, post Enron, post BP spill, in the wake of the financial crisis and various
environmental issues that have occurred in recent years, business schools have to
think hard about these issues”.
For some schools, addressing sustainability prominently is part of a strategy of
differentiation in the market place. One dean noted that “we will I think use it as
part of our differentiation in the marketplace. When we started out we felt it would
influence student choice, but of course for me the danger was we don’t want it to be
just rhetoric, so we had to be sure that we were also demonstrating that on the
ground in terms of actions. And we are doing that now so I think we are ready if you
like now to start to use it as a factor in our branding” while another highlighted that
their commitment to embedding sustainability stemmed from “the high demand for
these kind of programmes with explicit references to sustainability and so on in
them I think is not fully there yet but obviously by offering these programmes you
hope to stimulate demand.”
At the same time, other perspectives were sceptical regarding the likelihood of
achieving meaningful differentiation on the basis of embedding sustainability. One
dean observed that “On the sustainability stakes I am sorry I don’t’ know enough
about which are the leading schools in that area to be honest. I know there are quite
a few that have it writ large. It is funny because we saw it as a differentiator for us
and then when you look around you see it is a differentiator for everybody. So it is
not really a differentiator anymore because it is kind of a hygiene factor”, while
another went further, suggesting that “The university, many people think that
sustainability is a key differentiator and something that is going to attract
undergraduate students in the future. I personally am a bit sceptical about that.
Obviously there are students that are really keen and interested but I would say the
vast majority would not be selecting their university on the basis of whether it is
focussing on sustainable development or not. That is my view; maybe I am a bit
cynical”.
Related to the discussion above regarding the desire to embed sustainability within
programmes in order to reflect contemporary features of the commercial landscape
is a parallel discussion of the demand for sustainability in light of the career needs of
students. One director of an MBA programme observed that “we have actually done
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some research ourselves on the changing level of demand from the business
community around skills for sustainability so we did a survey of companies signed
up to the global compact. The finding that came back from that was that 76% of the
companies thought that it was important for their senior leaders to have these kinds
of skills. And fewer than 8% thought either their own organisation or business
schools were doing a good job of developing them at the moment”, while another
noted that “the full-time MBA is designed to develop knowledge and skills relevant to
changing global environment, we are particularly keen that students learn not just
the theoretical knowledge and concepts but also look at the development of the
managerial skills, confidence, creativity, globally aware citizens”. Consistent with
these views, a dean articulated his school‟s commitment to sustainability in the
following terms - “there is an expectation on them as employers that our students
will be familiar with those sorts of issues so there is a proposition around
employability and the attractiveness of the topics to students which is a pragmatic
drive for being interested in it”.
A final prominent theme in relation to motivations for embedding sustainability
related to the pressures and opportunities afforded by accreditations, at school (e.g.
EQUIS, AACSB) and programme (e.g. AMBA) levels. For most schools, rankings and
accreditations were seen as encouraging engagement with sustainability. For
example, one dean stated that “we worry about the beyond grey pinstripes rankings
and we do very well in that so that tipped me towards that we should take it more
seriously because as soon as someone has a ranking in it I want to be in it.”, while
another suggested that “The other key thing, the school is going for AACSB
accreditation. The whole principle of that is about continuous improvement so we
are constantly striving to show developments and moving along pathways. So for
examples the directorship of the sustainable enterprise centre will be a significant
step forward for us […] sustainability agenda.” Similarly, a director of an MBA
programme noted that “it is really a kite mark saying that this is what we are doing.
And we are going for AACSB accreditation, we have AMBA accreditation and they are
all heavily involved with PRME so we felt that is important as well”. Equally,
perspectives on rankings in particular were not universally supportive, with one dean
noting “if you want to move up the league tables it is not going to be sustainability
that gets you […] points”.
16
The Role and importance of the Principles for Responsible
Management Education
Lastly in relation to the view from the top, we explored dean‟s perceptions among
aspirational schools of the importance and impact of being a signatory to the PRME.
In general, they seem to view PRME as a means of communicating existing practice
(externally) and a legitimising framework for internal acceptance of sustainability
related activity, rather than a driver for sustainability aspirations or a source of
guidance. Several deans noted that they felt that their commitments to
sustainability would not have been substantially been changed by their PRME
membership status. One dean observed that “I think more of what we do comes
from the driver of what the school wants to do [rather than] whether it is PRME. If
one is just doing it because of outside influences I think one comes at it with a
compliance perspective”, while another stated that “I think we were doing it anyway
and we would have done it whether PRME was there or not, so PRME helps but it is
not the driver. It is nice to have the badge and to be able to do things and show we
have done things but PRME has not been the driver. If PRME hadn’t existed we
would still be doing it”.
Other deans had seen a range of benefits flow from being a PRME signatory. On
said, “if one comes at it because one wants to them one can also use PRME and
other external bodies to learn more and to network and to understand what others
are doing and to try and influence more, so PRME and the […] for us are also
opportunities to talk to other schools and say come on guys we really have to
collectively get our acts together”, while a second argued that “it is helpful in that
you get newsletters on good practice and it acts as a focus for discussion in the
school I suppose and if we need help and support to justify the case then we can
turn to PRME well I have to say that hadn’t really happened”.
Sustainability in Teaching and Learning: Programmes, Prominence
and Prospects
Having explored broad commitments to sustainability and their origins within
schools, we turn now to exploring how and where sustainability features in business
school pedagogy. An initial observation in this arena is that engagement with
sustainability in its broadest sense is almost ubiquitous in the organisations we
researched, which is a very promising finding indeed. At the same time, and as
some respondents noted, the overall pattern of penetration of sustainability across
17
educational activities is somewhat patchy. One dean put this bluntly as follows “I
suspect the practice varies wildly. We have a large contingent in fact the largest
group of teachers in the school are in Accounting and Finance, and I would be
damned if I expect them to even mention the words in any of their teaching. I might
be wrong but I doubt it. I can think of four people, whose interest either in research
or teaching or both cross over into it, which means we are less than 10% of the
faculty, but getting nearer” while another said “to be honest with you it is pretty
patchy, we haven’t got a coherent overarching strategy for how we might embed
this in all of our programmes, we are a long way from that, and even from some of
our programmes”.
Undergraduate versus postgraduate coverage
Within the overall patchiness of inclusion of sustainability within programmes, the
data strongly suggest that there is a significant difference in the level of
engagement with sustainability between undergraduate and postgraduate
programmes. Quite a number of respondents, perhaps even an overall majority,
stated that sustainability issues were a core (i.e. mandatory) part of their
undergraduate offerings, but that incorporation of sustainability was less prevalent
among their postgraduate offerings. One dean echoed this by stating that “we
looked at and re-validated all our undergraduate courses last year but we set out
some principles upon which we wanted to construct those courses and bedding
sustainability into them was one of the key drivers” and another dean highlighted
that “we are incorporating sustainability into all of our undergraduate awards, we
have a module on our third year undergraduate, all our undergraduate courses”.
What is striking about the difference in perceptions about the challenges associated
with introducing sustainability within undergraduate and postgraduate programmes,
provided in table 2, overleaf, is that there appears to be a strong sense that it is
legitimate, indeed almost a core responsibility, to expose undergraduates to issues
relating to sustainability, but that no such imperative exists (indeed there are strong
countervailing pressures) at the postgraduate level. In that sense, sustainability is
seen as palatable and desirable for undergraduate audiences but much more
problematic for postgraduate audiences. One dean commented that “our first
responsibility is to make sure that everyone gets exposed at some level to whatever
we decide is an appropriate minimum for our stage of development” while another
explicitly linked the tendency to offer sustainability content to undergraduates to
their fee regime stating that “it is all very well to offer these things to
18
undergraduates, who have wide interests and at the moment don’t really pay for
their degree”.
At the same time, a small number of respondents saw widespread incorporation of
sustainability into their undergraduate programmes as potentially detracting from
the mission of providing “core” business skills necessary to promote employability.
As one dean of a post-1992 institution put it, “if you have got a degree in that from
Oxbridge or one of the Russell groups or whatever you will either get one of the few
specialist jobs in that area or be a shoo-in for another job, but probably for our
students at undergraduate level it might be just a little bit too specialised, to really
enhance their chances in the job market. And for us it is about my main aim is
enhancing the professionalism of our students and really it is around employability
for our undergraduates”
Incorporating sustainability within MBA programmes is seen as being particularly
controversial in light both of potential student reactions to the topic, and the fit
between sustainability and the generalist goals of most MBA programmes. At the
same time, there is a notable increase in the provision of sustainability-related
electives on most MBA programmes, perhaps reflecting the perception that including
sustainability as an optional component of programmes is less risky than “forcing”
students to engage with the subject via inclusion in the core of their programmes.
Partnership and collaboration: potential and pitfalls
The data reveal that engagement beyond the walls of the business school is often
seen as an important corollary of addressing sustainability issues in the round.
Numerous respondents stated that they perceived there to be considerable value in
partnerships and collaborations across faculties within their university and between
business and academia. What is particularly striking is the range of collaborations
that are actively discussed by participants and the breadth of the intellectual
spectrum incorporated into collaborative efforts. As one dean put it, “one can find
huge value from working with very strong engineering school and a very strong
design school”, while another dean highlighted that they “rather than doing it as a
standalone business school thing, we do a lot where we partner with our engineering
faculty and they have got the energy centre which is all focussed on sustainability
and sustainable energy and so as a holistic thing, it is absolutely critical and it is one
of the main areas of focus at the university level of sustainability which we all then
19
participate in, engineering obviously has the biggest input in terms of research into
that area”.
Table 2: Perceptions of the validity of including sustainability
within undergraduate and postgraduate programmes
At 18 they have probably not identified exactly what their career structure is and how
they want tod develop, so they are more open toe experimenting with a wider range of
modules in our experience.
Dean, 1994
Group
University
We are now undertaking a complete review of our undergraduate provision, and we
will have a completely new portfolio. As part of the design rules for that...our starting
point is what do we want our undergraduate student to look like, what are the key
characteristics? There are five and globally aware citizens is one of them. And a core
module that all 2000 students will do and study is a module on business impacting
environment and developing globally aware citizens.
Dean, Post 1992
University
Now of course 18 years olds tend to get more excited about free trade and environment
and polar bears and that is fine, we leverage that enthusiasm to try and give them what
is more a business and management training or education.
Dean, Post 1992
University
The people who run the MBA say there is no demand for it, which doesn’t surprise me.
It is all very well to offer these things to undergraduates, who have wide interests and
at the moment don’t really pay for their degree.
Dean, 1994
Group
University
A lot of our postgraduate deliver is part time and I think by the time you have worked in
industry or public services or wherever it is you have worked you are much of a realist
in terms of what can and cannot be achieved and sometimes that colours the way you
approach a topic.
Dean, Post 1992
University
If they want to do an MBA then we may have one or two electives in that carbon area
but we wouldn’t make it a core component of the general MBA because that is not what
is expected of a general MBA. So they are aware of those issues but I think more than
that we are not a religion or a church practising some religion that says look this is this is
the way it is, everything you get will be on this, I think if we did that it would very much
turn students off.
Dean, 1994
Group
University
I think MBAers are quite hardnosed and pragmatic, so I think they want to see real
businesses saying this is a real issue for us, I think there is a danger with
academics of come along and say isn’t it terrible this global warming etc. etc.
MBA Director,
Russel Group
University
My feeling is that MBAs are pretty generic, when you ask about what is distinctive
there shouldn't be too much that is distinctive about any MBA in my view because
in terms of what people learn or the skills that they develop as a result of doing it
because it is all about what I said when we were discussing mission, helping
people to become more effective managers.
MBA Director,
Post 1992
University
Sustainability
within
Postgraduate
Programmes
Sustainability
within
Undergraduate
Programmes
In several cases, engagement with sustainability was encouraged and supported by
its thematic integration across faculties and departments via the establishment of
research centres, institutes, and prioritised areas. For example, on respondent state
that “one of the institution’s key thematic priorities has been the establishment of an
institute for sustainable world which links our research centres in green chemistry,
environmental management and alternative energy engineering with some of what
has been done in the areas of environmental law, social and political studies with a
focus on environmental regulation and looking at that”, while another noted that “we
have a [research] centre that is very closely connected with the school; it is a
partnership between city and regional planning, the school of city and regional
planning, the law school and ourselves”.
20
One of the benefits of partnerships across faculties that arose in responses was the
facilitation of experimentation at the programme level, albeit with mixed results.
One dean noted that “we decided to launch a couple of Master’s degree
programmes, one in sustainable management and CSR and a second in
environmental management, which is jointly taught by our school of civil
engineering planning and architecture. We also introduced as part of that portfolio a
new degree pathway in sustainable management and technology which the first
offering of which was with environmental chemistry or green chemistry, which didn’t
prove to be terribly successful in terms of numbers”.
For some institutions, partnership lies directly at the heart of the design of their
educational initiatives. As one dean made clear, “when a course is designed we do it
in combination with the organisations we work with and we are getting the latest
readings on what are the important elements that are facing them as an industry or
as a sector and we then on that basis design the courses, so where sustainability is
a key theme and one that the industry is addressing and identifies as a key theme,
we incorporate that so it is not just up to the lecturers to design it because they
happen to be doing research on it, or because they are interested in it and we do
have staff whose interest is around that theme, it is much more about if it is
relevant for the industry and it is and it goes into the design of the curriculum”.
SUSTAINABILITY RESEARCH
Knowledge creation is a second core arena within which we sought to explore how
practices in respect of sustainability were developing. While an intense focus on
research activity is a feature of perhaps only half of the business schools in our
sample, we nonetheless sought to evaluate the extent and nature of sustainability-
related research activities.
Sustainability research: individuals versus centres
Overwhelmingly, research is seen among our participant organisations as an activity
that is fundamentally and appropriately driven by individual researchers that are
pursuing their own research agendas. However, whereas sustainability research may
have historically been a relatively unstructured, individualised, activity, there is a
growing recognition of the need to institutionalise sustainability research,
21
particularly so as to facilitate cross-faculty collaboration and external recognition for
research in this domain. The individual origins of research on sustainability are
reflected in a number of comments. For instance, one dean noted that “academics
can be best if they are encouraged rather than [forced], you can’t tell people what
to do”, and another pointed out that “most of the developments of research will be
based on staff interests”. One dean noted related the relatively ad hoc origins of
research into sustainability in his school, stating that “historically we were probably
like everybody else where you set up a little centre […] the centre of business and
society I think it was originally called, because [we had] a couple of people with
woolly socks and Birkenstocks”.
More recently, however, schools have sought to organise their sustainability
research activities more formally, often reflecting initiatives within their wider
universities. For example, one dean highlighted that “the university has recently
established three institutes, three flagships institutes across the whole university
and one of those is the sustainable places institute, so this is work which is growing
initially from the three schools but now having a pan-university presence and
impact. The business school is one of the key contributors to the university institute
and we invest money in it and many of our staff have part-time appointments in it”.
Similarly, an MBA director observed that “one of the institution’s key thematic
priorities has been the establishment of an institute for sustainable world which links
our research centres in green chemistry, environmental management and
alternative energy engineering with some of what has been done in the areas of
environmental law, social and political studies with a focus on environmental
regulation and looking at that. So we do have this virtual interdisciplinary research
centre which we are integral to”.
Sustainability Research and Education: Mutually Reinforcing or
Undermining?
The relationship between research and teaching is one of the most fiercely debated
subjects in contemporary academia. Broadly, there is a wish or desire that the two
are mutually reinforcing, consistent with Ramsden and Moses‟s (1992:273)
observation that “few beliefs in the academic world command more passionate
allegiance than the opinion that teaching and research are harmonious and mutually
beneficial.” Indeed, a belief in the connection between research and teaching is a
cornerstone of most professional schools of education (Simon, 1976; Khurana,
22
Nohria, & Penrice, 2005). At the same time, considerable concerns have been raised
regarding the relevance of most contemporary business school research to
professional practice (Pfeffer & Fong, 2002; Pettigrew, 2001). As Don Hambrick, has
recently noted “We read each others‟ papers in our journals and write our own
papers so that we may, in turn, have an audience . . . an incestuous, closed loop”.
Against this backdrop, our evidence concerning the relationship between teaching
and research in the realm of sustainability is similarly equivocal. A number of
respondents strongly suggested that teaching and research were strongly related to
each other. In the case of research-led schools, this largely stemmed from a laissez
faire culture whereby a strongly articulated belief in academic freedom led schools to
facilitate the leverage of the expertise embodied in their core staff in their teaching
wherever possible. In other cases, the relationship worked the other way around.
The need to address sustainability as a core part of teaching programmes sensitised
staff to a range of issues and equipped them with a knowledge of a range of
literatures which then enabled them to engage with the scholarly conversations
emerging in those fields.
Beyond these relatively positive commentaries lay a more worrying tension between
research, particularly research performance in the context of the research excellence
framework, and sustainability. A number of deans in research intensive schools
expressed the concern that investing in staff with a strong orientation to
sustainability might be problematic viewed from the perspective of their school‟s
likely REF outcome. To some degree this reflected the relative lack of supply of
sufficiently well-published staff actively researching sustainability and to some
degree it was perceived to be something of a broader problem stemming from the
conservative nature of research assessment frameworks that, it was argued, might
be less open to innovative work than might be desired. Notably, one dean from a
non-research intensive school celebrated the fact that his school could invest in
sustainability without the worry of having to be concerned about REF performance.
23
Table 3: The relationship between sustainability research and
teaching
Teaching supporting Research
But that said what happens then is the fact what you are teaching then becomes a focus
of the research because you then tend to focus on, you start writing, I have done several
conference papers in the last couple of years on using the destination management
handbook and sustainability as a teaching aid and all this external stuff we do.
Dean, Post 1992
University
The faculty are mostly autonomous in a school like this, so if it weren’t for the fact that
we have people who are enthusiastic about this topic from a research point of view
then it wouldn’t be feeding in to our engagement and our teaching.
Dean, Russell Group
University
One of our research professors, because we do have research professors, one of our
research professors is a world expert in environmental aspects and maritime areas. And
she is regularly taken off around the world and is particularly interested in the Gulf
situation at the moment. When you have got an expert like that of course we try and
suck as much out of them as possible so all the students can benefit.
Dean, Post 1992
University
I mean to be honest research is about getting research into top journals and I don’t
actually care what it is about to be honest. I don’t see research driving the sustainability
agenda, I see teaching driving it, researchers do what they do.
Dean, Russell Group
University
I think we could get disciplined by the rest by which I mean you hire people from
outside of the traditional business school they may not publish in traditional business
journals and that then becomes a problem at the REF. And that is about perception, it is
about universities perception of REF panels which is pretty narrow and universities
always play safe. I think that what you have is a tension between what the university
now recognises as a very interesting and distinctive teaching programme delivered by a
very interesting and distinctive bunch of business and management academics and a
REF that they see as conservative which may or may not be the case.
Dean, Russell Group
University
We recognise it as an area of research that we want to achieve a reputation in. Now the
slight difficulty there is there are not yet that many world-class people with a
reputation in sustainability so that is the difficulty. If you actually look in the UK at the
moment there is probably only about one real star academic in sustainability. When we
have got an eye on our REF submission, we have got to hold to that and keep this as a
developing area and assume that the sustainability agenda will also get into the mind of
the REF panel.
Dean, Russell Group
University
I want to do more there and we have got some people who are working with
organisations, but it is most action research, so it is probably never going to be the stuff
that is going to feature in a grade 4 journal. That is one of the things I have been free to
do, because I am not constrained by REF. I can do what I want.
Dean, Post 1992
University
Tensions between Research
Ambitions and Sustainability
Research supporting Teaching
Sustainability in Business School Operations: Practicing what we
Preach?
The last area we explored with respondents concerned the state of development of
practical actions and strategies that relate to their school‟s sustainability. There was
a widespread recognition that engaging in a practical way with sustainability within
school‟s operations was necessary because it brought credibility to the messages
that were being developed in many school‟s educational programmes. There was
also considerable enthusiasm and engagement across the board with a variety of
programmes and initiatives. Strikingly, almost all the initiatives related to reducing
school‟s environmental footprint, and many involved win-wins that led to cost
reductions. One dean stated that “we are doing a very interesting audit at the
moment on the number of computer printers we have got. We actually have more
24
printers than we have staff. More than one each. So clearly there is not just
sustainability improvements to be made, there ought to be financial savings to be
made there as well”, another pointed out that “in the annual planning cycle last year
we took the step that students wouldn’t get any hand-outs, printouts, particularly at
enrolment, everything has gone electronic and that was really about saving paper
and trees” and a third noted that “we do all of the things with the recycle bins and
fair-trade, our café is a fair-trade cafe for example, everything that we use we try
and recycle”.
The operational arena is a key domain in which wider university strategy and
initiatives have significant impacts in the context of business schools. This was
particularly evident in our findings in relation to investments in university‟s estates,
many of which were designed to deliver significant environmental benefits. For
example, one dean said that “we have got a huge investment programme in our
campus and all of the new build will meet the toughest environmental standards for
both the construction and the operation in terms of energy efficiency for example.
So the guidelines coming out of the building research establishment are all very
much embedded and were a part of the whole process of letting the contract”, and
another noted that “we have a big construction programme at the university and
sustainability is at the heart of that. There is a huge energy efficiency push at the
university which is both around economic criteria to reduce our dependency on fossil
fuel and also bring down the bills and also there is a kind of being a good citizen”.
The revitalisation and investment in estates was tied by several respondents
explicitly to the need to meet wider targets for carbon emissions. As one dean put it,
“as I am sure you know the university is required by HEFCE to reduce its carbon
footprint and that is a straightforward financial thing and we are and the paper has
just been approved by council, a great big paper about how we are going to reduce
the carbon footprint of the campus”.
DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION
In this chapter we have outlined the main findings of our large-scale enquiry into the
extent and character of engagement with sustainability within UK business schools.
Based on 122 in-depth semi-structured interviews with business school deans and
MBA directors, we have explored the ways in which sustainability has been
25
embraced within business school research, teaching and operations. At the broadest
level, our findings suggest that almost every business school is addressing
sustainability in some part of its activities. In most schools, sustainability, or related
concepts such as corporate responsibility, ethics, or citizenship form part of the core
knowledge creation and dissemination activities. This provides the foundation for
future developments.
At the same time, it is clear that current engagement with sustainability is, taken as
a whole, somewhat patchy and seldom strategically central in most schools. To some
degree, this reflects a period of broad strategic change and uncertainty that many
schools are facing. Uncertainty around funding arrangements and considerable
turnover in senior positions continue to shape engagement with sustainability. So,
engagement with sustainability is currently implicit rather than explicit in most
schools, but there are strong signs of vibrant and active engagement with
sustainability within pedagogic activities, and in particular within undergraduate
programmes.
Examination of research activities underlines that academic cultures that facilitate
and encourage staff to define their own arenas of focus have contributed to a
relatively individualised, but nonetheless committed and active, form of engagement
with sustainability in research and teaching. The energy, passion, and commitment
of individual faculty members have, in most schools, been the main driver of
embedding sustainability within teaching and research. While this has led to
substantial progress, it also means that sustainability is somewhat vulnerable to the
loss of those key staff. In response, universities are increasingly seeking to
institutionalise commitments to sustainability, particularly via the creation of cross-
departmental institutes and centres that foster collaboration and continued
commitment.
Finally, it is clear that universities are more often seeking to embody their espoused
values of sustainability within their day-to-day activities. This is especially evident in
the ways in which universities are investing in modern estates that have reduced
environmental footprints.
26
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