University community engagement and sustainability transition
The potential and challenges of business schools
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.14267/VEZTUD.2024.06.05Keywords:
university community engagement, institutionalization, sustainability, business schoolAbstract
Establishing university community engagement (UCE) practices and supporting sustainability transitions have both emerged as social expectations toward universities. The authors examined the potential and limits of UCE institutionalization in supporting the sustainability transitions of business schools. The theoretical background for the present analysis is based on approaches to UCE and theories of sustainability. They also relied on qualitative data that emerged during a UCE institutionalization process at a Hungarian business school. The authors of the present study were active initiators of and participants in this UCE process, so the present study relied, methodologically, on participatory action research and analytical autoethnography. The main conclusion is that numerous factors can be identified that explain why business schools support and emphasize the economic aspects of sustainability and integrate into their educational framework those elements of sustainability thinking that are compatible with the dominant neoliberal paradigm.
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