Hesitant advocates of sustainability

What and how do business schools communicate about sustainability?

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.14267/VEZTUD.2023.07-08.05

Keywords:

sustainable business education, sustainability and education, the future of higher education, mixed-methodological textual analysis

Abstract

Current and future economic leaders are among the most critical actors in launching and guiding the transition towards a sustainable economy and society; preparing them for this responsibility falls to higher education institutions, especially business schools. In this paper, the authors analyse the external communication of 100 highly ranked business schools to understand how they incorporate the issue of sustainability. Moreover, they also aim to delineate the relationship between their understanding of sustainability and the futures they present. The findings show that in education-related texts, almost half of institutions fail to touch on the issue of sustainability at all, while the other half narrow down the concept to its economic aspects. They also show that a neoliberal worldview is more dominant in the corpus, and that the only aspects of sustainability emphasised by business schools are those which are compatible with this perspective.

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Author Biographies

Sára Csillag, Budapest Business School

associate professor

Gábor Király, Budapest Business School

professor

Márton Rakovics, Eötvös Loránd University

assistant lecturer

Zsuzsanna Géring, Budapest Business School

senior research fellow

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Published

2023-07-20

How to Cite

Csillag, S., Király, G., Rakovics, M., & Géring, Z. (2023). Hesitant advocates of sustainability: What and how do business schools communicate about sustainability?. Vezetéstudomány Budapest Management Review, 54(7-8), 58–76. https://doi.org/10.14267/VEZTUD.2023.07-08.05

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Studies and Articles