IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/bushor/v61y2018i6p949-958.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Developing a capstone course on ecological and social sustainability in business education

Author

Listed:
  • Thomas, Manoj T.

Abstract

Sustainability is an important goal of management education, but it has not been integrated properly into all the functional courses. One option for management schools attempting to fix this misalignment is to offer a course that provides an integrated approach to sustainability. This article attempts to structure the contents of a capstone course on sustainability that touches on all the dimensions of sustainability in different management functions. I present the key topics in sustainability and, based on a thorough literature review, identify the categories that constitute the content for a proposed course on business sustainability. The proposed topics pertain to conceptual tools for understanding the issues, different stakeholders, and functional areas. This course will fill the sustainability gap in the current curriculum in management education.

Suggested Citation

  • Thomas, Manoj T., 2018. "Developing a capstone course on ecological and social sustainability in business education," Business Horizons, Elsevier, vol. 61(6), pages 949-958.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:bushor:v:61:y:2018:i:6:p:949-958
    DOI: 10.1016/j.bushor.2018.07.013
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0007681318301162
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.bushor.2018.07.013?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Shih‐Fang Lo & Her‐Jiun Sheu, 2007. "Is Corporate Sustainability a Value‐Increasing Strategy for Business?," Corporate Governance: An International Review, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 15(2), pages 345-358, March.
    2. Azlan Amran & Say Keat Ooi & Riduan Toani Mydin & S. Susela Devi, 2015. "The Impact of Business Strategies on Online Sustainability Disclosures," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 24(6), pages 551-564, September.
    3. Ioanna Boulouta & Christos Pitelis, 2014. "Who Needs CSR? The Impact of Corporate Social Responsibility on National Competitiveness," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 119(3), pages 349-364, February.
    4. Luis A. Perez-Batres & Van V. Miller & Michael J. Pisani & Irene Henriques & Jose A. Renau-Sepulveda, 2012. "Why Do Firms Engage in National Sustainability Programs and Transparent Sustainability Reporting?," Management International Review, Springer, vol. 52(1), pages 107-136, February.
    5. Zyglidopoulos, Stelios & Williamson, Peter & Symeou, Pavlos, 2016. "The Corporate Social Performance of Developing Country Multinationals," Business Ethics Quarterly, Cambridge University Press, vol. 26(3), pages 379-406, July.
    6. Filipe Santos, 2012. "A Positive Theory of Social Entrepreneurship," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 111(3), pages 335-351, December.
    7. Falck, Oliver & Heblich, Stephan, 2007. "Corporate social responsibility: Doing well by doing good," Business Horizons, Elsevier, vol. 50(3), pages 247-254.
    8. André Habisch & Lorenzo Patelli & Matteo Pedrini & Christoph Schwarz, 2011. "Erratum to: Different Talks with Different Folks: A Comparative Survey of Stakeholder Dialog in Germany, Italy, and the U.S," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 100(3), pages 551-551, May.
    9. Albert Jolink & Eva Niesten, 2015. "Sustainable Development and Business Models of Entrepreneurs in the Organic Food Industry," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 24(6), pages 386-401, September.
    10. Cory Searcy, 2016. "Measuring Enterprise Sustainability," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 25(2), pages 120-133, February.
    11. Rainer Lueg & Maria Medelby Pedersen & Søren Nørregaard Clemmensen, 2015. "The Role of Corporate Sustainability in a Low‐Cost Business Model – A Case Study in the Scandinavian Fashion Industry," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 24(5), pages 344-359, July.
    12. Alan Bradshaw & Detlev Zwick, 2016. "The Field of Business Sustainability and the Death Drive: A Radical Intervention," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 136(2), pages 267-279, June.
    13. Asit Bhattacharyya & Lorne Cummings, 2015. "Measuring Corporate Environmental Performance – Stakeholder Engagement Evaluation," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 24(5), pages 309-325, July.
    14. Alan Gregory & Julie Whittaker, 2013. "Exploring the Valuation of Corporate Social Responsibility—A Comparison of Research Methods," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 116(1), pages 1-20, August.
    15. Rupert J. Baumgartner & Daniela Ebner, 2010. "Corporate sustainability strategies: sustainability profiles and maturity levels," Sustainable Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 18(2), pages 76-89.
    16. Alastair Iles, 2007. "Seeing sustainability in business operations: US and British food retailer experiments with accountability," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 16(4), pages 290-301, May.
    17. Dorothée Baumann-Pauly & Andreas Scherer, 2013. "The Organizational Implementation of Corporate Citizenship: An Assessment Tool and its Application at UN Global Compact Participants," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 117(1), pages 1-17, September.
    18. Pearce, David W. & Atkinson, Giles D., 1993. "Capital theory and the measurement of sustainable development: an indicator of "weak" sustainability," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 8(2), pages 103-108, October.
    19. Julia Roloff, 2008. "Learning from Multi-Stakeholder Networks: Issue-Focussed Stakeholder Management," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 82(1), pages 233-250, September.
    20. Kelly Levin & Benjamin Cashore & Steven Bernstein & Graeme Auld, 2012. "Overcoming the tragedy of super wicked problems: constraining our future selves to ameliorate global climate change," Policy Sciences, Springer;Society of Policy Sciences, vol. 45(2), pages 123-152, June.
    21. Dan Caprar & Benjamin Neville, 2012. "“Norming” and “Conforming”: Integrating Cultural and Institutional Explanations for Sustainability Adoption in Business," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 110(2), pages 231-245, October.
    22. Mollie Painter-Morland & Ehsan Sabet & Petra Molthan-Hill & Helen Goworek & Sander Leeuw, 2016. "Beyond the Curriculum: Integrating Sustainability into Business Schools," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 139(4), pages 737-754, December.
    23. Kai Hockerts, 2015. "A Cognitive Perspective on the Business Case for Corporate Sustainability," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 24(2), pages 102-122, February.
    24. Andrea Revell & David Stokes & Hsin Chen, 2010. "Small businesses and the environment: turning over a new leaf?," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 19(5), pages 273-288, July.
    25. Elinor Ostrom, 2000. "Collective Action and the Evolution of Social Norms," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 14(3), pages 137-158, Summer.
    26. Thomas Koellner & Olaf Weber & Marcus Fenchel & Roland Scholz, 2005. "Principles for sustainability rating of investment funds," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 14(1), pages 54-70, January.
    27. Øyvind Ihlen & Juliet Roper, 2014. "Corporate Reports on Sustainability and Sustainable Development: ‘We Have Arrived’," Sustainable Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 22(1), pages 42-51, January.
    28. Christine Oliver, 1997. "Sustainable competitive advantage: combining institutional and resource‐based views," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 18(9), pages 697-713, October.
    29. Ans Kolk, 2003. "Trends in sustainability reporting by the Fortune Global 250," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 12(5), pages 279-291, September.
    30. Scott Kelley & Ron Nahser, 2014. "Developing Sustainable Strategies: Foundations, Method, and Pedagogy," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 123(4), pages 631-644, September.
    31. Holger Patzelt & Dean A. Shepherd, 2011. "Recognizing Opportunities for Sustainable Development," Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, , vol. 35(4), pages 631-652, July.
    32. Eva Collins & Juliet Roper & Stewart Lawrence, 2010. "Sustainability practices: trends in New Zealand businesses," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 19(8), pages 479-494, December.
    33. Costanza, Robert & Patten, Bernard C., 1995. "Defining and predicting sustainability," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 15(3), pages 193-196, December.
    34. Tobias Hahn & Frank Figge & Jonatan Pinkse & Lutz Preuss, 2010. "Trade‐offs in corporate sustainability: you can't have your cake and eat it," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 19(4), pages 217-229, May.
    35. André Habisch & Lorenzo Patelli & Matteo Pedrini & Christoph Schwartz, 2011. "Different Talks with Different Folks: A Comparative Survey of Stakeholder Dialog in Germany, Italy, and the U.S," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 100(3), pages 381-404, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. María Luisa Pajuelo Moreno & Teresa Duarte-Atoche, 2019. "Relationship between Sustainable Disclosure and Performance—An Extension of Ullmann’s Model," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(16), pages 1-33, August.
    2. Laura F. Sasse-Werhahn & Claudius Bachmann & André Habisch, 2020. "Managing Tensions in Corporate Sustainability Through a Practical Wisdom Lens," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 163(1), pages 53-66, April.
    3. Hörisch, Jacob & Ortas, Eduardo & Schaltegger, Stefan & Álvarez, Igor, 2015. "Environmental effects of sustainability management tools: An empirical analysis of large companies," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 120(C), pages 241-249.
    4. Viju Raghupathi & Jie Ren & Wullianallur Raghupathi, 2020. "Identifying Corporate Sustainability Issues by Analyzing Shareholder Resolutions: A Machine-Learning Text Analytics Approach," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(11), pages 1-24, June.
    5. Nadia Preghenella & Cinzia Battistella, 2021. "Exploring business models for sustainability: A bibliographic investigation of the literature and future research directions," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 30(5), pages 2505-2522, July.
    6. Muhammad Asif & Cory Searcy & Paulo dos Santos & David Kensah, 2013. "A Review of Dutch Corporate Sustainable Development Reports," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 20(6), pages 321-339, November.
    7. Annachiara Longoni & Davide Luzzini & Marco Guerci, 2018. "Deploying Environmental Management Across Functions: The Relationship Between Green Human Resource Management and Green Supply Chain Management," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 151(4), pages 1081-1095, September.
    8. Klarissa Lueg & Rainer Lueg, 2021. "Deconstructing corporate sustainability narratives: A taxonomy for critical assessment of integrated reporting types," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 28(6), pages 1785-1800, November.
    9. Timo Busch & Marcel Richert & Matthew Johnson & Sven Lundie, 2020. "Climate inaction and managerial sensemaking: The case of renewable energy," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 27(6), pages 2502-2514, November.
    10. Lars Moratis & Satu Brandt, 2017. "Corporate stakeholder responsiveness? Exploring the state and quality of GRI‐based stakeholder engagement disclosures of European firms," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 24(4), pages 312-325, July.
    11. Anna Katharina Provasnek & Erwin Schmid & Bernhard Geissler & Gerald Steiner, 2017. "Sustainable Corporate Entrepreneurship: Performance and Strategies Toward Innovation," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 26(4), pages 521-535, May.
    12. Natalie Slawinski & Jonatan Pinkse & Timo Busch & Subhabrata Bobby Banerjeed, 2014. "The role of short-termism and uncertainty in organizational inaction on climate change: multilevel framework," Working Papers hal-00961226, HAL.
    13. Johan Graafland, 2020. "Competition in technology and innovation, motivation crowding, and environmental policy," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 27(1), pages 137-145, January.
    14. Thomas Kaspereit & Kerstin Lopatta, 2013. "The Value Relevance of SAM's Corporate Sustainability Ranking and GRI Sustainability Reporting in the European Stock Markets," ZenTra Working Papers in Transnational Studies 19 / 2013, ZenTra - Center for Transnational Studies, revised Oct 2013.
    15. Maria Rosa De Giacomo & Raimund Bleischwitz, 2020. "Business models for environmental sustainability: Contemporary shortcomings and some perspectives," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(8), pages 3352-3369, December.
    16. Nadine Székely & Jan vom Brocke, 2017. "What can we learn from corporate sustainability reporting? Deriving propositions for research and practice from over 9,500 corporate sustainability reports published between 1999 and 2015 using topic ," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 12(4), pages 1-27, April.
    17. Clementino, Ester & Perkins, Richard, 2020. "How do companies respond to environmental, social and governance (ESG) ratings? Evidence from Italy," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 103046, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    18. Joern Hoppmann & Alice Sakhel & Marcel Richert, 2018. "With a little help from a stranger: The impact of external change agents on corporate sustainability investments," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 27(7), pages 1052-1066, November.
    19. Ozgur Isil & Michael T. Hernke, 2017. "The Triple Bottom Line: A Critical Review from a Transdisciplinary Perspective," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 26(8), pages 1235-1251, December.
    20. Laura Maria Ferri & Nelly Oelze & André Habisch & Mario Molteni, 2016. "Implementation of responsible Procurement Management: An Institutional Perspective," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 25(4), pages 261-276, May.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:bushor:v:61:y:2018:i:6:p:949-958. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/bushor .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.