The integration of education for sustainable development into accounting education: stakeholders’ salience perspectives

Purpose - This paper applies a stakeholder salience theoretical framework to facilitate the understanding of the roles salient stakeholders can have in the integration of education for sustainable development, one of the important Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), into Jordan’s university accounting education. Design/methodology/approach - We used stakeholder salience theory to inform our study. This study adopted a qualitative research method. The study used semi-structured interviews to collect qualitative, open-ended data that explored the salient stakeholders’ thoughts, beliefs and feelings about their roles in influencing the integration of education for sustainable development into the Jordanian accounting curriculum. Findings - The results indicate that education for sustainable development in accounting is important; however, most Jordanian salient stakeholders indicate their inability to integrate sustainable education into the accounting curriculum due to their lack of power to do so. The findings show that there is currently an inappropriate distribution of power, legitimacy and urgency amongst the salient stakeholders, who indicate that a progressive education solution is required in the critical area of education for sustainable development in accounting. This research indicates that a significant number of salient stakeholders would like the Jordanian government to provide power, legitimacy and urgency to enable accounting educators to become definite stakeholders as this will enable them to integrate sustainable education into the accounting curriculum. Research limitations/implications - The study is limited to Jordan only. The paper draws attention to the need for an appropriate distribution of power, legitimacy and urgency amongst salient stakeholders in Jordan. Practical implications - This paper provides evidence that the salient stakeholders in this emerging economy want to make changes in their education system to address climate change concerns, an important SDG, through a better education curriculum for sustainable development in Jordanian universities. Social implications - Accounting educators should be given the power to make changes in the accounting curriculum, such as integrating education for sustainable development. Originality/value - There is an inappropriate distribution of power, legitimacy and urgency amongst the Jordanian salient stakeholders and this imbalance hinders the integration of education for sustainable development into the accounting curriculum.