IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsusta/v10y2018i12p4698-d189391.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Building an Industry-Oriented Business Sustainability Curriculum in Higher Education

Author

Listed:
  • Mei-hui Chen

    (Department of Cosmetics Science, Chia-Nan University of Pharmacy and Science, Tainan 71710, Taiwan)

  • Yenchun Jim Wu

    (Graduate Institute of Global Business and Strategy, National Taiwan Normal University, Taipei 10645, Taiwan)

  • Kune-muh Tsai

    (Department of Logistics Management, National Kaohsiung University of Science and Technology, Kaohsiung 824, Taiwan)

Abstract

In the past, research addressing the issues reflecting industrial needs for sustainability-related curriculum design in higher education has been limited. To narrow this gap and to provide students with better business sustainability curricula, we propose employing a mapping concept to extract the opinions and needs of industrial professionals. A total of 14 industrial professionals were invited to brainstorm on topics of business sustainability to be included in the curriculum, and we were able to obtain 52 topics. The participants were then asked to group the topics on the basis of their own perception of similarity, and rated their importance and difficulty levels. To associate the topics into clusters, we conducted multidimensional scaling and hierarchical cluster analysis. We achieved five clusters: resource usage reduction and management, corporate governance and labor safety, business sustainability practices, employee rights and community involvement, and knowledge of the regulations. A derived importance–performance analysis (dIPA) was later implemented to further categorize the topics on the basis of the distinct levels of importance and difficulty of each topic. The four quadrants in dIPA could act as guidelines for designing a series of progressive courses on business sustainability in higher education.

Suggested Citation

  • Mei-hui Chen & Yenchun Jim Wu & Kune-muh Tsai, 2018. "Building an Industry-Oriented Business Sustainability Curriculum in Higher Education," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(12), pages 1-14, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:10:y:2018:i:12:p:4698-:d:189391
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/10/12/4698/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/10/12/4698/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. J. Kruskal, 1964. "Multidimensional scaling by optimizing goodness of fit to a nonmetric hypothesis," Psychometrika, Springer;The Psychometric Society, vol. 29(1), pages 1-27, March.
    2. Kristin C. Burkholder & Jessica Devereaux & Caroline Grady & Molly Solitro & Susan M. Mooney, 2017. "Longitudinal Study of the Impacts of a Climate Change Curriculum on Undergraduate Student Learning: Initial Results," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 9(6), pages 1-28, May.
    3. Trochim, William M. K., 1989. "An introduction to concept mapping for planning and evaluation," Evaluation and Program Planning, Elsevier, vol. 12(1), pages 1-16, January.
    4. Cheryl Desha & Karlson 'Charlie' Hargroves, 2014. "A Peaking and Tailing Approach to Education and Curriculum Renewal for Sustainable Development," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 6(7), pages 1-19, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Yuan Ma & Jingzhi Men & Wei Cui, 2020. "Does Environmental Education Matter? Evidence from Provincial Higher Education Institutions in China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(16), pages 1-13, August.
    2. Thomas J. Lampoltshammer & Valerie Albrecht & Corinna Raith, 2021. "Teaching Digital Sustainability in Higher Education from a Transdisciplinary Perspective," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(21), pages 1-21, October.
    3. Rebeka Kovačič Lukman & Vasja Omahne & Lobna Tag el Sheikh & Peter Glavič, 2021. "Integrating Sustainability into Logistics Oriented Education in Europe," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(4), pages 1-24, February.

    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. Rosas, Scott R. & Ridings, John W., 2017. "The use of concept mapping in measurement development and evaluation: Application and future directions," Evaluation and Program Planning, Elsevier, vol. 60(C), pages 265-276.
    2. Mary Ganis & John Minnery & Iderlina Mateo-Babiano, 2016. "Planning people–places: A small world network paradigm for masterplanning with people in mind," Environment and Planning B, , vol. 43(6), pages 1075-1095, November.
    3. Alejandro Alvarado-Herrera & Enrique Bigne & Joaquín Aldas-Manzano & Rafael Curras-Perez, 2017. "A Scale for Measuring Consumer Perceptions of Corporate Social Responsibility Following the Sustainable Development Paradigm," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 140(2), pages 243-262, January.
    4. Rosas, Scott R. & Kane, Mary, 2012. "Quality and rigor of the concept mapping methodology: A pooled study analysis," Evaluation and Program Planning, Elsevier, vol. 35(2), pages 236-245.
    5. Soellner, Renate & Lenartz, Norbert & Rudinger, Georg, 2017. "Concept mapping as an approach for expert-guided model building: The example of health literacy," Evaluation and Program Planning, Elsevier, vol. 60(C), pages 245-253.
    6. Kinga Varga & Ciaran MacDonncha & Laurence Blondel & Enrico Bozzano & Fabrice Burlot & Rute Costa & Nadine Debois & Dominique Delon & Antonio Figueiredo & Joerg Foerster & Masar Gjaka & Carlos Gonçalv, 2021. "Collective conceptualization of parental support of dual career athletes: The EMPATIA framework," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 16(9), pages 1-23, September.
    7. Roger Shepard, 1974. "Representation of structure in similarity data: Problems and prospects," Psychometrika, Springer;The Psychometric Society, vol. 39(4), pages 373-421, December.
    8. Jabbar, Amina M. & Abelson, Julia, 2011. "Development of a framework for effective community engagement in Ontario, Canada," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 101(1), pages 59-69, June.
    9. Giovanna Boccuzzo & Licia Maron, 2017. "Proposal of a composite indicator of job quality based on a measure of weighted distances," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 51(5), pages 2357-2374, September.
    10. Laura Borge & Stefanie Bröring, 2020. "What affects technology transfer in emerging knowledge areas? A multi-stakeholder concept mapping study in the bioeconomy," The Journal of Technology Transfer, Springer, vol. 45(2), pages 430-460, April.
    11. Mohammed Abdullatif Almulla & Mahdi Mohammed Alamri, 2021. "Using Conceptual Mapping for Learning to Affect Students’ Motivation and Academic Achievement," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(7), pages 1-17, April.
    12. Jong-Seok Lee & Dan Zhu, 2012. "Shilling Attack Detection---A New Approach for a Trustworthy Recommender System," INFORMS Journal on Computing, INFORMS, vol. 24(1), pages 117-131, February.
    13. Caroline Schlinkert & Marleen Gillebaart & Jeroen Benjamins & Maartje P. Poelman & Denise de Ridder, 2020. "Snacks and The City: Unexpected Low Sales of an Easy-Access, Tasty, and Healthy Snack at an Urban Snacking Hotspot," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(20), pages 1-17, October.
    14. Ján Kulfan & Lenka Sarvašová & Michal Parák & Marek Dzurenko & Peter Zach, 2018. "Can late flushing trees avoid attack by moth larvae in temperate forests?," Plant Protection Science, Czech Academy of Agricultural Sciences, vol. 54(4), pages 272-283.
    15. Ma, Jie & Tse, Ying Kei & Wang, Xiaojun & Zhang, Minhao, 2019. "Examining customer perception and behaviour through social media research – An empirical study of the United Airlines overbooking crisis," Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, Elsevier, vol. 127(C), pages 192-205.
    16. Muñoz-Mas, Rafael & Vezza, Paolo & Alcaraz-Hernández, Juan Diego & Martínez-Capel, Francisco, 2016. "Risk of invasion predicted with support vector machines: A case study on northern pike (Esox Lucius, L.) and bleak (Alburnus alburnus, L.)," Ecological Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 342(C), pages 123-134.
    17. Ivan Mihál & Eva Luptáková & Martin Pavlík, 2021. "Wood-inhabiting macromycete communities in spruce stands on former agricultural land," Journal of Forest Science, Czech Academy of Agricultural Sciences, vol. 67(2), pages 51-65.
    18. Goldman, Alyssa W. & Kane, Mary, 2014. "Concept mapping and network analysis: An analytic approach to measure ties among constructs," Evaluation and Program Planning, Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 9-17.
    19. Sutherland, Stephanie & Katz, Steven, 2005. "Concept mapping methodology: A catalyst for organizational learning," Evaluation and Program Planning, Elsevier, vol. 28(3), pages 257-269, August.
    20. Venera Tomaselli, 1996. "Multivariate statistical techniques and sociological research," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 30(3), pages 253-276, August.

    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:gam:jsusta:v:10:y:2018:i:12:p:4698-:d:189391. 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: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    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.