Society, Environment, Value, and Attitude: A Study on the Effectiveness of Digital Platforms in Enhancing the Sustainability Perspectives of Management Students

Abstract

Businesses and communities have long realized that wider societal changes are needed to ensure a balance among economic growth, respect for the environment, and social justice. It is argued that while top-down policy implementations can help, these changes must start with individual action, knowledge, and the capacity and willingness to act, which is shaped by one’s skills, values, and attitude (Napal et al., 2020). Toward this, the six principles of responsible management education (PRME), promoted by the UN Global Compact, encompass clearly defined purpose, values, method, research, partnership, and dialog in management education (Avelar et al., 2019; Haertle et al., 2017). PRME represents the single largest compact among management-related HEIs the world over with a significant overlap with the institutions recognized by leading accreditation bodies and representation from across the globe. These principles help higher education institutes (HEIs) engage in management education to develop curricula and other interventions that commit to the development of necessary skills and capabilities in the future generation of managerial workforces to develop an inclusive and sustainable global economy. However, critical assessment of PRME indicates that in its current form, PRME may not encourage critical reflexivity that is essential for an open-ended process of deliberations to generate social transformation (Millar & Koning, 2018; Millar & Price, 2018). Nonetheless, the broad principles of PRME allow HEIs to develop context-specific interventions. A recent survey of UN PRME signatory HEIs shows that institutes have taken vastly different approaches and demonstrate different levels of maturity in regard to implementing RME (de Assumpção & Neto, 2020). The pedagogical approaches adopted by HEIs range from project/problem-based learning (in an organization/community) and apprenticeships with organizations to classroom-based case study discussions (Evans, 2019).