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Sustainability and Undergraduate Management Curricula: Changes Over a 5-Year Period

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 February 2017

Josie Fisher  and
Ingrid Bonn
Josie Fisher*
Affiliation:
University of New England Business School, Armidale, New South Wales, Australia
Ingrid Bonn
Affiliation:
School of Business, Bond University, Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia
*
Address for correspondence: Josie Fisher, University of New England Business School, Armidale NSW 2351, Australia. Email: jfisher@une.edu.au
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Abstract

Global initiatives and a rapidly expanding academic literature identify the responsibility that universities have to incorporate sustainability education into their curricula. This study had two aims: first, to investigate the extent to which Australian undergraduate management curricula explicitly identified a focus on sustainability and, second, to examine the changes that had occurred between 2009 and 2014. A web-based content analysis was undertaken to gain a snapshot view of the emphasis placed on sustainability in all 40 Australian universities’ business/management courses. Our findings showed that in 2014, three-quarters of the courses identified failed to include even one subject that all students must study that mentioned sustainability. This finding was only marginally different from the 2009 findings, suggesting that there is a long way to go before sustainability education in Australian universities’ undergraduate management curricula could be claimed to be fulfilling the needs of students, businesses, and the broader society.

Keywords

business curriculum and sustainabilityeducation for sustainable developmenthigher educationmanagement curriculum and sustainabilitysustainable development
Type
Feature Articles
Information
Australian Journal of Environmental Education , Volume 33 , Issue 1 , March 2017 , pp. 18 - 33
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s) 2017 

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