The effect of teaching multiple approaches to management on students’ subsequent investment decisions: Implications for Responsible Management Education

Abstract

Responsible Management Education (RME) seeks to prepare students to address social and ecological crises via going beyond a traditional narrow understanding of shareholder wealth maximization. Past research has shown mixed results regarding the effectiveness of RME courses to change students’ subsequent behavior. We examine whether taking an RME course that teaches multiple approaches to management affects students’ subsequent investment decisions. We find that such students allocate less money to investments that focus only on financial returns without regard for social and ecological well-being, thereby counterbalancing our finding that greater investment knowledge is associated with allocating more money to such investments. Implications are discussed.

Keywords:

• Investing
• multiple approaches to management
• post-course effects
• Responsible Management Education
• survey

Ethical approval

The study was approved by the Psychology/Sociology Research Ethics Board at the University of Manitoba, Protocol #P2019:071 (HS23011)

Data availability statement

https://osf.io/n493q/?view_only=e0f747e760bd4349b4ab6aca8cbdd9d4

Additional information

Funding

The study used funding from the F. Ross Johnson Professor of Marketing.