Logics of business education for sustainability

Abstract

This paper explores various kinds of logics of ‘business education for sustainability’ and how these ‘logics’ position the subject business person, based on eight teachers’ reasoning of their own practices. The concept of logics developed within a discourse theoretical framework is employed to analyse the teachers’ reasoning. The analysis takes its starting point in different approaches to how a business ought to or could take responsibility for sustainable development. Different approaches to business ethical responsibilities, in combination with assumptions about how educational content is legitimised and presupposed purposes of education, are used to construct logics of business education for sustainability. In the paper, the results of this analysis are presented as: the logic of profit-, social- or radical-oriented business education. Our results also show how the different logics position the subject business person differently, as one who adapts to, adds or creates ethical values. The results are first discussed in terms of how environmental and social challenges could be dealt with in the future and secondly, considering the risk of de-subjectification with regard to profit-oriented business education, the implications this may have for the educational quality itself.

Keywords:

• business education
• ethics
• education for sustainable development
• subject position
• logics

Acknowledgements

We wish to thank the teachers who so generously shared their ideas of educational practice with us. We also wish to thank the research environments TRUST (Uppsala Transdisciplinary Seminar in Sustainable Development) and SMED (Studies of Meaning-making in Educational Discourses) as well as the anonymous reviewers, for valuable comments that have helped us improve this paper.

Notes

1. The approaches (a–c) partly correspond to categories in the Pyramid of CSR, but differ in that philanthropic responsibilities described as ‘actions that are in response to society’s expectations’, ‘promote goodwill’ or ‘icing on the cake’ (Carroll 1991, 42) are not the same as ‘a driving force’.

2. Even though the syllabus for the subject Business Economics is now available in an official English translation, this particular quote has been translated from Swedish by the author, because the translation differs slightly from the original text that was used in the interviews.

3. The abstracted learning outcomes that we found general and coherent with any logic were: Be familiar with the business codes of conduct; Have knowledge about the local industry from an historical point of view and the mutual dependence between business and society; Be able to reflect on the future and how a business could contribute to economic growth, the environment and society, and Have knowledge about the environmental consequences of product development.