Four Windows to Culture for Sustainability in Business Schools : Analysis of a Principle of Responsible Management Education Report of Hanken School of Economics, Finland

Abstract

Sustainability is emerging as a new paradigm in higher education to meet society’s needs to cope with global challenges. Higher education institutions like business schools are required to take responsibility to embed sustainability in all aspects. Against this background, this study aims to investigate how cultural manifestations of sustainability are presented in the PRME SIP report in the Hanken School of Economics in Finland. Through the cultural approach, we can understand sustainability in higher education more comprehensively. Then, theoretical insights from the triple bottom line about sustainability and windows on organizational culture are synthesized in the context of business school, based on which a concept of culture for sustainability and an exploratory analytical framework is thus proposed in this study. After that, the definitions of cultural windows on sustainability enable me to find and locate data in this qualitative research. Also, the data are analyzed by using content analysis and thematic analysis. It is found that a series of windows showing different contributions to various dimensions of sustainability are respectively distributed in the SIP report. Furthermore, the findings also suggest that some cultural windows have prominent significance in the construction of culture for sustainability in business schools, such as the school’s strategy, curriculum and research, the PRME office, organizational practices, and some specific symbols and rituals reflected in responsible management education institutions. In addition, it is interesting to note that the connection between cultural windows may shape a cultural mechanism for vigorously influencing sustainability in higher education. With the findings, I contribute to the significance of the integration of sustainability pillars in higher education through various cultural windows. In addition, this study dedicates to the critical evaluation of schools’ activities in the PRME SIP report. These contributions prove that the analytical framework is practical to investigate the implementation of sustainability as a cultural approach. Therefore, being one of the pioneer studies on sustainability in higher education, this research’s unique value lies in the re-positioning of the implementation of sustainability by the novel cultural windows as a cultural approach.