How they walk the talk : Responsible management education in Finnish business schools

Abstract

Responsible management education (RME) has become a common initiative in the educational discourse of business schools worldwide. However, little is known about how (non-)engagement with RME in the past influenced the way RME is organised today. We examine this in one of the pioneering countries of RME, Finland, using extensive qualitative research materials. Our results suggest that RME has been embedded with authenticity-driven change (local context and research) since the 1990s. In the late 2000s after the legal educational reforms implemented in Finland, the prestige-driven change (accreditations) began to shape the embedding of RME. In the 2020s, both the authenticity- and prestige-driven changes with vertical and horizontal RME, respectively, often appear as hybrids. This article discusses both the weaknesses and strengths of these approaches in embedding RME.