Defining Sustainability Core Competencies in Business and Management Studies Based on Multinational Stakeholders’ Perceptions

Abstract

One of the concerns in our time is the need to integrate economic, social and environmental aspects, which is known as sustainable development. The role of higher education is essential for providing future professionals with the necessary profiles to respond to the sustainability challenges in increasingly complex and global contexts. That is why numerous authors have sought to define key competencies, skills and learning outcomes for sustainability. However, there is still no agreement on what these key competencies for sustainability in higher education really are. For that reason, the objective of this paper is to determine which are the sustainability core competencies, considering three different geographical regions (Europe, Latin America, and Central Asia), and the perspective of four different stakeholders (graduates, employers, students and academics). The framework of the research is the development of the so-called Tuning projects, which aim to design comparable and compatible higher education degrees in different regions of the world, based on student-centered and competency-based learning. Using an exploratory factor analysis (EFA), the results of this study reveal the existence of a factor intimately related to sustainability, which includes competencies such as commitment to the preservation of the environment, social responsibility or respect for diversity and multiculturality, among others.

Entrepreneurship Education and Sustainable Development Goals: A literature Review and a Closer Look at Fragile States and Technology-Enabled Approaches

“…These evaluation approaches are rather insufficient to evaluate EET's contribution to sustainable development. It is, therefore, recommended to perform research evaluating EET based on impact on critical thinking skills [138] and competencies [139] needed to achieve sustainable development, as well as using evaluation tools particularly tailored towards measuring sustainable impact [140].…”

Paradigm Shift in Business Education: A Competence-Based Approach

“…In addition, business education needs experiential learning [22], integration of emotional knowledge [23,24] and the dynamics between cognition and emotion, as shown by neurosciences [25,26]. All of these above arguments lead to the need of changing the business education paradigm by introducing the competence-based learning [7,8,27]. The new paradigm is centered on students and on their personal learning environments.…”

The Role of Universities in Sustainability-Oriented Competencies Development: Insights from an Empirical Study on Polish Universities

“…Competency development takes place through formal education (courses in the field of social responsibility and sustainable development) and non-formal education (extracurricular, e.g., student organizations, volunteering). It is confirmation of the view that teaching sustainable development requires a multidisciplinary context and a modern approach (Aktas et al 2014;Sibbel 2009;Cortese 2003;Eizaguirre et al 2019). Non-formal and informal learning are key elements of gaining experience through culture, youth work, volunteering, or sport.…”

“…There is a consensus among researchers that universities play an important role in meeting the challenges of sustainable development through education (Mochizuki and Fadeeva 2010;Boström et al 2018;Eizaguirre et al 2019;Sibbel 2009). Universities are considered to be change agents in many issues including sustainability awareness (Mochizuki and Fadeeva 2010).…”

“…The main difficulty in sustainability education results from the multidisciplinary context, which makes the difference with regard to education in traditional disciplines. Teaching and learning in the field of sustainable development requires new approaches (Aktas et al 2014;Sibbel 2009;Cortese 2003;Eizaguirre et al 2019). The paradigm shift is complicated, because it should be implemented throughout the whole university system (Setó-Pamies and Papaoikonomou 2016) and therefore the crucial role of lecturers relies on the inclusion of global issues within the existing curriculums (Tarozzi and Inguaggiato 2016).…”