Educating sustainability change agents: the importance of practical skills and experience

Heiskanen, Eva; Thidell, Åke; Rodhe, Håkan

doi:10.1016/j.jclepro.2015.11.063

Cited by 86 publications

(95 citation statements)

References 16 publications

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“…Collaborative teamwork is relevant for sustainability professionals because of the complexity and scale of sustainability issues at hand [34]. For instance, a project team tasked to develop a viable and evidence-supported concept for developing a sustainable local food system needs to bring in various types of knowledge and skills to complete this task successfully.…”

Section: Collaborative Teamworkmentioning

confidence: 99%

Beyond Interpersonal Competence: Teaching and Learning Professional Skills in Sustainability

2017

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Successful careers in sustainability are determined by positive real-world change towards sustainability. This success depends heavily on professional skills in effective and compassionate communication, collaborative teamwork, or impactful stakeholder engagement, among others. These professional skills extend beyond content knowledge and methodical expertise. Current sustainability programs do not sufficiently facilitate students' acquisition of such skills. This article presents a brief summary of professional skills, synthesized from the literature, and why they are relevant for sustainability professionals. Second, it presents how these skills have been taught in an undergraduate course in sustainability at Arizona State University, USA. Third, it critically discusses the effectiveness and challenges of that exemplary course. Finally, the article concludes with outlining the lessons learned that should be incorporated into future course offerings.

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Section: Collaborative Teamworkmentioning

confidence: 99%

Beyond Interpersonal Competence: Teaching and Learning Professional Skills in Sustainability

2017

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“…Appelbaum, Bailey, Berg, & Kalleberg, 2000). As such, it is important for these managers to have and maintain the necessary individual competencies to perform their tasks (Willard et al, 2010;Heiskanen, Thidell, & Rodhe, 2016). In this thesis individual competence refers to a professional's integrated performance-oriented ability to achieve specific objectives.…”

Section: General Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…These professionals occupy a somewhat specific position within these companies; similar to other functional managers who work autonomously across the entire company, CSR professionals are often in direct contact with both top management and coworkers (Heiskanen, Thidell, & Rodhe, 2016;Hutjens et al, 2015), and they often lack the formal authority needed to instruct others to integrate CSR into their daily practice (Heiskanen et al, 2016;Osagie, Wesselink, Blok, & Mulder, in press). However, unlike many other functional managers, CSR professionals must deal with many uncertainties and must work extensively with external stakeholders due to the wicked nature of SD challenges .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, unlike many other functional managers, CSR professionals must deal with many uncertainties and must work extensively with external stakeholders due to the wicked nature of SD challenges . Moreover, these professionals must work in environments in which little support is available for CSR or in which employees are ambivalent toward the proposed changes, for example because the beneficial effects of CSR for the company are often not directly observable (Heiskanen et al, 2016).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Following several studies conducted to identify which individual CSR-related competencies (CSRCs) are key (e.g., Rieckmann, 2012;Willard et al, 2010), studies on how-and through which learning activities-CSR professionals can develop their competencies (e.g., balancing CSR objectives and commercial objectives) are needed in order to inform practical interventions that ensure that CSR professionals have and maintain the necessary competencies and warrant a thorough transition toward CSR (Willard et al, 2010;Heiskanen et al, 2016). To the best of our knowledge, such research centering on CSR professionals has not yet been conducted.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Learning and corporate social responsibility : a study on the role of the learning organization, individual competencies, goal orientation and the learning climate in the CSR adaptation process

Osagie¹

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Meaningfulness, satisfaction and frustration: The importance of emotions for sustainability change agency

Onkila,

Reynolds,

Mäkelä

et al. 2024

Bus Strat Env

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Changes in business strategies are necessary to increase sustainability within business organisations, and change agents are key to bringing about and shaping change. Sustainability change agency involves constant reflection on change agents' roles in complex contexts, a process that arouses emotions for those agents. In this study, we assume a contextual view of change to understand how sustainability change agency develops during change processes and the role of emotions in agency behind strategic changes, such as the implementation of a circular economy. The study is based on interviews with 51 circular economy professionals in Finnish business organisations. By analysing key events and emotions in sustainability change agent (SCA) work, the study contributes to the existing research by showing that initiating and managing sustainability strategies consists of multiple unplanned and unexpected emotional events and experiences. These events and experiences shape SCA's ability and motivation to act for change, leading to continual individual‐level reflection by SCAs, manifesting as ideological, reassuring and fragmenting processes within the larger change process. Such reflection maintains, paralyses, enforces or reshapes their agency, depending on the context.

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Educating sustainability change agents: the importance of practical skills and experience

Cited by 86 publications

References 16 publications

Beyond Interpersonal Competence: Teaching and Learning Professional Skills in Sustainability

Beyond Interpersonal Competence: Teaching and Learning Professional Skills in Sustainability

Learning and corporate social responsibility : a study on the role of the learning organization, individual competencies, goal orientation and the learning climate in the CSR adaptation process

Meaningfulness, satisfaction and frustration: The importance of emotions for sustainability change agency

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