Gender Equality and UN Sustainable Development Goals: Priorities and Correlations in the Top Business Schools’ Communication and Legitimation Strategies

Abstract

Gender equality is still an issue in business schools, since women in MBAs classrooms, in faculty and in management teams have low representation. Challenges caused by lack of financial aids, salaries gap and a very masculine model avoid a better gender balance in the business graduate schools, which, globally, should lead women personal and professional development. The main objective of this research is to analyse business schools communication priorities related to gender equality projects and policies in their sustainability reports, considering these as a fundamental tool for corporate legitimacy. Through a content analysis of the sustainable reports of the top 50 business schools of the world, we elaborate a “Codes Frequency Report” focusing on “Goal 4: quality of education” (in relation with scholarships and grants allocation) and “Goal 5: gender equality” and we explore the correlations with the schools’ ranking positions, the price of the MBA programmes, the percentage of female MBA students, of female faculty members and women in board of directors in the different geographical areas as Europe, US and Asia. Results show that gender equality related topics are a source of positive impact and legitimacy for top business schools.

Gender Inequality: Entrepreneurship Development in the MENA Region

“…Gender Inequality has shown declines in a range of human development indicators [13], as a consequence, "gender equality" was adopted as a central goal in the UN 2030 sustainability agenda. There is agreement among international business specialists from the business, economic, and development fields that improving conditions for female entrepreneurship and increasing the number of female-led ventures plays a central role in achieving a nation's "sustainable development" [14,15]. The achievement of goal 5 is especially important for MENA states, as they have continuously reported the lowest number of women in the labor force than any other region [16].…”

Gender Parity within the Gender—Sustainability Paradigm: A Case Study on Management Structures of the Romanian Academia

“…The aforementioned approach claims that the three pillars of sustainable development-economic, environmental, and social-are "relevant to discussions of gender equality" [4]. An increasing number of studies [5][6][7][8][9][10] also show that gender inequality generates costs that have a negative social impact and lead to environmental degradation. To verify these results, which are intuited based upon the existing political approach to the new social behavior, further research is required.…”

Sustainable Development Goals: A Powerful Framework for Embedding Ethics, CSR, and Sustainability in Management Education

“…Furthermore, different global stakeholders related to management education have embraced the SDGs and explicitly asked universities to do the same. For instance, examples of international accreditation bodies for business schools or networks include the Global Business School Network and the Environmental Association for Universities and Colleges [10,24].…”

“…There is already research evidencing an effort by universities in various countries, like Italy [25], the UK [26], or Spain [27], to integrate SDGs in management education [24,28]. However, there are still debates regarding the place of business education in this new sustainable development agenda [10].…”