Junkyard Planet: Using Stories to Teach Managerial Accounting with a Sustainability Theme

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to share my experience teaching managerial accounting as a sustainability-themed course using stories. Theme-based learning suggests a relatable theme can make course content more applicable, engaging, and memorable for students. This article discusses how sustainability was integrated into an accounting class using Adam Minter's 2013 book Junkyard Planet, and smaller stories including cases and discussion boards. The stories introduce students to the role businesses have in influencing sustainable development. The stories allow for the consideration of managerial accounting concepts including direct material costs, the tradeoffs between fixed automation costs and variable labor costs, as well as the exploration of ethics, sustainability and the common good. By discussing the stories, students consider how global economic forces influence revenue and cost functions as well as the idea of market-driven sustainable development. The sustainability story assignments reflect the principles of liberal learning, which strive to prepare students for work and life through an integrated curriculum. Survey results document that students' attitudes and interest in sustainability increased following the course and that students' perceptions of their understanding of accounting concepts increased. This suggests integrated learning activities can enhance both comprehension of accounting content and students' appreciation for sustainability.

Religion and Interfaith Dialogue: The Forgotten Pedagogical DEI Initiative in Business Education and Strategic Planning

“…Viewed as the "forgotten DEI initiative" (Cole, 2021), religion shapes the business environment of a firm (El Ghoul et al, 2012;Du, 2014;Ma et al, 2021). Grimm (2021) provided a window into how a liberal-arts based sustainability text could be modestly infused into an entry level accounting course to help raise awareness of sustainability in accounting majors; however, the effect of different religions and interfaith initiatives on the ethical decision-making process, particularly in the technical business disciplines, could become a prominent factor in future research streams (Poje, 2021). As evidenced by the World Economic Forum, instilling a sense of spiritual and religious value is an important aspect of fair globalization (Hoppe, 2022) and plays a critical role for the correlation of work, social justice, and peace.…”

Variáveis institucionais explicativas do desempenho de estudantes de Ciências Contábeis e Administração

“…No CDO também estão incluídas as estratégias de ensino utilizadas pelos professores. A esse respeito, pesquisas têm testado múltiplas técnicas pedagógicas visando aumentar a performance discente, tais como jogos e gamificação (Beatson et al, 2020;ElKelish & Ahmed, 2021;Kuang, Adler, & Pandey, 2021), tecnologia (Francescucci, Kellershohn, & Pyle, 2021;Namin, Ketron, Kaltcheva, & Winsor, 2021), estudo de caso instrucional (Cheng, Sapkota, & Yurko, 2021), narrativas (Grimm, 2021;Taylor, Marrone, Tayar, & Mueller, 2017), tipo, frequência e políticas de avaliação (Miglietti, 2021;Nakos & Whiting, 2018;Nsor-Ambala, 2020) e assim por diante. No caso do grupo IES, o propósito é verificar como variáveis das instituições de ensino estão associadas ao desempenho acadêmico.…”

Institutional variables explaining the performance of accounting and administration students

“…The TS also includes the teaching strategies used by teachers. In this regard, research has tested multiple pedagogical techniques aimed at increasing student performance, such as games and gamification (Beatson et al, 2020;ElKelish & Ahmed, 2021;Kuang, Adler, & Pandey, 2021), technology (Francescucci, Kellershohn, & Pyle, 2021;Namin, Ketron, Kaltcheva, & Winsor, 2021), instructional case study (Cheng, Sapkota, & Yurko, 2021), narratives (Grimm, 2021;Taylor, Marrone, Tayar, & Mueller, 2017), type, frequency and evaluation policies (Miglietti, 2021;Nakos & Whiting, 2018;Nsor-Ambala, 2020) and so on. In the case of the HEI group, the purpose is to verify how variables of educational institutions are associated with academic performance.…”