Educación para la sostenibilidad en las escuelas de negocios indias: informe de la situación
| Autor | PD Jose |
| Cargo | Professor, Corporate Strategy and Policy Area, Indian Institute of Management Bangalore, India |
| Páginas | 255-272 |
255
AD-MINISTER
Sustainability Education in Indian Business Schools:
A Status Review
Educación para la sostenibilidad en las escuelas de negocios indias: informe de la situación
PD JOSE
JEL: I, M
Received: 20/06/2016
Modified: 22/06/2016
Accepted: 25/06/2016
DOI: 10.17230/ad-minister.28.13
www.eafit.edu.co/ad-minister
Creative Commons (CC BY-NC- SA)
ABSTRACT
Sustainability issues, given their potential scale of impact and urgency, have captured the imagina-
tion of both corporations and academic institutions everywhere. This paper examines how such prob-
lems and their potential solutions have been incorporated into higher education, particularly business
school education in India. With over 3,600 business schools in the public and private sector, business
education in India has proliferated. However, students by and large still remain unexposed to sustain-
ability and disaster management concepts in their curriculum. The underlying factors for this include,
lack of institutional capacity, issues related to faculty motivation and incentives, lack of recruiter in-
terest and limited availability to high quality resource material. Further, while several schools in India
focus on sectors relevant to sustainability, inter-organizational linkages have not developed and busi-
ness school generally operate independently. This paper examines the way forward to deeply integrate
sustainability principles into the core curriculum of business schools. Measures suggested include
creating communities of practice among academia and industry, building a resource base of teach-
ing materials for easy access by faculty, and several measures to strengthen institutional capacity.
KEYWORDS
Sustainability; disaster management; environmental management; education; sustainability curriculum; India
RESUMEN
Debido a su alto potencial de impacto y urgencia, los asuntos relacionados con la sostenibilidad han captu-
rado la imaginación tanto de las empresas privadas, como de las instituciones académicas en todas partes.
Este artículo examina cómo dichos problemas y sus soluciones potenciales han sido incorporados en la
educación superior, particularmente en la educación de negocios de India. Con unas 3,600 escuelas de ne-
gocios en los sectores público y privado, la educación de negocios en India ha proliferado. Sin embargo, los
estudiantes, en general, siguen sin tener contacto con conceptos de sostenibilidad y gestión de desastres
en sus currículos. Los factores subyacentes a esta situación incluyen la falta de capacidad institucional, los
problemas relacionados con la motivación e incentivos de los profesores universitarios, la falta de interés de
los reclutadores y la limitada disponibilidad de material de consulta de alta calidad. Además, mientras que
varias escuelas de negocios de India se enfocan en sectores relevantes para la sostenibilidad, los vínculos
interorganizacionales no han sido desarrollados y las escuelas de negocios operan en general independien-
temente. Este artículo examina el camino a seguir para integrar principios de sostenibilidad de manera pro-
funda a los currículos básicos de las escuelas de negocios. Las medidas que se sugieren incluyen la creación
de comunidades de prácticas entre la academia y la industria, la construcción de materiales pedagógicos
de fácil acceso para profesores universitarios y diferentes medidas para fortalecer la capacidad institucional
PALABRAS CLAVE
Sostenibilidad; gestión de desastres; gestión ambiental; educación; currículo de sostenibilidad; India.
1 Professor, Corporate Strategy and Policy Area, Indian Institute of Management Bangalore, India.
Email: jose@iimb.ernet.in
AD-minister Nº. 28 enero-junio 2016 pp. 255 - 272 · ISSN 1692-0279 · eISSN 2256-4322
PD Jose
Sustainability Education in Indian Business Schools: A Status Review
256
AD-MINISTER
INTRODUCTION
Sustainability issues, especially with respect to environmental management, and
especially disaster management, are increasingly influencing both boardroom
strategies and corporate profits. While corporations have responded to broad
sustainability concerns even earlier, the last two decades have seen a significant
increase in the level as well as the scope of businesses’ engagement with sustain-
ability matters. This can be attributed to: an improved understanding of the mu-
tually-reinforcing nature of business and ecosystem cycles; the growing power of
civil societies; a proliferation of local/national regulatory policies; and multilateral
agreements. Consequently, there is greater appreciation of the positive and trans-
formational role that corporations need to play in a resource-constrained, sustain-
ably- challenged world. This is even more critical given our experience that left
unattended, sustainability issues may eventually morph into industrial or humani-
tarian disasters in the long run.
As a result of the above, global environmental concerns, such as climate change,
biodiversity loss, natural resource depletion, atmospheric pollution, industrial pollu-
tion, global poverty etc., have become important inputs for decision making at the
firm level. While industrial sustainability has been intensively discussed in the de-
veloped country contexts, in the context of the developing countries these may dier
in terms of methods as well as outcomes. Further issue of environment and industry
competitiveness is particularly important in the case of developing countries such
as India as several studies have pointed out that improvements in environmental
performance can actually improve the overall performance of the industry.
Apart from an increase in general levels of awareness amongst industry and citi-
zens, three other developments in the Indian economy have made it impossible for In-
dian firms to ignore the environmental impacts of their operations. First, the quantu m
of losses associated with poor environmental performance is staggering. Second, the
current government’s focus on manufacturing is likely to exacerbate the environmen-
tal pollution in the country. Third, the legislative framework in India has changed in
recent years. The 1994 amendments to the Companies Act make it mandatory for
firms to spend, in every financial year, at least two per cent of the average net profits,
subject to certain qualifying conditions towards corporate social responsibility activ-
ities, defined to include environmental and disaster mitigation initiatives. Growing
pressures from civil society, and adoption of best practices in reporting have also
meant that there is more intensive scrutiny of the sustainability impacts of business`
operations in India.
Given the strategic importance of environmental management from a national
perspective, it is necessary for the business schools in India to take a more proactive
role in creating managers and business leaders who have a good understanding of
how to incorporate environmental issues into corporate decision making.
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