South African business schools SDG integration : MBA curricula, research, and partnerships

Abstract

Business schools have an important role to play in developing future leaders of business and industry, and more specifically, to encourage the emergence of socially responsible behaviour in companies whilst simultaneously enhancing corporate performance. Unfortunately, business schools are facing criticism regarding the capabilities they claim to impart. Among this criticism are views of business schools failing to impart suitable skills, prepare leaders, or instil norms of ethical behaviour; that business schools have historically inculcated depraved values contributing to the unethical behaviour visible in most corporate boardrooms and public policy formulation. Many are of the view that business schools give too little attention to ethics and values-based leadership, and that more need to be done in terms of ethics and socially responsible leadership and behaviour. In 2007, the Principles for Responsible Management Education (PRME), an UN-supported initiative, was founded to raise the profile of sustainability in schools around the world through Six Principles to which business schools commit to ensure they provide future leaders with the skills needed to balance economic and sustainability goals, while drawing attention to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). If South African business schools pursue the objective of building intellectual capital for the country and industries, and providing knowledge relevant to sustainable business management practice, demonstrable commitment to the SDGs in relation thereto should be paramount. The question then beckons to what extent South African Business Schools integrate the SDGs into MBA curriculua, research, and partnerships. By running the information of South African business schools' mission, vision, values, and MBA curricula found in the public domain through the "Linked SDG" application, this paper sets out to answer this question. The application extracts key concepts related to sustainable development from text documents and linking them to the most relevant sustainable development goals, targets, indicators, and series. The aim of the investigation is to highlight the SDGs with limited foci by SA business schools, and to propose recommendations for improving SA business schools SDG Integration into MBA curriculum, research, and partnerships.