Approaches for Integrating Sustainability in Business Schools – Challenges and Opportunities in the Digital Age

Abstract

The paper presents opportunities for integrating sustainability into business schools’ educational and management models in this era of digital transformation, seeking to increase their capacity for innovation, and the role of academia as a driver for boosting the potential of regional ecosystems for sustainable development. Contemporary trends and factors driving the need for higher education’s response to the environmental changes caused by digital technologies, and efforts to achieve sustainability on a global scale, are examined, while the benefits of applying a multidisciplinary and intersectoral approach in sustainability education, supplemented with a research-based approach to engage students, two-eyed seeing and competence-oriented educational models, are characterized. Arguments are given that balancing innovation and sustainability in business schools implies applying an ambidextrous approach. It reflects on the one hand the need for business schools to adapt, taking into account changes in the environment, with an emphasis on digitization, internationalization, partnerships, multidisciplinarity, and multisectorality to achieve academic sustainability. On the other hand, a need for a balance is recognized between established traditions, organizational culture, the specific features of business schools, and the introduction of innovations in them, including digital and social innovations.