Challenges (And Dilemmas) To Insert "Sustainability" In Management Curricula: A Case Study

Abstract

This paper aims analyze the challenges faced by a Higher Education Institution in a insertion of the "Sustainability" as a subject, in the course of Business Administration. Despite nearly three decades of intense debate around the sustainability theme, remain a different kind of uncertainties on this subject, which raise questions about its boundaries, its defining traits, its innovation potential, its interdisciplinary compass and its ability to engage its interfaces with other fields of knowledge and practices. This is reflected in the strategies and practices for both of the business management scope, such as regarding the design and pedagogical practices of teaching and learning used to train future managers. Thus the construction of this paper is based on a literature and documentary research, also the experience of the authors as professors at the Business School of Administration selected by convenience. They organized all the data experience, the information and interviews compiled, through a case study in the context of mixed exploratory research. Different variables introduced the theme of sustainability were analyzed, involving the disciplines that attend to the educational project and its contents to the analysis of didactic and pedagogical strategies adopted. In this sense, the experience showed that remain discussed the challenges and requirements for implementation of educational projects that focus on new models of teaching and learning. It also shows that the university, especially business schools, is a prime location, which may contribute to development of practical, innovative attitudes and behaviors toward sustainability, in all the environments of the future manager could be involved.