Resumen de Competences for sustainability in undergraduate business studies: A content analysis of value-based course syllabi in Spanish universities

Consuelo Benito Olalla, Amparo Merino de Diego

• The sustainability challenges that our societies are facing involve the debate about the role that higher education institutions play in enabling learners with the necessary abilities to deal with those challenges. The field of management education is particularly controversial, as business organizations are considered to be a fundamental part of the solution to the sustainability crises, but also a major cause. This study aims to contribute to that conversation within the Spanish context by providing a general overview of the competences that are developed in business undergraduate degrees in the Spanish universities and business schools. For that purpose, an exploratory content analysis of syllabi is performed, considering all the existing courses related to ethics, social responsibility and sustainability. The content analysis is based on the theoretical frameworks of competences for sustainability and transformative learning. Specifically, we aim to respond the question about the extent to which competences are oriented to facilitate students the possibility to question their frames of references. Our findings reveal that competences focused on acquisition on knowledge and performance in the workplace are dominant, leaving a wide space for implementing transformative learning approaches