Original scientific paper
https://doi.org/10.1080/1331677X.2022.2048203
Environmental sustainability and corporate social responsibility of business schools: is there evidence of transdisciplinary effects?
Saša Petković
Nikša Alfirević
Matea Zlatković Radaković
Abstract
This study analyses the relationship of environmental sustainability
and the corporate social responsibility (CSR) of business
schools by using the partial least squares structural equation
modelling (PLS-SEM) empirical approach on a sample of 338 students
from South East Europe. In support of the extant theory of
responsible management education, emphasizing the transdisciplinary
relationship between the Ethics, CSR, and Sustainability
(ERS) domains, we found a direct relationship between environmental
sustainability and CSR of business schools. However, we
empirically verified a path of indirect effects at the institutional
level, starting with the idealism of individual students, leading to
the CSR institutional involvement of a business school, mediated
by its environmental involvement. Provided that the idealistic
individuals might be driving the functioning of the individual
responsible management education and its domains, we propose
the existence of a potential halo effect (’ERS halo effect’), which
has already been described and verified in the corporate sector.
We believe that its dynamics, based on the biased assessment of
a single business school ERS domain, with its outcomes reflected
in the other domains, should be further explored in different institutional
and cultural environments.
Keywords
Environmental sustainability; Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR); halo effect; transdisciplinarity; business schools; PLS-SEM
Hrčak ID:
302981
URI
Publication date:
31.3.2023.
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