Interdiciplinary Education And Sustainability In Business Administration Courses: Challenges And Perspectives

• Autor(a) principal: Demajorovic, Jacques
• Data de Publicação: 2012
• Outros Autores: Silva, Helio Cesar Oliveira da
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: RAM. Revista de Administração Mackenzie
• Texto Completo: https://editorarevistas.mackenzie.br/index.php/RAM/article/view/2995
• topic: Educação; sustentabilidade; administração; interdisciplinaridade; mercado

The incorporation of education for sustainability in the formal curriculum as a tool that encourages individuals to reflection and action on the challenges of sustainability has proved to be a complex task in many different fields of knowledge. This is particularly evident when considering the structures of the curricula of traditional courses. This article aims to identify challenges for the incorporation of sustainability topics in business schools and verify how this influences the careers of undergraduates of a course in Business Administration focused on Environmental Management. The methodology process included sending a questionnaire to the first two graduating classes of the course and conducting a focus group for further discussion of the results collected in the first phase. The results show that students recognize the interdisciplinary practices as central elements in their training process, contributing to the development of professional skills for a manager compromised with environmental responsibility. The skills most mentioned by the undergraduates were working in teams and dealing with social actors. Moreover, research indicates a great challenge for these graduates. The market continues to understand the challenges of sustainability as technological one, disregarding the contribution of business administration professionals to overcome social and environmental problems. Therefore, the priority is to hire engineer’s technical professionals. In this context, the challenge is  much larger than just incorporate sustainability content in the business curriculum. It is also important to understand how managers committed to the social and environmental issues could be legitimated in order to their effective integration in organizations.