Developing Ethical Future Managers Embracing Sustainability: Case Study of Budapest Business School

Background

The Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) expects from its accredited institutions to align with its standards, which aim to ensure that the accredited higher education institution prepare learners for “meaningful professional, societal, and personal lives”. The guiding principles of the standards include ethics and integrity, and societal impact, among others. Concerning societal impact, the institution is expected to make a positive impact on society, as a “force for good in society”. With regard to ethics and integrity, the institution is expected to encourage and support “ethical behavior and integrity by students, faculty, administrators, and staff in all its activities”. Such a pervasive approach contains appropriate policies and procedures, academic programs and activities, and an intellectual contributions portfolio with a strong emphasis on ethical behavior and societal impact. The latter one, defined as “positive impact on the betterment of society”, is expected to be covered in the institutional strategic plan (Standard 1), curricula (Standard 4.3), portfolio of intellectual contributions (Standard 8.3), and internal and external initiatives (Standard 9.1). The institutions aspiring for obtaining or maintaining accredited status can choose a framework (such as of the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals or the environmental, social, and governance (ESG) criteria) for describing their activities related to societal impact but should be specific in how such activities are measured and monitored, how their academic programs incorporate societal impact, and how their engagement with external stakeholders have societal impact. (AACSB 2020a, AACSB 2020b)