Sustainability segmentation of business students

Subtitle:toward self-regulated development of critical and interpretational competences in a post-truth era

This article adds insights in students' attitudes toward sustainability, with specific focus on students in business management/marketing. It builds upon a number of conceptual interpretations and barriers for change in higher education for sustainable development, followed by the concept of sustainability competences and the students' perspectives. A segmentation study is developed in order to frame the variety of student dispositions of sustainability attitudes, based on a survey among 458 students in business management/marketing. Four different segments of students are discovered, according to their attitudes toward sustainability issues: moderate problem solvers; pessimistic non-believers; optimistic realists: and convinced individualists. The results of the segmentation study reveal that a one-fit-for-all approach in acquiring sustainability competences is not feasible. This calls for a diversity in approaches to prepare students in dealing with the complexity and uncertainty of sustainability issues, oriented toward more self-regulated learning, and developing critical and interpretational competences. (C) 2018 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Publication year:2018

Keywords:A1 Journal article

BOF-keylabel:yes

BOF-publication weight:6

CSS-citation score:2

Authors:International

Authors from:Higher Education

Accessibility:Open