The Principles for Responsible Management Education initiative calls upon business schools to embed sustainability and responsible management within their curricula. Although higher education institutions have made progress, student perspectives remain underrepresented in Education for Sustainable Development research. Drawing on an integrated theoretical framework comprising Transformative Learning Theory, the sustainability competency framework, social learning and students-as-partners pedagogy, this exploratory study reports a mixed-methods survey of 130 Business and Management students across two UK higher education institutions.The findings indicate generally favourable sustainability attitudes among the participating students, consistent with previous responsible management education research. Exploratory comparisons found broadly similar patterns across two contrasting UK cohorts: full-time undergraduate students and employed degree apprentices. The more distinctive finding concerns an institutional-to-educational translation gap. Students acknowledged aspects of current provision but indicated that institutional sustainability activity did not always become visible, participatory or educationally meaningful within their programmes. Across both cohorts, students called for stronger collaboration, practice-oriented education and solutions-focused learning through which sustainability knowledge could be connected with authentic organisational and societal challenges.These findings underpin a student-informed conceptual framework, Towards Transdisciplinary and Transformative Sustainability Education, which identifies conditions through which institutional sustainability activity may become visible, participatory and educationally meaningful to students. The study does not directly assess institutional transformation, transformative learning or behavioural change, nor does it test whether favourable attitudes persist when sustainability entails difficult financial, professional or lifestyle trade-offs. The Framework should therefore be understood as a conceptual proposition for supporting meaningful engagement rather than as evidence that transformative or behavioural outcomes have occurred.
Contextualized learning theory promotes effective learning by placing new information in meaningful contexts; however, despite its desirability among educators, identifying practical ways to apply this theory in specific classroom teaching remains an ongoing challenge. To that end, undergraduate business students often find operations management topics challenging to contextualize because of the inherently complex integration of theoretical concepts and methodical procedures that characterize the subject. Accordingly, instructors strive to identify viable instructional tools to help students overcome this challenge and achieve parallel mastery of the intertwined quantitative and qualitative aspects of operations management fundamentals. This paper presents the results of a comparative experimental study examining the effectiveness of simulation-assisted instruction in promoting contextualized learning in an introductory operations management course. The empirical results based on a quasi-experimental design showed that computer simulations enable students to experience contextualized learning, thereby enhancing their performance and fluency in understanding and applying OM concepts and techniques. On that note, performance-based assessment of learning outcomes revealed that students' conceptual fluency, as a reflection of their contextual efficacy, improved the most when simulations were used. Moreover, students' procedural fluency, as evidenced by their technical efficacy, was simultaneously improved, albeit to a lesser extent, when simulations were employed. Perception-based assessment of learning outcomes showed similar improvement patterns; however, unlike the performance-based results, these improvements did not reach statistical significance. The findings provide valuable insights into the utility of such instructional tools through a methodical inquiry into the objective and subjective assessments of polydimensional learning outcomes.
The rapid advancement of digital technologies and the integration of artificial intelligence (AI) in accounting practices have significantly increased the complexity and uncertainty of professional work environments, making Dynamic Risk Management Skills a critical competency for contemporary accounting graduates. This study aims to examine the relationships between AI Competency and Dynamic Risk Management Skills among Generation Z (Gen Z) accounting students, with Systematic Thinking Ability and Design Thinking Ability considered as mediating variables. A quantitative research design was employed, collecting data from 571 fourth-year accounting students across Thailand. The data were analyzed using partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM). The results reveal that AI Competency is significantly and positively associated with Systematic Thinking Ability, Design Thinking Ability, and Dynamic Risk Management Skills. Moreover, Systematic Thinking Ability and Design Thinking Ability significantly account for the indirect associations between AI Competency and Dynamic Risk Management Skills. These findings extend theoretical understanding of risk management skill development in accounting education and offer practical implications for curriculum design by emphasizing the integration of AI with higher-order thinking skill development to better prepare graduates for complex and rapidly changing professional environments.
Social entrepreneurship education is widely promoted; however, the reflection of students' educational experience in social entrepreneurial intention remains insufficiently understood, particularly in institutionally fragile contexts. Drawing on survey data from 299 Lebanese university students, this study tests a moderated mediation model grounded in the Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB). Specifically, it examines whether personal attitude, subjective norms, and perceived behavioural control mediate the relationship between students' perceived social entrepreneurship education experience and entrepreneurial intention, and whether moral obligation conditions these pathways. More positive perceptions of the educational experience are associated with stronger intention indirectly through personal attitude and perceived behavioural control, while subjective norms show no significant effect, reflecting weakened normative reference points under prolonged crisis. Moral obligation operates selectively, strengthening the attitudinal pathway while leaving the control and the normative pathways unchanged. This study extends the mediated view of educational influence to social entrepreneurship education in a crisis setting, suggests that moral obligation may function as a conditional ethical amplifier, and shows how institutional fragility can affect the salient dimensions of TPB. In fragile settings, such education should cultivate reflective attitudes and moral engagement alongside structural reforms that enable normative support for socially oriented careers.
