No full-text available
To read the full-text of this research,
you can request a copy directly from the authors.
Critical Approaches to Sustainability in the Business Communication Classroom: A Developmental Perspective
Abstract
Business communication faculty who invite students to critically engage with issues of sustainability must consider students’ developmental readiness to do so, as these invitations can often seem uninvited. To promote students’ readiness for critical inquiry, faculty should adopt a developmental approach that attends to both cognitive and emotional aspects of learning. This article outlines three ways to frame critical discussions of sustainability: as a new conception of wealth, as a cultural way of knowing, and as an intergenerational social contract. To help faculty develop students’ capacity to engage critically, this article includes guided questions to support critical inquiry and a supplemental reading list.
... Additionally, insights from Hentz et al. (2022) highlight the importance of developmental readiness in fostering connectedness. Educators should design communication strategies that align with students' cognitive and emotional stages, ensuring that classroom interactions are both supportive and appropriately challenging. ...
... Educators should use positive politeness (e.g., encouragement, empathy) and negative politeness (e.g., respectful distancing) to build a classroom atmosphere where all students feel valued and respected. Furthermore, Hentz et al. (2022) suggest incorporating reflective practices that encourage both educators and students to align their behaviors with positive communication principles. By guiding students to evaluate their communication styles and fostering transparency in instructor-student interactions, educators can reinforce the value of confirmation behaviors. ...
Positive communication is crucial for effective teaching, influencing student engagement, motivation, and educational outcomes. Synthesizing educational and interdisciplinary literature, this article develops two core propositions: (1) cultivating classroom relationships through responsive interactions and peer connectedness, and (2) strengthening teacher affirmation and credibility via authentic and empathetic communication practices. Specific strategies, such as personalized feedback, inclusive communication methods, structured confirmation behaviors, and generationally responsive techniques, equip educators to enhance classroom environments, improve student learning experiences, and prepare students effectively for academic achievement and professional collaboration.
... In the educational sphere, Hentz et al. (2022) proposed frameworks for discussing sustainability in business communication classes. Rossetti and Van Waes (2022) developed a multimodal online module for accessible CSR content, and Phan and Ninh (2024) emphasized the importance of field trips in CSR education. ...
This study presents a systematic review of the last decade of research published in Business and Professional Communication Quarterly, using PRISMA guidelines and bibliometric analysis. The review analyzes publication and citation trends, key contributors, and emerging themes. The research highlights how the field has evolved in response to global crises, technological advancements, and shifts in social dynamics. By exploring key themes such as virtual team communication, social presence in online learning, and the integration of emerging technologies, the study provides a comprehensive assessment of the journal’s contributions from 2014 to 2024. It also identifies future research directions.
... Student engagement is a key determinant of learning outcomes. Engaged students are more likely to actively participate in classroom activities, collaborate with peers, and apply critical thinking skills [3,4]. Environmental sustainability projects provide meaningful contexts for student learning, fostering curiosity, inquiry, and reflection [1,18,19]. ...
This study examines the efficacy of incorporating environmental sustainability principles into educational settings to promote the cultivation of critical listening competencies in students. It comprehensively explores the impact of teacher creativity and student engagement on the development of these skills. The research uses both qualitative and quantitative methods to identify the mechanisms through which environmental education contributes to the improvement of students’ cognitive abilities. The main findings of the study indicate that environmental sustainability programs can significantly increase students’ critical listening skills, promoting their comprehensive development. The results highlight the potential of environmental sustainability as a multifunctional tool for improving educational practices.
Bu çalışma, çevresel, sosyal ve ekonomik boyutlarıyla sürdürülebilirlik kalkınma hedeflerini merkeze alan çalışmaların iletişim alanında hangi kapsamda ve yöntemle ele alındığını inceleme amacı taşımaktadır. Bu nedenle, Web of Science veri tabanında iletişim alanındaki Sürdürülebilir Kalkınma Hedefleri ile bağlantılı çalışmalarda ön plana çıkan tema ve metotları keşfetmek, bu çalışmaların uygulama alanında mevcut ve muhtemel gelişmelerle bağlantı düzeyini saptamak ve gelecek dönem yapılacak araştırmalara bir kaynak oluşturabilmek amacıyla 2021-2022 yılları arasındaki bağlantılı çalışmalar; yazar sayısı, kapsam/yöntem, araştırma alanı, sonuç, anahtar kelimeler ve atıf sayısı değişkenleri bağlamında bibliyometrik analiz yöntemi ile incelenmiştir. İlgili çalışmaların ağırlıklı olarak sürdürülebilirliğin çevresel boyutlarına odaklandığı, çevresel sürdürülebilirlik ve sosyal sürdürülebilirlik ile bağlantılı olarak gerçekleştirilen çalışmaların disiplinler arası bir nitelik taşıdığı saptanmıştır. Ayrıca analiz sonucunda, ekonomik sürdürülebilirlik üzerine gerçekleştirilen çalışmaların sosyal ve çevresel sürdürülebilirlik merkezli çalışmalara göre kısıtlı olduğu ve çalışmaların genelinin BM sürdürülebilir kalkınma hedeflerinin sınırlı boyutlarına odaklandığı görülmüştür. Çalışmada saptanan diğer önemli bulgular ise, ilgili çalışmaların sektörel trendlerle uyumunun sınırlılığı ve bilgisayar destekknojli yeni araştırma yöntemlerinin kısıtlı düzeyde kullanımıdır. Bu nedenle, sürdürülebilirlikle bağlantılı kalkınma hedeflerinin iletişim disiplini içerisinde, sektörel ve akademik düzeyde yeni eğilimler göz önünde bulundurularak, mevcut ve potansiyel araştırmacılara yönelik öneriler getirilmiştir.
Sustainable development (SD) has become a popular catchphrase in contemporary development discourse. However, in spite of its pervasiveness and the massive popularity it has garnered over the years, the concept still seems unclear as many people continue to ask questions about its meaning and history, as well as what it entails and implies for development theory and practice. The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the discourse on SD by further explaining the paradigm and its implications for human thinking and actions in the quest for sustainable development. This is done through extensive literature review, combining aspects of the “Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines and the Recursive Content Abstraction (RCA) analytical approach. The paper finds and argues that the entire issue of sustainable development centres around inter- and intragenerational equity anchored essentially on three-dimensional distinct but interconnected pillars, namely the environment, economy, and society. Decision-makers need to be constantly mindful of the relationships, complementarities, and trade-offs among these pillars and ensure responsible human behaviour and actions at the international, national, community and individual levels in order to uphold and promote the tenets of this paradigm in the interest of human development. More needs to be done by the key players—particularly the United Nations (UN), governments, private sector, and civil society organisations—in terms of policies, education and regulation on social, economic and environmental resource management to ensure that everyone is sustainable development aware, conscious, cultured and compliant.
Non-technical summary
In this paper we discuss current challenges to the sustainability concept. This article focuses on seven dimensions of the concept. These dimensions are crucial for understanding sustainability. Even today, the literature contains basic misunderstandings about these seven dimensions. This article sketches such fallacies in the context of global and planetary sustainability. The sustainability concept has been criticized as a content-empty ‘fuzzy notion’ or non-committal ‘all-purpose glue’. This article thus has a critical intention of reflecting the sustainability concept accurately. The aim is to contribute a better understanding of the concept.
With a triple-bottom-line lens on sustainability, this study examines the effects of culture on companies' economic, social, and environmental sustainability practices. Drawing on institutional theory and project GLOBE, we delineate cultural practices dimensions that consistently predict sustainability practices related to each of the three domains. Based on a sample of 1924 companies in 36 countries and nine cultural clusters, we find that future orientation, gender egalitarianism, uncertainty avoidance, and power distance practices positively, and performance orientation practices negatively, predict corporate sustainability practices. Further, our findings suggest that these effects might vary according to the country vis-à-vis cluster level of analysis.
In discussing the $1 trillion bailout of the U.S. Financial Institutions, virtually every Member of Congress and almost every government official—including Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke and President Obama—has blamed the crisis on the " greed and irresponsibility of Wall Street ". Almost all of the financial executives involved in the crisis, from CEOs to middle managers, are products of our business schools. Additionally, there is a high correlation between the recent unethical behavior of a number of multinational corporations and the number of MBA holders in their top ranks. As a consequence, many critics are convinced that there is something wrong with our business schools. This paper presents the causes and consequences of what ails business school students and graduates today: the toxic teaching of bad management theories. These theories— grounded in the assumptions of economics—include determinism and materialism, the cult of profit maximization and a pessimistic view of human nature as totally self-interested. By teaching these theories, business schools are inculcating values of materialism and greed that create a lifelong pursuit of money and status. This makes it all too easy for business managers to choose expediency and short-term profits over ethical behavior. Further, these materialistic values create higher levels of depression, anxiety and psychological disorders as well as make our students less cooperative and more antisocial as individuals long after they leave academia.
Purpose
– The purpose of this study is to illustrate that when practiced correctly, environmental marketing can represent promising opportunities for value creation and market growth. For many companies, the practice of environmental marketing has delivered disappointing results.
Design/methodology/approach
– Building from examples of companies that have successfully transcended traditional environmental marketing, we create a model for strategic product positioning. We rely on illustrations from companies in a variety of industries that target both consumer and business markets.
Findings
– We describe five strategies that are built upon value drivers for green products such as image, status, functionality and brand management through authenticity and superior offerings. We also emphasize the importance of strategies that target commercial markets for green products, which represent valuable opportunities for growth.
Originality/value
– Companies often confront the challenge of positioning the green attributes of their products or services. Lessons from the past have shown that this task must be carefully executed. Understanding the strategies presented here is critical for the success of new products or new marketing initiatives.
Hard skills are the technical expertise and knowledge needed for a job. Soft skills are interpersonal qualities, also known as people skills, and personal attributes that one possesses. Business executives consider soft skills a very important attribute in job applicants. Employers want new employees to have strong soft skills, as well as hard skills. This study identified the top 10 soft skills as perceived the most important by business executives: integrity, communication, courtesy, responsibility, social skills, positive attitude, professionalism, flexibility, teamwork, and work ethic.
Reasoning processes allow the human cognitive system to go beyond the information readily available in the environment. This review focuses on the processes of human thinking, including deductive reasoning, induction, mental simulation, and analogy. We survey recent trends across several areas, including categorization, mental models, cognitive development, and decision making. Our chief organizing principle is the contrast between traditional approaches that focus on abstract logical reasoning and a number of current approaches that posit domain-specific, knowledge-intensive cognition. We suggest that some instances of domain-specific cognition result from domain-general processes operating on domain-specific representations. Another theme is the link between reasoning and learning. We suggest that learning typically occurs as a byproduct of reasoning, rather than as an end in itself.
This book is a definitive reference source for the growing, increasingly more important, and interdisciplinary field of computational cognitive modeling, that is, computational psychology. It combines breadth of coverage with definitive statements by leading scientists in this field. Research in computational cognitive modeling explores the essence of cognition and various cognitive functionalities through developing detailed, process-based understanding by specifying computational mechanisms, structures, and processes. Given the complexity of the human mind and its manifestation in behavioral flexibility, process-based computational models may be necessary to explicate and elucidate the intricate details of the mind. The key to understanding cognitive processes is often in fine details. Computational models provide algorithmic specificity: detailed, exactly specified, and carefully thought-out steps, arranged in precise yet flexible sequences. These models provide both conceptual clarity and precision at the same time. This book substantiates this approach through overviews and many examples.
Humanity faces twin problems of adaptation—natural environmental challenges of climate change and global humanitarian challenges of ensuring well-being for all—that pose a dilemma for sustainable development. One way forward is to develop cultures of sustainability that highlight and reward the ideas and practices that will help us transition to a sustainable lifestyle. Although institutional responses are necessary and multidisciplinary approaches are required, individual citizens can also participate in cultural dynamics—the process of cultural formation, maintenance, and transformation—to craft cultures of sustainability, and psychological science can point to potential mechanisms for effecting this cultural change. Informed by the niche-construction perspective, I suggest that the critical ingredients of cultures of sustainability include (a) conceptions of human–nature connectedness, (b) conceptions of human–artifact relation, (c) interpersonal conversations about sustainability norms within social networks, and (d) visions of an achievable utopia for a sustainable future. Further research and action are called for.
Ageing has emerged as a major challenge in several developing societies. With falling fertility rates and increasing longevity as its main drivers, it is expected that by 2050, one in five people of the developing countries will be over 60 years of age. It is argued that on account of this, such societies would further encounter an increased demand for medical treatment, long-term care, financial and emotional support. They also are likely to face an enormous psychological burden. In the context of ageing, the article highlights some of the key issues and challenges encountered by the developing societies. Urbanisation, changing family structure and drifting intergenerational relationships are seen as factors that have led to a multitude of psychological problems like social isolation, loneliness, abuse and discrimination and depression in older adults. The article argues in support of health and other social protective measures and calls for the need to recognise the strengths of older adults with a view to integrate them into the mainstream.
Data from a survey of 864 executives and managers with hiring authority suggest that business communication has external legitimacy regardless of program sponsorship and that hiring managers favor courses that comprise the business communication curriculum, such as public speaking, leadership, business management, and interpersonal communication. Findings from the study can give students guidance when selecting coursework electives and writing résumés, guide faculty in making curricular and advertising decisions, and support the legitimacy of the business communication curriculum.
Dialectical beliefs emphasize constant change, tolerance of contradiction, and holistic perception. This research examined the relationship between dialectical beliefs and proenvironmental behaviors. Study 1a showed that stronger dialectical beliefs were associated with fewer proenvironmental behaviors among Chinese participants; this result was replicated in Study 1b. To examine the negative relationship between dialectical beliefs and proenvironmental behaviors across cultures, Study 2 recruited both native Chinese and European Americans and replicated the results conceptually by measuring proenvironmental behaviors in a hypothetical shopping scenario. Study 3 provided further generally supportive evidence by considering the influence of both dialectical beliefs and interdependent self-construal on proenvironmental behaviors between native Chinese and European Canadians. Finally, a meta-analysis of the obtained results revealed a weak but significant negative association between dialectical beliefs and proenvironmental behaviors. Theoretical implications for cross-cultural environmental research and practical implications for proenvironmental campaigns were discussed.
The Genuine Progress Indicator (GPI) was designed to reveal the economic, social, and environmental trade-offs associated with conventional economic growth as traditionally measured by Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Although originally designed for use at the national scale, an interest has developed in the United States in a state-level uptake of the GPI to inform and guide policy. This study presents the first fifty-state estimate for U.S. GPI in order to address questions over its design, implementation, and ultimate potential as a tool to guide state-level economic policy. Following a review of the current state of analysis and critique of GPI, we provide an overview of methodology and database development. Results are then presented, including discussion of lessons learned through a fifty-state application. The paper concludes with suggestions for further research and next steps to consolidating a consistent methodology.
Globally, societies face enormous social, economic and environmental challenges, such as scarcity of resources, demographic developments, climate change, inequality, etc. The degree of success in coping with these complex issues and fostering sustainable development depends largely on educational standards in society. This paper aims at investigating the relationship between sustainable development goals (SDGs) and education in business schools. Therefore, a case study of a business school in Germany is analysed based on its educational activities (curricula, co-curricula and outside university) in the field of sustainable management education. The methods employed for the analysis are action research and keyword search. The contribution of this work is firstly to outline the implementation practice of sustainable management education in a business school and secondly to propose a conceptual model of how business schools can contribute to SDGs. The findings offer valuable insights for other business schools into how to integrate sustainability into their management education. On the policy level the proposed influence of business schools on SDGs is beneficial for educational institutions such as PRME.
This research establishes the role of communication education in employability by determining how employers of graduates view communication, identifying communication skills that employers view as relevant, and establishing whether these skills are included in communication courses. To achieve these aims, local businesses were surveyed, and the results were compared with communication course descriptors. The research shows, consistent with worldwide trends, that local employers value communication competencies highly when recruiting new graduates, and specific communication skills required in an industry reflect course content. However, some skills are still lacking, and the research questions where the responsibility lies in developing these skills.
A mental model is a representation of some domain or situation that supports understanding, reasoning, and prediction. Mental models permit reasoning about situations not directly experienced. They allow people to mentally simulate the behavior of a system. Many mental models are based on generalizations and analogies from experience. These generalizations are not always accurate; researchers have identified striking cases of widespread erroneous mental models. An understanding of typical mental models—both correct and incorrect—is important both in order to design devices that people will use correctly and in order to create effective instructional materials.
Corporate claims about environmental performance have increased rapidly in recent years, as has the incidence of greenwash, that is, communication that misleads people into forming overly positive beliefs about an organization’s environmental practices or products. References to greenwash in the literature have grown rapidly since the term was introduced more than 2 decades ago, with a sharp increase in articles since 2011. We review and synthesize this fragmented and multidisciplinary literature, showing that greenwash is a broad umbrella term that encompasses a variety of specific forms of misleading environmental communication. More research is needed that identifies and catalogues the varieties of greenwash, theorizes and models their mechanisms drawing on existing social science research, and measures their impacts on corporate performance and social welfare.
Sustainability is becoming increasingly relevant in higher education, as the need to address complex cultural and ecological problems intensifies. How sustainability is taught has a profound influence on the kind of learning that takes place and the impact it has in the world. Sustainability pedagogy is offered as a tool for creating transformational sustainability learning that is thematic and cocreated, critically questions dominant norms and incorporates diverse perspectives, is active, participatory and relational, and is grounded in a specific place. This pedagogical design draws on the wisdom of ecological systems, recognizing that ecological systems are our best teachers for creating sustainable and regenerative systems. This article connects this pedagogical model with Okanagan indigenous teachings about the whole self, to explore how the whole self can be intentionally included in an ecological design process to promote transformational learning.
This article reports the results of a study examining the business communication offerings at the top 50 undergraduate business schools, as identified in the Bloomberg Businessweek rankings for 2011. The study focuses on communication course requirements, sequences, and programs, as well as what areas typically receive the most coverage within courses. The data are compared with information from similar studies dating back to 1999 in order to assess the current status of business communication courses and programs within business curricula and to make suggestions for future development.
Increased knowledge of business sustainability as the basis of a holistic approach to value creation has inspired many managers to integrate ecological and social stewardship into their strategic business innovation plans. However, the coverage of sustainability issues in business courses remains small at many universities. This article illustrates how business communication students can become cognitively, behaviorally, and emotionally involved in the analysis and evaluation of the complex sustainability paradigm via an assignment focusing on sustainability. The approach integrates several levels of learning, stretching students’ cognitive skills and enhancing the emotional competencies and behavioral skills needed to enter high-level business jobs.
The purpose of this investigation was to determine business department chairs' rat ings of topics typically covered in the business communication course. A sample of 280 chairs provided administrative information about the business communication courses at their institutions, rated the importance of 34 topics typically covered in the course, and assessed the need for the course in their programs. Results indicate that department chairs perceive writing skills to be more important to business communication courses than other communication skills, such as speaking, tech nology-mediated communication, interpersonal communication, team/group com munication, listening, and cultural literacy skills. Implications for business com munication curriculum and research are offered.
This study examined 229 responses from members of the Association for Business Communication (United States) who rated the importance of 30 business commu nication concepts. The concepts were divided into six categories: communication theory, written communication, oral communication, employment communica tion, technology, and current business communication issues. Respondents also reported the amount of class coverage they provided for each topic. Of the 30 con cepts, 23 were rated as moderately or greatly important. Gaps occurred in some categories between their perceived importance and their actual class coverage. The five most important concepts centered on written communication and were ranked as follows (from highest to lowest ): Use correct grammar and sentence structure, write memoranda, write persuasive news, write good news/positive message let ters, and write reports.
This study examines the current status of the introductory business communication course at colleges and universities across the United States. Using data collected during the spring of 2008 from a national sample of 505 instructors, this study reveals a number of pedagogical and programmatic insights about (1) major course sponsors; (2) academic levels at which the course is taught; (3) instructors’ ideal and actual class sizes; (4) use of distance learning; (5) content coverage; and (6) required learning assignments. Findings from this study are compared with results from previous audits. Future research ideas as well as implications for business communication education are presented.
A survey of 52 top-ranked undergraduate business schools suggests that profi ciency in written and oral communication is considered an important requirement for an undergraduate business degree. This conclusion derives from a study of offi cial Web sites, with follow-up verification by e-mail. All schools have writing and other communication (primarily oral) standnrds in place; 50 have lower-division writing requirements, and 17 schools have other lower-division communication requirements (primarily oral). A total of 36 schools have upper-division writing requirements, and 25 of those schools offer business communication courses through the business schools, and not through liberal arts divisions.
The impact of global aging on fiscal expenditure and possible ways to address this challenge are considered in the article. The authors conclude that if ambitious reforms are not implemented, relative spending on public health and social security may double by mid-XXI century. Pension reform should aim not only at avoiding excessive financial commitments, but more generally at securing due interests of all generations. A new approach to defining optimal pension policy is suggested. It is specified as a policy that mimics choices on work duration and savings, made by a person with full knowledge and long horizon. The best reaction to aging from this viewpoint is an increase in retirement age keeping constant leisure/labor ratio. This strategy ensures the stability of replacement rates and does not affect intergeneration accounts. Longer employment is feasible, as higher life expectancy is accompanied with proportional increase in healthy life expectancy.
JEL classification: E62, J11, J26, H55.
Keywords: : population aging, long-term fiscal sustainability, pension reform, retirement age.
Mental models are hypothetical constructs for explaining human cognitive processes of understanding external reality, translating the reality into internal representation and utilizing it in problem solving. Three experiments were conducted to investigate important characteristics of mental models, their influence on task performance, and instructional strategies facilitating their formation. The experiments were conducted in computer-based training environments designed to teach troubleshooting electronic logic circuits. The results suggested: (a) dynamic characteristics of mental models are important for solving problems if understanding functional behaviors of the system is required to perform the task; (b) dynamic characteristics of mental models are determined primarily by subjects'' understanding of the system features and functions more than by the visually presented training contents of the system; and (c) motion simulating system functions in visual displays is more effective than static visual displays in facilitating the formation of dynamic characteristics of mental models. Consequently, dynamic visual displays are more effective than static visual displays for teaching electronic troubleshooting skills. These findings provide direct implications for the development of training programs.
The search for scientific bases for confronting problems of social policy is bound to fail, becuase of the nature of these problems. They are wicked problems, whereas science has developed to deal with tame problems. Policy problems cannot be definitively described. Moreover, in a pluralistic society there is nothing like the undisputable public good; there is no objective definition of equity; policies that respond to social problems cannot be meaningfully correct or false; and it makes no sense to talk about optimal solutions to social problems unless severe qualifications are imposed first. Even worse, there are no solutions in the sense of definitive and objective answers.
This research-based essay argues, as a stimulus to Forum discussion, that our currently age-differentiated society will give way to an age-integrated one. Age will lose its power
to constrain people's entry, exit, and performance in such basic social institutions as education, work, and retirement. Revolutionary
changes toward age integration are needed to reduce the “structural lag,” in which the dynamism of human aging is outpacing
the dynamism of structural change. To guide these changes, aging research is beginning to complement existing knowledge about
human lives with new and deeper understanding of the social structures which shape and are shaped by these lives.
Complex environmental health problems--like air and water pollution, hazardous waste sites, and lead poisoning--are in reality a constellation of linked problems embedded in the fabric of the communities in which they occur. These kinds of complex problems have been characterized by some as "wicked problems" wherein stakeholders may have conflicting interpretations of the problem and the science behind it, as well as different values, goals, and life experiences. Accordingly, policy makers, public health professionals, and other stakeholders who grapple with these problems cannot expect to effectively resolve them by relying solely on expert-driven approaches to problem solving. Rather, they need to acknowledge that wicked environmental health problems are most likely to yield to (1) the application of effective community health promotion skills, (2) a sustained commitment to sound toxicological and epidemiological science, (3) the application of systems thinking, and (4) transparent communication among all stakeholders.
Social impact efforts that create real value
- G Serafeim
Global aging in a warming world
- A Carle
25 years ago I coined the phrase “triple bottom line.” Here’s why it’s time to rethink it
- J Elkington
The global aging preparedness index
- R Jackson
- N Howe
- K Nakashima
Sustainability education within universities [Conference session
- F Bran
- I Ioan
- C V Rădulescu
Cultivating cultures of sustainability: Harnessing personalities and perspectives to create more sustainable societies. Association for Psychological Science
- K Armstrong
6 graphs explain the world’s top 10 emitters. World Resource Institute
- M Ge
- J Friedrich
- T Damassa
Culture and the environment: How cultural values influence global ecologic practices
- M Waas
Why our world is aging
- W A Haseltine
Report of the World Commission on Environment and Development: Our common future (United Nations General Assembly document A/42/427
- G H Brundtland