Exploring the sustainability mindset for management education with a focus on social sustainability

Bowing to mostly economics-driven models, business and management education has failed to embrace the complexity and boundaries of organizational systems. This failure has resulted in a disconnection from ourselves, the social environment, and the natural environment. Our interconnectedness with the world could be re-established through critical, mindful self-reflection and awareness, adding an emotional layer to our cognitive-heavy education efforts that would ignite behavioral change and action. In this chapter, we explore how to unlearn the economics-driven perspective by approaching sustainable development using a systems theory perspective and supplementing it with the sustainability mindset concept. Systems theory supports the importance of identifying all interrelated processes within the system and their multiple consequences across it all, while the three pillars of the sustainability mindset, knowing (having the knowledge to understand and do something), being (acknowledging the human factor within organizational decisions), and doing (being able to comprehensively implement changes), guide the discussion toward a more effective and accurate way to deal with the social issues of sustainable development within business education and thus address Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 4 (Quality Education). Educators can use the concept of the sustainability mindset to challenge the economics-driven models in management education. Furthermore, the sustainability mindset equips learners with a unique perspective on exploring the complexity and interconnectedness of today's challenges and enables them to navigate the multiple seas of uncertainty.