Responsible management education in Egyptian public business schools: Are academics ready?

Purpose: Out of 24 public business schools in Egypt, the purpose of this paper is to focus on three in order to investigate how responsible management education is perceived and exercised by academics there. Design/methodology/approach: A total of 168 academics were contacted and interviewed in 42 focus groups. The length of each focus group was about 45 min, and all of them were conducted in Arabic because the majority of respondents are not fluent in English. The authors used thematic analysis to determine the main ideas in the transcripts. Findings: Based on data analysis of the perceptions of academics concerning business education, research and management process at the target business schools, the authors of this paper found that responsible management education is not considered a priority in the work agendas of the Egyptian public business schools. Furthermore, the authors believe that besides issues with the general acceptance of the need for responsible management education, there are functional, procedural and edu-academic barriers that these schools need to overcome first before proceeding with implementation and expecting positive outcomes. Research limitations/implications: This research maybe subject to criticism because the authors address only the perspectives of academics in the chosen business schools while neglecting other academic partners, particularly those in managerial positions, such as rectors and heads of departments. Future researchers may use the same research questions to investigate a managerial level perspective to depict a more holistic picture of the situation. Moreover, including Egyptian private business schools may also enrich the findings. In fact, the authors suggest that scholars from different academic disciplines such as sustainability management, business ethics, higher education, sustainability and cultural diversity work together to produce more interdisciplinary and trans-disciplinary research on the global responsibility themes business schools have to manage. Originality/value: This paper contributes by filling a gap in sustainability, HR management, business ethics and higher education literature in which empirical studies on responsible management education and the responsible practices of academics have been limited so far.