The business case and barriers for responsible management education in business schools

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to gain a greater depth of understanding of both the pressures and barriers for embedding responsible management education (RME) within business and management schools. Design/methodology/approach - This paper utilises a longitudinal case study design of six business/management schools. Findings - This research identifies a set of institutional pressures and barriers for RME in the business schools selected. First, the pressures appear to come from a number of external business school sources and the barriers from a series of organisational resource and individual factors. Research limitations/implications - RME cannot be seen as just a bolt on. The orientation needs to change to view RME as requiring a shift in culture/purpose/identity. Due to the barriers this will require systemic organisational change at all levels and an organisational change process to bring about implementation. Practical implications - The results clearly show these market pressures are no passing fad. Failure to respond in a systemic way will mean business schools will run into serious problems with legitimacy. Originality/value - This paper fulfils a need for an in depth study of a number of business schools to identify the barriers to RME. This is now a critical issue for schools and this research has provided a number of practical recommendations which will help business schools overcome the identified barriers.