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

Purpose – This paper focuses on three out of the 24 public business schools in Egypt 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 minutes, and interviews were conducted in Arabic as most respondents have no mastery of the English language. The authors used thematic analysis to extract 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 three Egyptian public business schools. Besides a lack of general acceptance and awareness 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 transdisciplinary research on the global responsibility themes business schools have to manage. Practical implications – If the administration of the addressed business schools seek to implement responsible management education, they should overcome the following barriers. Firstly, the functional barrier (the limited financial budget and need for official approval to address both sociocultural and environmental aspects). Secondly, procedural barriers (lack of channels for formal and/or informal collaborations with governmental bodies, private enterprises, NGOs and social activist groups). Thirdly, Edu-academic barriers (lack of CSR inclusion in business school strategy, faculty promotion and incentives not tied to their proactive embedding of sustainable development and other socio-cultural issues into their curricula, research and academic practices, and no incentive or support for interdisciplinary and trans-disciplinary collaboration with researchers and faculty from other departments and faculties). 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