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Vision
22(3) 276–283
Importance-performance Analysis to © 2018 MDI
SAGE Publications
Identify Effective Learning Approaches sagepub.in/home.nav
DOI: 10.1177/0972262918785963

for Sustainability in an Indian Business http://journals.sagepub.com/home/vis

School

Neeraj Singhal1
Himani Gupta2
Garima Mittal3

Abstract
Sustainability and sustainable development have become a crucial keyword in today’s environment. It is now being felt that incorporation
of sustainable practices should not be followed only by different sectors (public or private) but these concepts should also be taught
at business schools to embed the concepts of sustainable practices right from the very beginning. There are 37 learning approaches
identified on the basis of Principles for Responsible Management Education (PRME), which forms the core of the work presented in
this study. To implement the proposed analysis, responses were collected from the students of a top public management institute of
India on the basis of importance and performance parameters of the learning approaches for sustainability. The responses were than
analysed through importance-performance analysis (IPA). It was observed that most effective learning approaches for learning the
concepts of sustainability issues include case studies, lectures by experts, internships on sustainability etc. Students also perceived the
significance of sustainability in business management and also showed preference to work with those companies, which actually holds
sustainability as a core value.

Key Words
PRME, Perceptions, Performance, Importance, Management Education, Sustainability

Introduction They are accepting the greater responsibility to move in


this direction to bring sustainability approaches into their
Sustainability concepts are continuously gaining momen- work place, will influence the mind sets and actions.
tum due to the recognition provided to it by the leading Business schools with global perspective have acknowl-
business leaders, governments and society at large across edged their responsibility for this purpose and have joined
the globe. There are many corporations such as Walmart, the United Nations (UN) Principles for Responsible
Nike, ITC, Kraft, 3M, DuPont, P&G, Nestle and GE incor- Management Education (PRME, 2013) initiative. The present
porated the sustainability in their processes as the core study is an effort to map sustainability importance in
element and have recognized its importance in profitability business and business education by observing student
(Seidman, 2008). Most of the organizations are trying their response through various learning approaches to analyse
best to incorporate sustainability across product and the importance versus performance towards sustainability.
services value chain on the part of all stakeholders; in this Importance-performance analysis (IPA) is an important
scenario, the educators, business leaders of next/current marketing research tool used by many researchers to conduct
generations and business schools are in a unique position. studies focused on customers’ attitude towards product

1 Associate Professor, Apeejay School of Management, Dwarka, New Delhi, India.


2 Assistant Professor, Indian Institute of Foreign Trade, New Delhi, India.
3 Assistant Professor, Indian Institute of Management Lucknow (Noida Campus), Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, India.

Corresponding author:
Neeraj Singhal, Associate Professor, Apeejay School of Management, Sector 8, Institutional Area, Dwarka, New Delhi 110077, India.
E-mail: neeraj_mbd@yahoo.com
Singhal et al. 277

or services. This tool has been used in sectors such as Sustainability in Management
automotive, food, housing, tourism, education, health, hos- Education
pitality and so on (Alexitch, Kobussen, & Stookey, 2004;
Cunningham & Gaeth, 1989; Dolinsky, 1991; Go & Zhang, Management education needs to address the societal and
2008; Hawes & Rao, 1985; Kitcharoen, 2004; Martilla & environmental issues and challenges and have to prepare
James, 1977; Sethna, 1982; Silva & Fernandes, 2010). the responsible management education system, which will
This study investigates the importance and performance prepare their students equally responsible to involve in
of sustainability practices in a top management public insti- sustainable business. Many management institutions have
tute located in National Capital Region (NCR) in India. therefore become involved in embedding sustainable
This is the only institute that offers a full time sustainable development as part of responsible management education
into their academic systems. This was also due to use of
development postgraduate management programme among
‘responsible management’ as one of the important criteria
top public management institute in the country.
in the international accreditation process and thus leading
to greater acceptability among its target audience. The UN-
Principles for Responsible supported PRME initiative is an important catalyst for the
Management Education (PRME) transformation of management education in this direction
(Singhal, Suryawanshi, & Mittal, 2017).
The PRME were first published in 2007 at the UN Global Business school graduates are regularly characterized as
Compact Leaders’ Summit in Geneva, Switzerland. This cold-blooded technocrats lacking interpersonal skills, inter-
summit was attended by more than 1,000 delegates includ- cultural abilities, emotional and ecological intelligence,
ing representatives from commercial, civil and government trust worthiness or social responsibility (Mintzberg, 2004).
sectors. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon emphasized Many business schools have taken this criticism as an oppor-
the potential benefits of the PRME in his closing remarks tunity to undertake a critical review and self-examination of
as follows: ‘The Principles for Responsible Management their educational practices. Business schools have started
Education have the capacity to take the case for universal transforming themselves from being career training centre
values and business into classrooms on every continent’. to the enablers of corporate responsibility. This required
The first of the six principles is ‘we will develop the them to relook at the holistic management education so as to
capabilities of students to be future generators of sustain- provide responsible education to students that will lead to a
able value for business and society at large and to work for responsible society.
an inclusive and sustainable global economy’. The five other Lozano et al. (2015) reviewed more than 60 papers
principles include global social responsibility, responsible from sustainability adaptation perspective and concluded
leadership, research in sustainable social–environmental– that maximum studies focused on education including
economic value, interaction with managers to share experi- curriculum, pedagogy, competence and educating the
ences and to support dialogues related to global social educator; second, important aspect was campus operations,
responsibility (Erskine & Johnson, 2012; PRME, 2013). institutional framework, outreach, assessment and report-
This study explores the role and position of Indian ing. Third, area was research and fourth one was campus
business schools, who are aligning their strategies with experience.
PRME. An Indian leading public institution considered for
data collection, who is in the final stage of AACSB accred- Student Preferences
itation. This study is conducted through students as respond-
ent who are the brand ambassadors of the business school/ The UN-backed PRME has emerged as a learning plat-
form for business schools to encourage co-operation at
institution and budding corporate managers.
teaching, research and institutional level with other
business schools across the world to deal with global
What is Sustainability? responsibility issues at economic, social and environmen-
tal level (Sobczak & Mukhi, 2016). The 35 learning
Sustainability means showing equal concern for human approaches identified (Erskine & Johnson, 2012), in which
and economic development (Brundtland Commission, 1987). some learning approaches are considered to be signifi-
Over a period of time, sustainable development has gained cantly more or less effective at the undergraduate level, and
momentum as the international declarations are trying to further classified into the five different groups which
bind the globe through single cord while showing concern helped them to understand the most effective to least
for environment. Stockholm Conference in 1972 (UNEP, effective learning approaches.
1972) recognized the role of education for environmental It is noticed that if businesses are embracing a triple
protection and conservation. Since then, many higher bottom line, then Indian business schools need to prepare
education institutions have been engaged in embedding students for triple bottom-line thinking, and it will play an
sustainability throughout the academic cycle. important role in sustainability education by creating the
278 Vision 22(3)

awareness, understanding and concern that might motivate


Indian students to take action in their personal and organi-
zational lives to facilitate environmentally sustainable
behaviour.
Although it will help Indian business schools and acad-
emicians to create opportunities for the students based on
what students should learn, so the student preferences should
be identified. It will also help to build up the better curricu-
lum through effective learning approaches identified.
The gap in literature helped to take an action to conduct
an exploratory study to identify the learning approaches
in Indian business schools. It can offer new insights into
emerging trends in management education in India. This
Figure 1. The Original IPA Framework
research addressed how the business schools are concerned
to demonstrate that learning outcomes are being met and Source: Martilla and James (1977).
how the students are being exposed to social and environ-
mental issues through the learning approaches as a part of
Further, the gaps between the importance and perfor-
responsible management education into their academic
mance are measured by paired t-test, it will test whether
system.
there is any significant difference in the learning approaches
for their importance to its performance or not (Lai &
Methodology Hitchock, 2015).
A premier management institute is considered as a sampling
frame and judgement sampling technique is considered for Profile of Respondents
this study. There are 37 unique learning approaches derived
from 125 publicly available PRME Sharing of Information A total of 200 structured questionnaires were distributed to
on Progress (SIP) reports and on the basis of Erskine and respondents and received 151 filled questionnaires back
Johnson (2012). This study was based on student percep- which is representing a response rate of 75.5 per cent. The
tion about sustainability. In this study, we have collected reliability of the questionnaire is tested, and the Guttmann
student response on importance versus performance-based split half coefficient of the questionnaire to measure the
learning approaches for sustainability. importance and performance is 0.776 and 0.887, respec-
The IPA technique is identified as a basic diagnostic tively. The demographic profile of the respondents is highly
decision tool (Johns, 2001; Matzler, Sauerwein, & skewed, as 87 per cent respondent students are male and
Heishmidlt, 2003) that helps to identify the positioning of 11.25 per cent are female, and 2 per cent respondent has
the attributes for the improvement prioritization. It helps not disclosed their identity. In this study, the respondent
to deploy of scarce resources, where they are absolutely students are from diversified background, but majority of
necessary (Leveburg & Magal, 2005). To describe the results students have information technology (IT) approximately
of IP matrix through its typology that classifies importance 46 per cent, oil and energy 15 per cent and automobile
and performance on a scale of low and high is used. It helps 9 per cent and 30 per cent other backgrounds such as
in interpreting the data easily which give insight for strategic banking, consulting, construction, education, e-commerce,
decision-making. FMCG, healthcare, manufacturing, marketing, pharmaceu-
There are slight varying methods proposed for an IPA tical, telecommunication and so on.
mapping, where the partitioning by data-centred quadrant The respondents are working as executive students, and
approach offered a high discriminative power (Bacon, their age and year of experience distribution are given in
2013), and the classical optimization interpretation (Eskidsen Figure 2, which shows that on an average, experience of
& Kristensen, 2006) given by Martilla and James (1977) the respondents is approximately 8 years with standard
(Figure 1) is quite straightforward, which is as follows: deviation 3 years and average age of respondent is approxi-
mately 31 years with standard deviation 4 year.
Quadrant I:    High importance and high performance
(keep up the good work)
Results and Discussion
Quadrant II:   Low importance and high performance
(possible over kill) The importance and performance were measured through
Quadrant III:  Low importance and low performance survey based on a five-point Likert scale in which scaling
(low priority) is as follows: (1 = not important, 2 = of little importance,
Quadrant IV:  High importance and low performance 3 = moderately important, 4 = important, 5 = extremely
(concentrate here) important) and (1 = strongly disagree, 2 = disagree,
Singhal et al. 279

Figure 2. Distribution of the Age and Work Experience in Years in Their Respective Industry
Source: Authors’ own.

3 = undecided, 4 = somewhat agree, 5 = strongly agree) for 10 (guest speakers in classes to discuss sustainability),
importance and performance, respectively. The business 11 (invited lectures by experts in sustainability), 12 (enhanced
school is offering different programmes to graduate environmentally friendly (green) initiatives on campus),
students and executives following a standard pedagogy for 15 (promoting student team projects related to sustain-
the major courses offered. The objective of this study to ability), 16 (floating elective course in sustainability for
access the importance of learning approaches and its gap/ students) and 19 (mentoring programme to help students
differentiation with the implementation or performance on learn about sustainability).
such important learning approaches. The IPA is performed Concentrate here (2, 7, 20, 26, 27, 37): 2 (sustainability
through SPSS, and the quadrants are formed on the basis of integrated into various classes), 7 (a field trip away from
its median. campus to learn about sustainability), 20 (a career fair about
The IPA is performed median-wise as shown in sustainability jobs), 26 (certification for students involved
Figure 3, and it is seen that following the good ones on which in innovative sustainability activities), 27 (sustainability
importance and performance both are good (3, 4, 5, 6, 9, 10, incorporated into the mission of the college) and 37
11, 12, 15, 16, 19), where 3 (promoting internships related (participation in sustainability rankings/ratings such as
to sustainable business practices), 4 (use of sustainability- Princeton rankings). After analysing these observed
related business simulations in class), 5 (implementation of sustainability learning approaches fall into quadrant II,
sustainability practices at the institute level), 6 (interna- student needs recognition for such activity through a certi-
tional opportunities to learn about sustainability), 9 (con- fication, who are involved in innovative sustainability. It
ducting case studies in classes based on sustainability), will help them to connect and provide a platform of such
certified jobs in respective areas, as they have understood
its importance in business (refer to Table 1). No. 2 (sustain-
ability integrated into various classes) is already taken care
by exposed sustainability-related business simulations,
conducting case studies in classes based on sustainability
and guest speakers in classes to discuss sustainability or
invited lectures by experts in sustainability.
Possible overkill (13, 17, 18**, 22**, 23, 29, 31**): 13
(establishing a sustainable business centre in the institute),
17 (starting a new degree programme in sustainability
within the institute), 18 (promoting research-level studies
about sustainability among students)**, 22 (conducting
workshops with faculty–business people to discuss
sustainability issues)**, 23 (independent study projects
offered in sustainability), 29 (organizing a conference
focused on sustainability), 31 (student panel discussion
pertaining to sustainability) **, here asterisk marked on
Figure 3. Median-based Importance and Performance some learning approaches are on the border line of that
Source: Authors’ own. quadrant and not necessary be the same performer always.
Table 1. Analytical Data on Perceived Importance and Performance about Sustainability

Importance Performance Difference


Mean Std. Std. Error
Sl. No. Measure of Sustainability Mean S.D. Mean S.D. diff. Dev. Mean t df Sig.
 1 Providing sustainability-related scholarships 3.540 1.008 2.879 1.213 0.662 1.431 0.118 5.628 147 0
 2 Sustainability integrated into various classes 3.781 0.879 3.320 1.149 0.460 1.455 0.119 3.873 149 0
 3 Promoting internships related to sustainable business practices 3.860 0.828 3.500 3.516 0.349 3.537 0.290 1.204 148 0.23
 4 Use of sustainability-related business simulations in class 3.913 0.846 3.333 1.072 0.581 1.325 0.109 5.336 147 0
 5 Implementation of sustainability practices at the institute level 4.132 0.884 3.333 1.151 0.793 1.503 0.123 6.465 149 0
 6 International opportunities to learn about sustainability 4.119 0.901 3.413 1.148 0.700 1.268 0.104 6.762 149 0
 7 A field trip away from campus to learn about sustainability 4.127 0.830 3.327 1.971 0.799 2.121 0.174 4.596 148 0
 8 Additional points for students involved in sustainability projects 3.523 1.050 2.967 1.071 0.561 1.430 0.118 4.772 147 0
 9 Conducting case studies in classes based on sustainability 4.046 0.859 3.673 0.993 0.373 1.344 0.110 3.402 149 0.001
10 Guest speakers in classes to discuss sustainability 3.861 0.917 3.747 1.031 0.113 1.196 0.098 1.161 149 0.248
11 Invited lectures by experts in sustainability 4.106 0.873 3.793 1.005 0.313 1.188 0.097 3.230 149 0.002
12 Enhanced environmentally friendly (green) initiatives on campus 3.828 0.943 3.413 1.100 0.407 1.371 0.112 3.632 149 0
13 Establishing a sustainable business centre in the institute 3.709 0.861 3.293 1.132 0.407 1.311 0.107 3.798 149 0
14 Incorporating sustainability learning goals within existing courses 3.656 0.825 3.347 1.055 0.307 1.290 0.105 2.912 149 0.004
15 Promoting student team projects related to sustainability 3.742 0.836 3.369 1.117 0.369 1.307 0.107 3.448 148 0.001
16 Floating elective course in sustainability for students 3.848 0.915 3.560 1.052 0.287 1.276 0.104 2.751 149 0.007
17 Starting a new degree programme in sustainability within the institute 3.483 0.965 3.833 1.102 −0.353 1.311 0.107 −3.300 149 0.001
18 Promoting research-level studies about sustainability among students 3.742 0.905 3.473 0.993 0.264 1.139 0.094 2.814 147 0.006
19 Mentoring programme to help students learn about sustainability 3.733 0.816 3.477 1.031 0.250 1.309 0.108 2.324 147 0.021
20 A career fair about sustainability jobs 3.993 0.993 3.080 1.190 0.893 1.424 0.117 7.649 148 0
21 Forming student organizations targeting sustainability projects 3.669 0.822 3.220 1.117 0.440 1.344 0.110 4.011 149 0
22 Conducting workshops with faculty–business people to discuss 3.807 0.800 3.480 1.091 0.315 1.263 0.103 3.048 148 0.003
sustainability issues
23 Independent study projects offered in sustainability 3.533 0.872 3.418 1.049 0.117 1.233 0.102 1.145 144 0.254
24 Conducting student competitions in classes based on sustainability issues 3.487 0.939 3.248 1.052 0.243 1.307 0.107 2.264 147 0.025
25 Forming a student club focused on sustainability 3.477 0.972 3.293 1.090 0.173 1.413 0.115 1.502 149 0.135
26 Certification for students involved in innovative sustainability activities 3.775 0.896 3.220 1.086 0.547 1.393 0.114 4.806 149 0
27 Sustainability incorporated into the mission of the college 3.768 0.996 3.153 1.079 0.607 1.404 0.115 5.291 149 0
28 Compulsory sustainability course for all students in college 3.278 1.078 3.027 1.096 0.262 1.490 0.122 2.144 148 0.034
29 Organizing a conference focused on sustainability 3.298 1.051 3.493 1.059 −0.209 1.376 0.113 −1.851 147 0.066
30 Holding a film series focused on sustainability issues 3.311 1.072 3.207 1.082 0.107 1.270 0.104 1.029 149 0.305
31 Student panel discussion pertaining to sustainability 3.467 0.946 3.329 1.023 0.135 1.227 0.101 1.340 147 0.182
32 Alumni network projects related to sustainability 3.616 0.965 3.113 1.114 0.500 1.241 0.101 4.934 149 0
33 Social nights on-campus/off-campus for student groups to discuss 3.340 0.975 2.800 1.105 0.537 1.260 0.103 5.201 148 0
sustainability issues
34 Online webinars related to sustainability 3.212 0.921 2.927 1.094 0.287 1.166 0.095 3.010 149 0.003
35 A pledge taken by students to observe sustainability practices 2.913 1.164 3.100 1.104 −0.181 1.381 0.113 −1.602 148 0.111
36 Membership of international sustainability forums such as PRME 3.702 0.929 3.187 1.161 0.520 1.389 0.113 4.585 149 0
(Principles for Responsible Management Education) by the institute
37 Participation in sustainability rankings/ratings such as Princeton rankings 3.834 0.883 3.113 1.190 0.720 1.400 0.114 6.297 149 0
Source: Authors’ own.
Singhal et al. 281

Table 2. Attitude towards Sustainability

Sustainability Attitudes Mean SD n


I would prefer to work for a company that embraces sustainability as a core value 4.13 0.86 144
Sustainability is an important topic in business 4.24 0.75 144
Sustainability is an important topic to me 4.12 0.74 144
I am very knowledgeable about sustainability issues in business 3.31 1.01 144
Source: Authors’ own.

Table 3. Attitude towards Sustainability

% Strongly % Agree and


Sustainability Attitudes % Agree Agree Strongly Agree
I would prefer to work for a company that embraces sustainability as a core value 47.9 35.4 83.3
Sustainability is an important topic in business 50.7 38.9 89.6
Sustainability is an important topic to me 52.1 31.3 83.4
I am very knowledgeable about sustainability issues in business 31.9 11.8 43.7
Source: Authors’ own.

The paired t-test was conducted for all 37 sustainability Conclusion


learning approaches and found that there is no evidence
which shows the difference between importance and per- Through the Importance-performance Analysis (IPA)
ceived performance at institute level through curriculum we concluded that among the 37 learning approaches,
following are considered to be significantly important
for nine learning approaches of sustainability. These learn-
and equally perceived effectiveness in its performance:
ing approaches are as follows: 3 (promoting internships
related to sustainable business practices), 10 (guest speak- • Promoting internships related to sustainable
ers in classes to discuss sustainability), 19 (mentoring business practices,
programme to help students learn about sustainability), 23 • Use of sustainability-related business simulations in
(sustainability incorporated into the mission of the college), class,
25 (forming a student club focused on sustainability), • Implementation of sustainability practices at the
29 (organizing a conference focused on sustainability), institute level,
30 (holding a film series focused on sustainability issues), • International opportunities to learn about sustain-
31 (student panel discussion pertaining to sustainability) ability,
and 35 (a pledge taken by students to observe sustainability • Conducting case studies in classes based on
practices). sustainability,
A total of 144 students out of 151 responded on the • Guest speakers in classes to discuss sustainability,
attitude towards sustainability issues (Table 2). It indicates • Invited lectures by experts in sustainability,
that the students tend to agree and prefer to work for a • Enhanced environmentally friendly (green) initia-
company that embraces sustainability as a core value (4.13) tives on campus,
and the sustainability important for them and in business • Promoting student team projects related to sustain-
(4.24), which gives slightly higher weight in comparison ability,
with the first attitude, and they have accepted the impor- • Floating elective course in sustainability for
tance of sustainability for themselves (4.12). Finally, one- students and mentoring programme to help students
learn about sustainability.
third of the students felt that they lack knowledge about
sustainability in the field of business (3.31). There are some areas identified for sustainability learning
In Table 3 the responses compiled on sustainability atti- approaches where institute needs to concentrate and falls
tudes shows interesting observation beyond the mean into quadrant II. After analysing those learning approaches,
score. It is observed as 80 per cent or more of the respond- it clearly indicates that students need recognition for such
ent agreed and strongly agreed to prefer to work for a activity in terms of certification by the recognized institute/
company that embraces as a core value, and 89.6 per cent body. This will develop the capabilities among students
agreed and strongly agreed that sustainability is an impor- who are future leaders of sustainable values for business
tant topic in business and for them also. It is observed that and society at large and to work for an inclusive and
43.7 per cent students are knowledgeable about sustain- sustainable global economy which will help the institute to
ability issues in business. fulfil the objective of PRME.
282 Vision 22(3)

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ness schools: An interview with Jonas Haertle. Journal of Garima Mittal (garima@iiml.ac.in) did her MSc and
Management Inquiry, 25(4), 431–437. MPhil from IIT Roorkee and later finished her PhD in
UNEP. (1972). Declaration of the United Nations Conference on Operations Research from University of Delhi, Delhi,
the Human Environment. UNEP. Retrieved from http://www. India. She is currently working as an Assistant Professor at
unep.org/Documents.Multilingual/Default.asp? Indian Institute of Management, Lucknow, in the area of
Decision Sciences. She has more than 16 years of
About the Authors experience in academia. She has published many research
papers in international journals of repute, including
Neeraj Singhal (neeraj_mbd@yahoo.com) is Associate Information Sciences, Journal of Global Optimization,
Professor at Apeejay School of Management, New Delhi, Optimization Letters and Insurance: Mathematics and
India, in the area of International Business. He has more Economics. Her area of interest is multi-criteria decision-
than 15 years of experience in academia and four years of making, mathematical modelling, fuzzy optimization and
experience in industry. He has published research papers in soft computing techniques.

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