Responsible management education (RME) post COVID-19: what must change in public business schools?

Purpose Through a multiple case study design, this article elaborates the chances of initiating and/or implementing responsible management education (RME) in Egyptian public business schools after the identification of COVID-19. In other words, this paper identifies the effect of COVID-19 on internalizing RME in the previously mentioned context. Design/methodology/approach This is a qualitative study. The author focused on academics who work in four out of the 25 business schools in Egypt and employed a multiple-case study design (to collect his data. Findings The results showed that COVID-19 has not had any effect on the adoption of sustainable business education in the sample institutions. Moreover, some respondents went further and indicated that the identification of coronavirus slows down any attempt to implement RME in Egyptian public business schools. Accordingly, the author thinks that the sample business schools can implement RME post-COVID-19 if they overcome the following three types of obstacles: self-determination, contextual and national obstacles. Originality/value This paper contributes by filling a gap in RME, leadership and literature in the higher education sector, in which empirical studies on the effect of COVID-19 on the performance of business school have been limited until now.