Teaching corporate social responsibility to international MBA students - challenges and recommendations

In recent years, the principles for responsible management education (PRME) and the sustainable development goals (SDGs) have emerged as guiding frameworks for transforming business education. Teaching corporate social responsibility (CSR) has become increasingly important and is now included in many business school curricula. It is, however, different from other courses taught in business schools: while most business school modules are highly scientific and quantitative, CSR modules discuss values and beliefs, and students who had few non-quantitative courses so far might feel uneasy. Previous research has found that international students from collectivist cultures often seem to avoid conflict and/or discussing controversial topics. In a module on CSR where views and opinions are highly important, this can cause problems. By evaluating data from MBA classes taught at Coventry University, consisting of 109 students from all over the world, this research sheds some light on the challenges of teaching CSR to culturally diverse cohorts as well as on the question of how the teaching could be improved.