MBA Program Trends and Best Practices in Teaching Sustainability: Live Project Courses

This study offers a model for incorporating live sustainability consulting projects in an MBA curriculum to nurture cross-functional faculty collaboration while offering students proving ground for solving contemporary challenges related to ethical management of all forms of capital. We attempt to first lay a foundation for the recent evolution of sustainability within business schools, and then provide evidence that an opportunity exists for decision science scholars to play a key role as facilitators of this wave of pedagogy. Our research is based on publicly available data that rank business schools relative to their integration of sustainability within MBA programs, our experiences with 39 project clients over a 3-year period, an analysis of client and student feedback, and anecdotal evidence of success in the development of live project-based consulting courses. The case study highlights the potential and scalability of this proposed pedagogy to deliver live projects as either a stand-alone course or an integrated part of the curriculum.