Next Generation of Management Education: PRME in Action to Develop Responsible Leaders

Lavanya Deepika Tigga and Priya Namrata Topno

Research Scholar, School of Management and Labor Studies, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai, Email: [email protected]

Assistant Professor, Department of Public Safety and Disaster Management, Jharkhand Raksha Shakti University, Ranchi, E-mail: [email protected]

ABSTRACT:

Guided by the Principles for Responsible Management Education (PRME), business schools aim to equip future business leaders with skills, attitudes, and beliefs needed to balance economic and sustainability goals. The integration of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) into PRME principles is to shape the student’s mindset, skills, and capabilities towards green growth. However, the integration of sustainability themes into Master of Business Administration (MBA) curricula by business schools has often been driven more by political expediency and normative pressures than by genuine institutional commitment. While RME has been extensively studied in western contexts, research in Asian contexts, particularly India, remains limited. Responsibility in the Indian context entails being sensitive and addressing the needs of undermanaged societal sectors. Leading institutions, such as the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), Xavier Labour Relations Institute (XLRI), and the Indian Institute of Management (IIM), were founded with a vision to advance this mission through socially responsible management education. While Indian business schools have begun to adopt and engage with RME, the complexities still remain and visible disparities between the public and private schools exist. Prior research has found that Indian business schools undergo various challenges in incorporating RME into their curriculum. The change in curriculum design with a mandate to adopt the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 has further brought the trade-offs between sustainable and quality management education and commodified management education. Moreover, the persistent trade-off between profitability and responsibility continues to influence pedagogical choices and employability outcomes. To address these concerns, this study seeks to identify the practices and initiatives taken regarding Responsible Management Education within business schools to ensure inclusion of sustainability context in the curricula, which creates the next generation of responsible leaders. The study adopted a qualitative approach using the content analysis method to assess the sharing information on progress (SIP) reports published between January 2023 and December 2024. This paper offers an interdisciplinary contribution to the fields of higher education management, responsible leadership, and sustainability, integrating insights across these domains to advance scholarly discourse and practice.

Keywords: Business School, Responsible Leaders, Responsible Management Education, Sustainable Development Goal, National Education Policy.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.70994/jjdms.10947.10960

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