Educating Accounting Students in the Age of Sustainability

Abstract

In many Business Schools today, accounting academics have been introduced to the concept of sustainabilitythat challenges the dominant 20th century way of doing business. In these schools, it is now reasoned that thepurpose of business may be better achieved if it involves taking decisions that recognize the holisticeconomic, social and environmental consequences of those decisions. Simply justifying decisions on the basisthat shareholders’ wealth will be maximized is now thought by many to be inadequate. We argue that this newperspective should not be taught to accounting students. Rather we argue that (following Aristotle) studentsshould be exposed to arguments that encourage them to develop the virtue of “unfettered vigor”, comingfrom intelligent personal choice, which will help them recognize that “good living”, by themselves and theirdescendants, is dependent on the sustainable business perspective being adopted in society.

Keywords

• ethics
• economics
• education
• sustainability
• corporate responsibility