Current and Future Sustainability Competences at MBS
Espiritu, Karen (2025)
2025
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Julkaisun pysyvä osoite on
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-2025061122330
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-2025061122330
Tiivistelmä
The objective of this thesis is to identify the current and future sustainability competences that need to be acquired by Metropolia Business School (MBS) Master´s students, from the stakeholders´ perspectives, in order to better incorporate sustainability expertise into the existing Master´s curricula. The stakeholders in this Thesis are internal staff and the students, who both influence the study contents and thus their perspectives were important to explore.
The thesis used qualitative research methods, namely surveys and interviews, to explore the stakeholder perspectives. Also, two extensive literature reviews were conducted to explore sustainability competences across various EU documents for the HEI education settings and for segmenting the sustainability competences for HEIs.
The survey among MBS Master´s students and semi-structured interviews among MBS Master´s teaching staff? revealed that MBS students expressed high interest for organized, practical, and structured sustainability knowledge that they can easily apply and share. In the interviews with the MBS teaching staff, the need for clearer, more structured, and more practical guide in integrating sustainability in the teaching subjects was underscored. The thesis also identified a practical need for visualization tools that would facilitate integration of sustainability competences into different courses.
The outcome of the thesis is the lists of current and future sustainability competencies identified and the Sustainability Competences Compass. This Sustainability Competences Compass segments the sustainability competences and thus provides a clearer picture on how “sustainability competence” can be defined to support MBS instructors in designing and planning their courses. The compass would help the MBS teaching staff identify the areas that are addressed and also those that are untouched. This will help prevent over-focusing on developing just one competency and would instead help identify and integrate a broader range of skills into courses that are taught in MBS. The compass can be utilized, for example, in “Competence area” teams in MBS to facilitate sharing of teaching contents, strategies and practices among MBS teaching staff.
The thesis used qualitative research methods, namely surveys and interviews, to explore the stakeholder perspectives. Also, two extensive literature reviews were conducted to explore sustainability competences across various EU documents for the HEI education settings and for segmenting the sustainability competences for HEIs.
The survey among MBS Master´s students and semi-structured interviews among MBS Master´s teaching staff? revealed that MBS students expressed high interest for organized, practical, and structured sustainability knowledge that they can easily apply and share. In the interviews with the MBS teaching staff, the need for clearer, more structured, and more practical guide in integrating sustainability in the teaching subjects was underscored. The thesis also identified a practical need for visualization tools that would facilitate integration of sustainability competences into different courses.
The outcome of the thesis is the lists of current and future sustainability competencies identified and the Sustainability Competences Compass. This Sustainability Competences Compass segments the sustainability competences and thus provides a clearer picture on how “sustainability competence” can be defined to support MBS instructors in designing and planning their courses. The compass would help the MBS teaching staff identify the areas that are addressed and also those that are untouched. This will help prevent over-focusing on developing just one competency and would instead help identify and integrate a broader range of skills into courses that are taught in MBS. The compass can be utilized, for example, in “Competence area” teams in MBS to facilitate sharing of teaching contents, strategies and practices among MBS teaching staff.