By Dr. Sylvia Mónica Pérez-Núñez

Entrepreneurship is a powerful means to transform society and achieve economic and social well-being; social actors like companies are distinguished in the progress of countries, engines of development, and economic growth to alleviate the inequalities in living standards.

Business activities and sustainable development issues and priorities are intertwined; in 1987, the United Nations World Commission on Environment and Development, chaired by Dr. Gro Harlem Brundtland, presented the report «Our Common Future» where they defined sustainable development as a «development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs» and has three foundations: economic, social, and environmental.

For the United Nations, the leading role of the business sector in achieving the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) published in 2015, known as the «2030 Agenda» is very relevant.

Over 190 countries have committed to generating efforts to achieve these objectives and their specific goals.

Talking about a business activity focused on sustainability targets the values that trigger a sustainable business mindset; on the scale of «10 values developed» by Shalom Schwartz in 1994, there are two values linked to sustainability: benevolence, which is the search for the well-being of those people with whom ties grant a certain sense of belonging, and universalism, defined as a concern, tolerance, appreciation, and respect for all people and nature. According to this author, values are desired trans-situational goals that vary in importance and serve as life-guiding principles.

The challenge for universities and business schools is finding curricular and non-curricular strategies for students to develop the values that trigger a sustainable business mindset; it is a holistic thinking approach that results from understanding ecosystem functioning, social sensitivity, and personal values expressed through actions for the common good.

Actions toward the sustainability 

Educating in a sustainable mindset means developing projects and initiatives that nurture the development of four areas: system perspective, ecological worldview, and emotional and spiritual intelligence. In the curse of time, CETYS University launched various programs, initiatives, and curricular development around sustainability, such as:  

Research and results

At CETYS, sustainability awareness is relevant for students’ development and graduation competencies. In 2022, we carried out two research projects intending to obtain evidence that all these Institutional efforts around sustainability have a transformational impact on the values profile of students. A survey was carried out at the system level, using the instrument developed by Schwartz (1992) and translated into Spanish, and validated for Mexican undergraduate students.

The students enrolled in the first and seventh semesters in the various programs of the School of Administration and Business in the 2022-1 semester participated. The evidence proved a better positioning of the benevolence value in the value profile of the seventh-semester students, which indicates a preference in the search for the well-being of those people with whom links have been made, above the satisfaction of their own needs.

In the 2022-2 semester, the same survey was carried out at two moments, at the beginning and end of the course of Human Being and Sustainability to analyze the transformational impact of the activities, projects, and initiatives of the course on the values profile of the students. It is important to note that this course is part of the undergraduate curricula in all university training programs of the seventh semester. At the end of the semester, the results indicated a better positioning of the values of benevolence and universalism, first and second place.

The positioning of the values of benevolence and universalism in the first places of the values profile of CETYS students generates evidence that: CETYS University meets the challenge of delivering instrumental knowledge and develops the appropriate scenario to promote sustainability and influence the world view and student attitudes towards sustainability; it contributes to the training of business leaders who generate a profound social change since the personal values of these students look forward the common good; and also contributes to the development of a sustainable mindset, that is, a holistic thinking approach that results from understanding the ecosystem functioning, a social sensitivity and personal values expressed through actions for the common good.

Research project 316 was approved in the 3rd CETYS Call to support research projects, entitled: Values of benevolence and universalism as triggers of a sustainable entrepreneurship mindset in undergraduate students. Project leader Dr. Sylvia Mónica Pérez-Núñez, collaborators Dr. Diana Woolfolk-Ruíz and Dr. Raúl Martínez-Flores.