Top business schools legitimacy quest through the sustainable development goals

Abstract

An organization acquires legitimacy when it operates in an appropriate and desirable manner, satisfying thestakeholders' needs and expectations. Stakeholders claim to business schools sustainable and responsible man-agement, knowledge transfer and research. In the last years, business schools adopted Corporate Social Re-sponsibility as guideline of an integrated and holistic approach for their legitimation process. The aim of thisresearch is to understand how business schools are reacting to the criticism that affects them and how they arereshaping their strategies in order to fulfill stakeholders’expectations, and to confirm which UN SustainableDevelopment Goals are the most cited in the sustainability reports of the best business schools in the world. Weperform a content analysis of the latest sustainability reports published by the top 50 business schools, analyzingthe 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals. We highlight that business schools focus social responsibility stra-tegies mainly to define the professional standards to train future leaders qualified to manage organizations with asocial, economic and environmental positive impact for all the stakeholders and capable to shape a better world.