Antonia Girardi (she/her)

The chapter presents survey data from an Australian university cohort enrolled at Murdoch University in Perth. The data show that students prefer employers with good CSR and sustainability credentials and that general company related attributes are the least influential for their employer choice. Overall, the data point to a trend of growing CSR and sustainability sensitivity among the country’s future workforce, which at present is poorly matched by Australian companies. To contextualise the results, Australia today is a highly multicultural society without a clearly defined national culture. The country exhibits a raft of conflicting, cultural characteristics with both egalitarian and fatalistic environmental worldviews being equally dominant cultural biases. Despite a culture of self-reliance and a strong cynicism towards political authority, conformism is equally part of Australian culture as is the expectation on government to be interventionist and to be involved in the day-to-day management of social life. Despite these cultural tensions, there is a notable rise in pro-social and pro-environmental attitudes nationally, especially among young Australians, which is also reflected in the student survey data presented here.

Despite the recognized need for transdisciplinary teaching and learning to drive the operationalization of sustainability and ethical business conduct, disciplinary silos continue to dominate the curricula and administrative structures of many business schools. While with growing social and environmental stakes a reorientation of teaching and learning approaches is a sine qua non, the learning contexts typical of business schools worldwide continue to fall short of meeting the needs of students, society, and wider natural systems. The ‘sustainability and ethics void’ within established business curricula leaves future business leaders ill equipped for dealing with the complexities of social systems, institutions, and their environment and unable to solve growing global meta-problems (e.g. poverty, climate change). Against this background this chapter reports on efforts currently underway at the School of Business and Governance, Murdoch University to create new learning contexts where disciplinary knowledges can converge, values are included, and reflexive learning is embraced, allowing students to adopt a meaning orientation and a deep approach to learning. The School has recently become a signatory to the United Nations Principles for Responsible Management Education (PRME), and this chapter outlines the steps taken by members of the School-based Centre for Responsible Citizenship and Sustainability (CRCS) to support efforts to meet the School’s obligations under PRME. Specifically, attention is directed to the formation of the CRCS to drive transdisciplinary teaching and research in the School and the use of a Delphi approach as a platform towards the development of transdisciplinary collaborations through a shared understanding of the conceptual and methodological frameworks of responsible citizenship. The authors also report on how sustainability and responsible citizenship theories are applied in teaching and project contexts.

In the critically acclaimed movie Dancing in Jaffa, four-time world ballroom dancing champion Pierre Dulaine showcases how dance can transcend geographical and cultural boundaries and be a positive force for real change (see Dancing in Jaffa 2015). Dulaine explores the stories of three children who are forced to ‘dance with the enemy’ and in so doing raises awareness of the challenges involved in dealing with sensitive topics such as personal identity, segregation and racial prejudice. In the workplace, interpersonal relations can be just as challenging and workplace conflict has many manifestations. Workplace abuse, incivility and bullying (WAIB) are sensitive topics which can be considered to be part of the dark side of organisational research (Linstead et aL 2014). In this chapter WAIB refers to a sub-set of those behaviours that harm others, ncluding verbal and psychological abuse (Lin-stead et aL 2014). The evidence from the literature is that the manifestation of abuse, incivility and bullying can be found in workplaces the world over. It is only by tackling research into sensitive, often denied and certainly taboo subjects, that these can be considered and ameliorated. Research into sensitive topics,