Accounting for Plural Cognitive Framings of Growth and Sustainability: Rethinking Management Education in Latin America

This paper surveys future managers’ cognitive framings of interconnected concerns for economic growth, social prosperity, and the natural environment across six countries in Latin America, and elaborates on implications for sustainability management education. Our cluster analysis unveils three cognitive types. Our findings show that whereas some future managers exhibit a ‘business case’ cognitive frame, prioritizing economic growth over the environment, the other two clusters of participants show signs of cognitive dissonance with some of the tenets of the current growth paradigm while still not neatly fitting the definition of a paradoxical cognitive frame. In particular, individuals within the latter two groups do not visualize links among economic, social, and environmental dimensions that make up sustainable development. Following calls to enhance our understanding of sustainability micro-foundations, our study offers a more nuanced picture of the cognitive plurality beyond dichotomous characterizations of managerial cognitive frames as either business case or paradoxical. Moreover, results elucidate the cultural mediation that operates in the reproduction of business stances vis-à-vis nature, opening up possibilities for management education programs to engage with cognitive plurality to effect paradigmatic change. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10551-022-05180-4.