SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT THROUGH SUSTAINABLE BUSINESSES. AN EMPIRICAL RESEARCH AMONG MASTER STUDENTS

摘要

Sustainable development is a key concept and also a real alternative to traditional, unfortunately not sustainable, development models. The effective challenge of implementing a sustainable development model is to promote as its main driver sustainability-oriented ventures, i.e. firms meeting both profitability, environmental and social requirements. Nevertheless, as the entrepreneurs of the future are today young people, and given that present entrepreneurial intentions are the best predictor of future entrepreneurial behaviour, we focus in this article on investigating students attitude towards involving in sustainability-related businesses. Therefore, we have developed a survey-based research among master students in Business Administration and Managerial Engineering from a Romanian public university as to reveal their availability for sustainability-related entrepreneurial career, their understanding on what sustainability really means and which specific actions are they expecting to undertake in this direction. Furthermore, we found out that students expect from universities (including academic curricula, specific academic programs, specific lectures, etc.) to be the most important 'provider' of adequate entrepreneurial, sustainability-related skills and abilities. Consequently, universities should seriously take into consideration adjustments in their strategic actions in the direction of a closer link with the business environment and a more effective involvement in promoting sustainable economic development.