Introducing a Problem-Posing Protocol to Encourage Management Students’ Reflections on Sustainability Premises

The Way We Reflect on Sustainability Problems in Management Education Matters

One challenge of sustainability management education is to go beyond adaptative and pragmatic production-consumption perspectives that reinfforce just solving social, environmental, and economic issues (Boström et al., 2018) and instead focus on achieving paradigm shifts (Leal Filho et al., 2018; Sterling, 2011). O’Neil (2018) suggests we advance from an epistemological approach to an ontological one that is transformative, relational, and agential. Sustainability challenges in college classrooms are not always taught in ways that achieve this ontological perspective and purpose. The resulting graduates are more likely to see sustainability problems and pose questions on the same plane, with little capacity for profound analyses of the root causes or impacts of the problems. The outcomes are superficial understanding of sustainability problems and less creative responses to issues (O’Neil, 2018).

Efforts to include sustainability in undergraduate management textbooks often lead to the inclusion of overused facts and generalized suggestions (Barter, 2016) that are met with distrust and fail to promote new market paradigms (Hubbard, 2010; Starik et al., 2017). Business students entering the job market may only be ready to use the canned practices espoused in those books. The main consequence of adaptative and pragmatic education toward sustainability is its emphasis on training management students to solve problems already set for them, using the standard business model. It puts the emphasis on training executors rather than thinkers capable of reflecting on and repositioning the nature of challenges. Some professionals in corporate leadership positions have focused on solving the most apparent problems, applying ready-made solutions without careful understanding of underlying issues that are the sources of the problems. This rush to solve problems inadvertently adopts the built-in biases and assumptions of the underlying problem itself (Myran & Sutherland, 2016).

This shift in thinking about the way we teach is based on a certain ontological and epistemological outlook. Ontology is pivotal in sustainability education, propelling individual and institutional transformations (O’Neil, 2018). While epistemology centers on the transmission and construction of knowledge regarding sustainability, ontology delves into the realms of essence and existence. It contemplates how students diversify their perspectives and how this metamorphosis influences their identity and relationship with the environment. While epistemology stresses knowledge dissemination and assimilation, ontology accentuates the evolution of students’ beings and their interaction with the world (O’Neil, 2018).

Process-relational ontology, as articulated by Whitehead (1978) and explored elsewhere (Hosinski, 1993; Oliver & Gershman, 1989), asserts that reality does not comprise static entities but instead consists of dynamic events and processes. This ontological viewpoint is indispensable for grasping the inherent complexity of sustainability issues. Likewise, Tsoukas (2017) contends that theories addressing complex organizational phenomena should aspire to complexify rather than simplify.

The emphasis on complexity and dynamism within ontology receives further affirmation from agential realism in transformative education for sustainability. This perspective underscores the intricate interplay between empowered individuals and structures in shaping reality (d’Angelo et al., 2021). In sustainability education, it becomes imperative to recognize and incorporate this relational ontology of processes. Learning within such an ontological framework encompasses not only what we know (epistemology) but also who we are becoming (ontology) when confronted with sustainability problems. This framework paves the way for a transformation of beliefs, reordering value priorities, and, ultimately, reshaping one’s identity (Illeris, 2014).

Applying TL theory helps us step back to a more ontological perspective and to develop tools for professors and business students to better handle sustainability problems. TL is a central adult educational theory (Knowles et al., 2015), being introduced by Mezirow in the 1970s to build on Knowles’ emphasis on andragogy in adult education. While Knowles focused on logical reasoning and problem solving through social philosophy and humanism, Mezirow believed adult learning surpassed Knowles’ concept of self-directed learning (Fleming 2018). Instead, Mezirow proposed defining adult learning as testing assumptions and highlighting problem posing. Mezirow (1991) focused on learners’ paradigm shifts, so finding how to integrate transformative teaching practices in sustainability management education is vital (Boström et al., 2018; Leal Filho et al., 2018; O’Neil, 2018; Sterling, 2011).

Deeper Reflections through Transformative Learning and Social Perspectives

TL is the “process by which adult learners transform problematic frames of reference in order to make them more comprehensive, distinct, open, reflective and emotionally capable of change” (Mezirow, 2009, p. 92). The processes that lead to transformative outcomes include an experience or set of experiences that cause cognitive dissonance, critical reflections, rational dialog, and taking action (Glisczinski, 2007).

In a way, TL is the evolution of adult learning theory, being positioned as a construct that can accommodate modern globalization, technology, and demographic changes in our learner environments (Merriam et al., 2007). TL is held distinct from deep learning approaches and other andragogical perspectives (Biasin, 2018; Howie & Bagnall, 2015; Jamilu & Hussain, 2022), because while TL seeks consciousness raising in learners accomplished through reflective practice on their presuppositions, deep learning focuses on instructor design of curriculum toward permanence of student understanding (Howie & Bagnall, 2015). Furthermore, TL encompasses a deep learning process, but not all deep learning necessarily leads to a transformation of learners’ premises.

Learner reflection operates at several levels, and the most profound level of critical reflection necessitates a change to deep-seated, and often unconscious, beliefs. This can result in new belief structures (Kember et al., 2008). In explaining TL, Mezirow (1998, 2010) also referred to three levels of reflection that occur during learning experiences—examining content, process, or premise (Table 1). Reflection on content occurs as individuals describe and examine a particular problem or experience, focusing on understanding what the problem is and what they need to know to solve it. Process reflection tries to uncover the “how” of the problem and occurs when the individual reviews strategies and steps needed to solve a problem. This can help lead to deep learning. But the most transformative level of reflection is the learner’s reflections on premises or assumptions—both their own assumptions and those of others involved in the dilemma. This is the critical reflection required by TL theory (Phillips, 2019). As a learner engages in critical reflection, they can resolve the dilemmas presented to them and transform their meaning perspectives. Fostering students’ premise reflections means they (re)consider their own values, beliefs, and worldviews.

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Table 1.

Contrasting Content, Process, and Premise Reflection.

Type of reflection	Characteristics
Content	• Focus on the “What” • Assessment of the way the problem is perceived, felt, or thought about by the learner • Assessment of how to act in relation to the problem • Questioning “What do I know about the problem?” • Seeking what needs to be done to solve the problem
Process	• Focus on the “How” • Review and assess the strategies and steps to solve the problem • Questioning “How do I know this solution will work?” • Examining how the functions, thoughts, feelings, or evaluations are performed to solve the problem • Evaluating the effectiveness of the solution(s)
Premise	• Focus on the “Why” • Assessment of the problem itself and the beliefs and assumptions underlying the problem • Repositioning the reason for the problem • Questioning “Why am I reflecting on this?” “Why is this important?” “Should I worry about this?” • Requires awareness of why the learner perceives, thinks, feels, or acts in a certain way

Our main task as sustainability educators is to construct learning environments that encourage students’ critical reflections on sustainability challenges. This environment should supply learners with prompts to promote these types of reflections, not to get an optimal answer from the students but to motivate their deeper thinking (Brookfield, 1995; Mezirow, 1998). Posing problems is considered a key method to promote TL (Mezirow, 1998), because it emphasizes deep reflections on problems instead of rushed searches for resolutions.

However, fostering individual’s critical reflections is not enough to tackle complex sustainability problems. We must consider the need for collective transformation around social dilemmas. This leads to the question: How does Critical Social Transformative Learning Theory inform our practice?

TL’s social transformative perspective (Brookfield, 2012; Gambrell, 2016; Servant-Miklos & Noordegraaf-Eelens, 2021) pushes learners to identify dominant ideology, unmask power, disrupt dominance, and develop agency to change culture, ideology, and cemented ways of thinking. The critical social transformative teaching-learning process focuses on collective disorienting dilemmas which incite students to a public dialog, especially in relation to massive events, such as economic crises, terrorism, and social demonstrations (Hunter, 2012). PP exercises must guide learners to assumptions about interests, power, ethics toward sustainable development, and the common good.

Problem Posing in Sustainability Education in Business Courses

PP is a way to (re)position problems by expanding, modifying, or formulating new ones (Silver, 1994). It forces a pause to encourage going deeper than PS, the common teaching method in business education (Brunstein et al., 2021; Prado et al., 2019). Prado et al. (2019) researched the effectiveness of case studies and simulations in education for sustainable development. They showed that both techniques are effective for teaching sustainability, with simulations offering a slight advantage in representing the multidimensional and temporal aspects of the subject. This emphasizes the importance and adaptability of these teaching strategies for meeting some level of sustainability learning outcomes. SWOT analyses, BCG matrices, Ansoff matrices (Hitt et al., 2019) and other common business tools, however, regiment the way students visualize, think, and design solutions, crowding out critical reflection. To elicit transformation in learner perspectives on sustainability, students must be encouraged to deeply reflect at the premise level. This involves the learner posing problems and considering the “Why” of the challenges.

There is no consensus on the definition of PP, partly because it is applied differently in different fields (Hocking & Vernon, 2017; Reiter-Palmon, 2017; Schön, 1993; Svihla & Reeve, 2016). The types and results of premise reflections cluster onto three distinct axes: (1) rational procedures (or processes) and means, (2) metaphors and assumptions, and (3) emancipatory (Brunstein et al., 2021) (Figure 1).

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Figure 1.

Types of reflection and premise reflection axes.

The first axis through which premise reflection, as elicited by PP, can be understood is to consider it a way to arrive at solutions to problems. Learners undertaking critical reflection in this axis are doing so following a procedure or only to achieve solutions. Literature on PP in this axis comes mostly from mathematics (Brown & Walter, 2005; Kapur, 2015; Kar et al., 2010) relying on Silver’s (1994) definition: “Problem-posing refers to both the generation of new problems and the reformulation of certain problems” (p. 19).

The second axis emerges from theories described by Schön (1993) and Mezirow (1998). The former calls PP “problem setting” and says it includes metaphors or stories told by people. Metaphor includes both interpretation and generativity. The first has to do with the types of inferences by which interpretations are made, the types of relevant evidence, and the criteria that are used to judge and test something. Generativity refers to how people see things in new ways and how they transport frames or perspectives from one given experience to another experience. For Mezirow (1998), PP meant thinking critically and reflectively about the assumptions of a problem in order to reformulate it.

The third axis refers to the idea of problematizing education from Freire’s (1970) description of PP. To him, PP was intimately tied to emancipation: “. . .people develop their power to critically perceive the way they exist in the world with which and in which they find themselves; the world is seen not as a static reality, but as a reality in transformation.” (p. 83)

We used this understanding to build a PP protocol and conduct a study in business classrooms at a Brazilian university.

Development of the Problem-Posing Treatment

The PP protocol implemented in this study was developed in phases by the authors. Our approach was theoretically grounded in the PP work of Freire (1970), Mezirow (1998, 2009, 2010), and Schön (1993). Then our practical application in educational settings was guided by the work of Myran and Sutherland (2016) and Kapur (2015). The prompts were developed in a three-phase pilot study carried out at different Brazilian higher education settings than our full study described below. We adapted the original questions from the case, steering them toward a PP perspective to cover: (1) deconstruction of the teaching case, (2) analyzing the case from different angles, and (3) identification of the central problem(s), based on TL and PP theory. The first version of the protocol was completed in the first semester of 2019. As a pilot, seven undergraduate students in the field of business, from various institutions and semesters, were invited to participate in a 4-hour discussion about sustainability. During that discussion, the volunteers received a summary of a teaching case, and after individual reading of the summary, they were divided into two groups for guided discussion of the protocol.

Following the analysis of these students’ discussions, a second version of the protocol was created in order to foster more problem posing. In addition, the instructions of the protocol itself were developed in a more detailed manner, so that the students would have the possibility to conduct their discussions without needing to ask the professor questions. After the implementation of this protocol, version 2 was applied in a class of 15 business students during a 4-hour discussion.

The final version of the PP protocol was developed and applied in a class with 97 business students. When applying version 3 of the PP protocol, the PS protocol was also applied to half of the class. The PS protocol was adopted from the teaching case itself (Almeida, 2011), without edits. The original questions of this case were focused on how to perform or solve, exemplified by questions such as: “How would you involve suppliers in this environmental issue, considering those that are larger and more powerful?” and “How could you get employees committed to environmental preservation issues?” (Table 2). In this last pilot study, we used the same teaching case that is described below for our main study.

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Table 2.

Summary of the PS and PP Group Protocols.

Steps	PS groups—Protocol A	PP groups—Protocol B
Step 1	Upload group audio recordings in response to these prompts. 1. How would you involve suppliers in this [environmental] issue and which are bigger and more powerful? 2. How could you get employees to commit to issues of environmental preservation? 3. Would it be possible to overcome the spirit of competition and seek the formation of partnerships with other clothing companies to implement joint solutions? 4. Are Brazilian consumers sensitive to the environmental issues? 5. Does the company owner have an idea of the extent and depth of the changes that should be implemented?	Upload group audio recordings in response to these prompts. 1. What are the biases and assumptions behind this case? 2. Are there power struggles in the case? If so, what disputes are these? What is the type/nature of these dispute(s)? 3. Are the discussions proposed in the case meaningful to you? Why? 4. After your discussion, can the case be analyzed in other ways? If so, in which way(s)? 5. Understanding that there are no specific problems and solutions given, show what you see as the main problem and give a rationale to support your ideas. 6. Who do you think is responsible for this problem?
Step 2	One group member submits written reflections compiled from the groups’ responses to the following prompts. 1. How can a business based on fashion and programmed obsolescence of shapes, colors, and prints engage in a cause that advocates (which adheres to) conscious consumption? 2. What actions should be prioritized?	One group member submits written reflections compiled from the groups’ responses to the following prompts. 1. Which issues presented in the case pertain to social issues beyond the organization? a. Detail and justify your answer. 2. Develop an action plan to solve the main problem you posed.

Qualitative Research Design

This qualitative design-based research study was used to match our goal of examining a classroom intervention tool (Kennedy-Clark, 2013). We recruited 173 upper-division undergraduate students from three different sections of a business course, Strategic Management for Sustainability, taught by the same professor at a research university in Brazil. Eighty-five percent of the students were between 18 and 24 years of age, with 57% men and 43% women. These students self-selected into groups of approximately four members each, totaling 44 groups across the three course sections, to receive instruction through a case study teaching activity.

The teaching case “Being sustainable to support yourself? The Case of Tropical Beauty” (Almeida, 2011) was chosen for the study and is summarized in Figure 2.

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Figure 2.

Summary of case study used in the research.

In addition to having a fluid and engaging narrative, the selected teaching case was easier to shift to a PP alternative version because it included questions that provoked students to look at challenges from other perspectives. It encouraged students to contemplate the interests, influence, and perspectives of diverse stakeholders in the scenario. Classroom activities where students assume various roles, such as indigenous representatives or company executives, facilitate a deeper understanding of the pursuit of consensus or decision to maintain dissensus. Instructors refrain from imposing a predefined student perspective. As recommended (Kearins & Springett, 2003; Springett, 2005), we offered students opportunities to ponder questions like, “Who do you think is responsible for this problem?” This query prompts students to envision the viewpoints of owners, managers, stakeholders, and employees, encouraging them to explore uncharted perspectives.

As in Kapur (2015), all groups in our current study were given the same teaching case, however 23 of the groups of students were then randomly selected to receive prompts that stimulated PS, while the other 21 groups were guided by a PP protocol (Table 2). All instruction and the case study were delivered in Portuguese, the primary language of the instructor and students. Students initially discussed the case during a 4-hour block, then returned to the case in a subsequent class to record their reflections in writing. Each group received questions tailored specifically to their designated approach, ensuring that the PP group worked exclusively with PP-focused questions for both the group and follow-up written reflection activities, while the PS group dealt with questions oriented toward solving problems during both activities. This distinction was made to maintain the integrity of the experimental design and to accurately assess the impact of each approach on the participants’ engagement and outcomes.

After the students carried out the activities, the audio files from the initial discussion were transcribed, and the text was digitized by one of the authors of this paper who speaks Portuguese as their primary language. The audio from the 44 groups included 1007 minutes (about 17 hours) of recordings, and the written material from the subsequent class meeting totaled 182 pages. These data, still in the original language to preserve accuracy and fidelity to the original content (Elliott & Timulak, 2005), were processed in NVivo software for coding and analysis.

Initial codes were established following the guidelines suggested by Nowell et al. (2017), considering the theoretical framework of PP and our pilot study. Then, for the thematic categorization of our data (Appendix A), we resorted to the template analysis method proposed by King et al. (2019). This technique facilitates the categorization, organization, and analysis of data, allowing researchers to structure the information based on themes they consider relevant. The process involves developing a list of codes, or templates, that represent the themes identified in the analyzed texts, ensuring a systematic and detailed approach to thematic analysis.

Our study data was read and reread several times by one of the authors of this paper, being classified as (a) content, (b) process, or (c) premise reflection. NVivo automatically tallied the classification counts. After this initial a/b/c classification, all the materials marked as exhibiting premise reflection were further categorized as rational procedures and means (x), metaphors and assumptions (y), or emancipatory (z) (Appendix A). Again, the excerpts were highlighted by the author-researcher and counted by NVivo. A second researcher with specialization in this discipline and who is fluent in Portuguese followed the same procedures for both a/b/c and x/y/z categorization to validate the results. A third author-researcher, bilingual in Portuguese and English reviewed these classifications, in Portuguese, to discuss questions and suggest reclassifications in an iterative process. Researchers’ classifications were compared, and where there were discrepancies, the researchers discussed each case and changed their classifications where appropriate. Once an overall agreement of more than 75% was reached across the three researchers’ classifications, interpretation of the results began (Roberts et al., 2019; Saldaña, 2009).

After this processing of the data in the original language of Portuguese, the case study, sample participant quotes, and thematic codes were translated from Portuguese to English by the bilingual, third author-researcher. A fourth author-researcher, a native English speaker and researcher of transformative learning in sustainability, reviewed these results to assist with validation and interpretation as a way of triangulation of analyses. These methods in qualitative analysis in bilingual contexts followed recent recommendations by Yunus et al. (2022) for maintaining meanings of the students’ reflections and increasing trustworthiness of our interpretations.

Content and Process Reflections Across Groups

Groups from both PS and PP protocols were concerned with the “what” of the problem, a characteristic of content-level reflections (Mezirow, 1991; Table 1), and these concerns involved suppliers, culture, and competition. These groups understood that the organization’s supply chain involved not just the organization itself, but a collective. By mentioning suppliers, they were not looking at sustainability as a responsibility only of the company but as a collective problem of the textile sector. For example, one student said, “I believe that the large supplier, at first, wants to get involved with a sustainable cause, he wants to become well-regarded in society; at the same time, he has the profit on the sustainability that he will adopt.”

Students mentioned both organizational and societal culture identifying the “what” of the problem by pointing out how a group acts in relation to the problem. For example, “. . .this mentality that small and medium-sized companies could not so easily become sustainable because of financial limitations.” Finally, students pointed to competition as a possible cause of the level of involvement of organizations and society with sustainability as shown by this student’s reflection on potential partnerships between the company and other regional groups: “Making a partnership that does not characterize competition and is an example of sustainability for others in the region.”

The reflections did not go into depth by relating culture to sustainability behaviors, exploring cultural differences, nor questioning the processes and elements of cultures causing competition.

Both protocols also elicited students’ reflections at the process level, namely about improvements to procedures and innovative solutions. Students were concerned with the “how,” for example mentioning (1) new clothing collections or (2) using a different raw material to solve sustainability problems, yet without mentioning any details of implementation of these strategies. Some process reflections mentioned sustainability to achieve a greater commercial end, being motivated by economic factors. These ignored the social or environmental dimensions of sustainability, for example, “You can create a new product line that is even more accessible. . .. I think it’s cool on the part of the company because in addition to conquering another niche, it can conquer customers. . ..”

Premise Reflections Across Both Protocols

Both PS and PP protocols elicited students’ reflections at the premise level in this study, though only one prompt from the PS protocol led to this level of reflection while four prompts from the PP protocol did so. Among those reflections, we identified three main themes (Table 3). When PS group reflections were further classified to the specific type of premise reflection, they were found to be rational procedures and means and metaphors and assumptions types from one of the protocol prompts. None were classified in the emancipatory axis. PP protocol students were found to reflect across all three axes of premise reflections (Table 3). We chose individual representative quotes below to exemplify evidence on each axis from both protocols.

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Table 3.

Common Premise Reflection Topics from PS and PP groups.

Case study prompts that generated reflection types		Synthesis of the students’ reflections			Themes across both protocols
Protocol A (PS)	Protocol B (PP)	Rational procedures and means	Metaphors and assumptions	Emancipatory
How could you get employees to commit to issues of environmental preservation?	Are the discussions proposed in the case meaningful to you? Why?	Urgent need to reposition the textile industry’s objectives toward sustainability-oriented practice	Need for a new view of competition—cooperation as a condition to face socio-environmental challenges	[PP only] Questioning past mistakes; reflection and accountability on society’s behavior and its influence on environmental degradation	Review of the relationships of organizations, society, and the individual with the dilemmas and challenges of sustainability
	After your discussion, can the case be analyzed in other ways? If so, in which way(s)?		Emergence of examples of sustainable companies and their impacts	Demonstration of willingness to act differently, going beyond legal and basic aspects of sustainability
	Are the discussions proposed in the case meaningful to you? Why?	Proposals for improving company procedures but without considering sustainability issues in organizations	Analysis of contemporary consumer behavior in relation to the past	The production chain often operating based on greed and exploitation	The role and responsibility of society and its culture: Moving from a business problem to a social one
		The importance of pro-sustainability actions	Repositioning of standards and customs	Formal education and education for sustainability as a way of raising awareness and autonomy for human beings
		Repositioning the micro- to a macro-social view		Repositioning the culture of consumerism to a culture of education for sustainability; understanding what is wrong and the causes of the problems
	Who do you think is responsible for this problem?	Proposals for new alternatives for the production chain to review its procedure and products	Example of life history and its relationship with the textile industry’s production chain	Production chain involved with jobs analogous to slavery	The accountability of the textile industry production chain
		Recognition that fashion industry organization does not concern itself with sustainability-oriented issues	Questions about the employment relationships of employees in the textile industry	Questions about the operation of the production chain and about the individuals who consume its products

Theoretical Implications

Our research contributes to understanding PP, business management education, TL theory, and critical social TL theory. This study demonstrated that three distinct axes of PP could be identified in student reflections: (a) rational procedures and means, (b) metaphors and assumptions, and (c) emancipatory. Though PP exists in the academic literature (Brown & Walter, 2005; Freire, 1970; Kapur, 2015; Mezirow, 1998; Schön, 1993), this classification of PP axes had only recently been suggested and needed further exploration in an educational context. Because PP can be approached from various perspectives, from rational to emancipatory, and across different disciplines, perhaps a standard definition of PP is not possible. In each usage there is an essence of (re)positioning problems and opening space for expanding, modifying, or creating new ones. However, depending on the perspectives of PP, distinct research avenues and classroom applications uniquely interpret and employ the concept. As its objective, this paper elucidated PP through a classification framework while identifying practical methods for its implementation in management classrooms.

Second, we exemplified that PP could be integrated into business management instructional settings to motivate other researchers to explore the concept.

Third, this research adds to discussions about the factors that promote TL, since, according to Mezirow (1998), premise reflection is part of TL processes. It can be inferred that students who engage in a reflection on their premises in the emancipatory axis are much closer to repositioning sustainability problems according to the principles of strong sustainability toward lasting change (Brozovic, 2020). This goes beyond legalistic and reactive issues and instead grows from other business support bases compared to students who engage in a reflection of the premise in the rational procedures and means axis.

Fourth, the theoretical contribution of the research supports Gambrell’s (2016) proposal that TL take place not only at the individual level (Mezirow, 1998), but also at the social level (Freire, 1996). When our study found that some PP students underwent emancipatory reflection, that aligned with TL research in the social and critical axis (Brookfield, 2012; Cranton & Taylor, 2012; Gambrell, 2016). Those authors claim that the field must move beyond individual impact toward a deliberate goal of raising collective consciousness within TL.

Practical Implications

This study has practical implications for instructors, students, protocol development, business schools, and case authors/publishers.