Investigating the environmental behavior of business and accounting university students

The purpose of this study is to explore the underlying dimensions of environmental behavior (EB) and examine how environmental education (EE) and ecological sensitivity (ES) motivate the EB of Business Administration and Accounting students (BAS).

A questionnaire survey was conducted and a sample of 190 BAS was randomly selected from the departments of Business Administration and Accounting and Finance at the University of West Attica (UNIWA), Greece.

The analysis was structured upon four underlying components under the EB of the sample: information seeking, recycling, green consuming and active participation. A positive relationship between EB and EE was revealed, while EB and ES were moderately interrelated. An important result was the hesitation of students to convert EE and ES to active participation and green consuming behavior, thus reaffirming similar results from other studies.

The findings should be further developed using larger samples among other higher education institutions. Future research could be extended to students who reside at sub-urban or rural regions or students who are educated upon diverse academic disciplines. The basket of questions can be enriched with issues of immediate concern among future business executives such as the “ethical” role of accountants or the value creation for local societies.

The significance of this study lies on associating students’ EB with formal EE with personality characteristics such as ES. Educational policy-makers can enrich the curricula of BAS with environmentally oriented courses and teaching methods that can increase the active participation of students.