In recent years, technology has been increasingly challenging the traditional methods of measuring the impact of academic research and teaching on sustainability in business schools. Traditionally, the value of academic papers has been determined by the prestige of the journals they are published in. However, artificial intelligence (AI) models are now being used to uncover a wider range of research papers that may be overlooked among the vast number of articles published each year.
Commercial providers of academic publishing statistics, such as Web of Science and Scopus, along with researchers at St Joseph’s University and other institutions, have developed AI-based algorithms to automatically identify the relevance of journal articles to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Similarly, Wilfred Mijnhardt, policy director at the Rotterdam School of Management, has created machine learning tools to score academic articles based on their relationship to the SDGs.
While AI shows promise in finding overlooked papers, it is not without its flaws. For example, AI algorithms may erroneously flag papers that mention the word “climate” even when they are not related to sustainability. Nonetheless, AI is rapidly evolving and outpacing human capabilities in certain areas.
In partnership with the Financial Times, Mijnhardt applied his AI analysis to two sets of publications: the FT50 list of top journals and the longer Chartered Association of Business Schools list. By focusing on articles published since 2020 that were relevant to the climate change SDG, Mijnhardt’s software identified several top-scoring papers. One study found that UK companies with environmental committees, climate incentives, and sustainability reporting displayed a greater commitment to climate change and achieved higher levels of “eco-innovation.”
In addition to AI-based methods, another approach to evaluating the impact of business school research is to analyze the number of downloads from databases like the Social Science Research Network. The most popular research papers downloaded by influential users, including banks, regulators, and government agencies, provide insights into the topics of interest. For example, one highly downloaded paper highlighted the inadequacies of sustainability-linked loans and their limited impact on achieving sustainability improvements.
Furthermore, technology can also be applied to tracking the content of courses taught at business schools. Coursalytics, a digital executive education consultancy, utilized web scraping and analysis of syllabuses to assess ESG-related courses. The findings revealed a strong focus on corporate governance, responsible business practices, and the green agenda.
Although technology, including AI and digital support, presents opportunities for benchmarking and mobilizing the business school sector, it is crucial to recognize that human qualitative judgment remains essential in assessing the most meaningful and valuable research and teaching.