Educating senior executives in a novel strategic paradigm: early experiences of the Sustainable Enterprise Academy.

This paper describes the introduction of ‘ustainability’ as a novel strategic paradigm to senior executive learning. Specifically, we describe the Sustainable Enterprise Academy, an executive education initiative founded by the Schulich School of Business at York University (Canada) with the active support of a number of academic collaborators, five corporations and several business and civil society organizations. The Academy is dedicated to business transformation through the application of a strategic sustainability paradigm, which assumes the desirability of business simultaneously creating economic, social and environmental value. The paper recounts the Academy's journey between 1999 and 2003, during which time five successful senior executive Business Leader Seminars were held – four in Canada and one in the US. Evaluation data from participants are presented and lessons learned described. The paper also explores future avenues of development for the Academy. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]