Responsible management education: Mapping the field in the context of the SDGs Meredith Storey * , Sheila Killian, Philip O'Regan Kemmy Business School, University of Limerick, Castletroy, Limerick, Ireland article info Article history: Received 29 November 2016 Received in revised form 17 February 2017 Accepted 24 February 2017 Keywords: Sustainable development goals Bourdieu Responsible management education PRME UN Ethics Responsibility Education abstract This paper examines the field of Responsible Management Education (RME) in the context of Agenda 2030 and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), situating the United Nations Principles for Responsible Management Education (UN PRME) in relation to a range of associated initiatives and organisations using a light, Bourdieusian theoretical framing. The emergence of the SDGs as a frame or doxa for RME and the role of UN PRME as an agent in this field is explored in the context of the literature on how business schools have delivered on sustainability and responsibility imperatives. The field of RME is partially mapped, loosely categorising actors and initiatives as membership or affiliation networks, teaching and learning initiatives and student-centred or student-led groups. Their differing aspirations are discussed, and tentative conclusions are drawn on the extent to which the SDGs are acting as a unifying paradigm, and on the future roles that UN PRME may play in the field. © 2017 Published by Elsevier Ltd. 1. Introduction In a time of rising inequalities, climate change, and a range of major societal challenges, a crucial challenge facing edu- cation is how best to equip citizens, scholars and leaders to implement meaningful change and avert future crises. Responsible Management Education (RME) overtly seeks to address this imperative in business schools. Bourdieu's concept of doxa is often seen as the unwritten rules of the game in a field such as this, the shared and perhaps unarticulated under- standing of how the field operates which in turn coordinates action among the various actors; “the undisputed, pre-reflexive, naive, native compliance with the fundamental presuppositions of the field ” Bourdieu (1990:68). However, the field of RME is diverse, with a wide range of actors not all of whom share a common view on either the purpose of education in this regard, the best way to implement change or the underlying goal of the field. Bourdieu would argue that at any given time, agents in a field are either trying to uphold or overthrow the doxa, depending on their alignment with the current status quo and the levels and types of capitals that they can deploy within the field (Bourdieu, 1990). Currently, a frame emerging as a key element of the dominant doxa is Agenda 2030 and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). These were launched in 2015 to trigger action in areas such as human rights, labour, environment and anti-corruption (UN Global Compact, 2016), extending and replacing the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). In overtly seeking to engage actors to deliver quanti- fiable results (Sachs, 2012), the SDGs give a new prominence to private business as a driver of change. They prioritise the * Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: Meredith.Storey@ul.ie (M. Storey), Sheila.Killian@ul.ie (S. Killian), Philip.Oregan@ul.ie (P. O'Regan). Contents lists available at ScienceDirect The International Journal of Management Education journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ijme http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijme.2017.02.009 1472-8117/© 2017 Published by Elsevier Ltd. The International Journal of Management Education 15 (2017) 93e103