Teaching Case. The Case of Assabi: Expanding the Learning on Sustainability Through an Experiential Qualitative Multi-Criteria Decision Making Activity

This teaching case study provides a learning context to explore the integration of sustainability concepts into business decision-making processes from multiple stakeholder perspectives. The case study consists of the simulation of a multi-criteria decision process in a fictitious story about stakeholders interested in the export of frozen fruit pulp from the Amazon forest in Brazil to a large supermarket chain in the UK. Within this case, we present: the key stakeholders and their interests; the alternatives for negotiation and; indicators related to financial performance and the economic, social and environmental impacts predicted by the implementation of each alternative. The learning activities are structured using an integration of Experiential Learning Theory (ELT) and learning in teams with a qualitative engagement with a Multi-Criteria Decision Aid (MCDA). Student groups experience the role of stakeholders by representing their values, knowledge, and preferences in an interactive process where they are progressively exposed to different levels of information about the decision and its consequences. The activity has the potential to offer a practical and complementary contribution in different learning environments to accounting and business decision-making for sustainability.