Analysis of engineering student’s sustainable leadership at a higher education institution: challenges for educational management

Abstract

The primary objective of this research study is to assess sustainable leadership among students from the Faculty of Engineering at the University of La Serena (Chile) and examine the challenges involved in integrating this aspect into their degree programs. Based on theory, a causal model with fourteen hypotheses was proposed. A survey was conducted to gather information that was analyzed by using structural equations through the partial least squares method, reducing the hypotheses to eleven. The results show that sustainable leadership is a consequence of positive, direct, and indirect influence of socio-environmental awareness, sustainable behavior, and personal ethical-moral values, where its variance is explained by 27.8%. It is concluded that it is critical to encourage the development of sustainable leadership in students as a means to increase the reputation of higher education institutions, which in turn enhances educational processes and the public value of the educational institution.