Abstract

In response to Laasch’s call for radical transformation in Responsible Management Learning and Education (RMLE), we explore how evolutionary approaches can achieve paradigm shifts toward sustainable futures that climate urgency demands. While acknowledging the moral imperative underlying revolutionary frameworks, we identify three fundamental implementation challenges: institutional constraints limiting anti-paradigmatic performative politics, cognitive barriers inadequately addressed in paradigmatic transformation, and sustainability concerns surrounding civil disobedience pedagogy. Our evolutionary framework integrates three complementary theories addressing these barriers: Incremental Change Theory enables paradigmatic transformation through gradual theoretical flexibility; Complex Adaptive Systems Theory facilitates cognitive transformation through sustained social support; and Diffusion of Innovation Theory ensures adoption through strategic stakeholder alignment. Drawing on Habermas’s communicative reason and prescriptive theorizing, we demonstrate how evolutionary processes enable radical transformations to emerge organically from institutional dynamics. Through practical evidence including a twelve-year greenhouse gas consultancy project engaging 2,100 students and 360 organizations, alongside documented outcomes from leading business schools, we illustrate how evolutionary approaches achieve comprehensive climate education integration while maintaining institutional sustainability. Our implementation frameworks demonstrate how systematic transformation processes can equip future business leaders with competencies needed to address global sustainability challenges through systematic rather than disruptive change processes.