External facilitators as ‘Legitimizers’ in designing a master's program in sustainable business at a Swedish business school – A typology of industry collaborator roles in RME

This article offers new knowledge on the role of industry as external facilitators in the case of designing responsible management education (RME). Drawing on a case of a Swedish business school that developed a two year master's profile in sustainable business, we find that industry partners acted as external facilitators in the form of ‘Legitimizers’. This type of external facilitator, Legitimizer, complements Vazquez-Brust and Yakovleva’s (2017) existing categories: ‘Guides’, ‘Monitors’, ‘Enablers’, and ‘Networkers’. Based on the findings, we propose that business can take on four types of legitimizing roles in academia – business collaboration: The Visitor, The Planner, The Co-operator, and The Co-educator. We further identify various forms of legitimacy, particularly cognitive and pragmatic, that the corporate activities and interactions generate. Interestingly, in the case of RME, companies are instrumental to legitimizing the education, rather than being the ones seeking legitimacy.