Collaborative online international learning: Sustainability mindset in accounting education

Abstract

This paper evaluates a collaborative online international learning (COIL) project co-designed with sustainability practitioners to promote a sustainable development mindset among accounting students. The project participants were 141 students from six countries, the UK, Ghana, South Africa, the USA, Germany, and India. They completed an eight-week extracurricular COIL course, involving workshops focused on the what, why, and how of sustainability concepts. The findings, based on self-reported perceptions and reflections, indicate that by engaging with COIL, students developed a greater awareness of environmental, social, and governance principles. The project both enhanced their understanding of the role of accounting in sustainability, and improved their career readiness. They also reported developing a stronger personal responsibility toward maintaining sustainability and valued the exposure to diverse global perspectives. The paper advances accounting education and COIL literature by theorizing the industry, educator, and student triad as a site of epistemic negotiation, in which disciplinary knowledge, professional practice, and lived experience intersect to reshape how sustainability is understood within accounting education. While COILs are increasingly positioned to resolve internationalization and employability agendas, their capacity to support deeper epistemic and normative shifts, particularly in accounting education, remains insufficiently theorized or empirically examined. Conceptually and empirically, the paper contributes further by offering one of the most internationally expansive COIL projects in accounting education to date, evidencing the benefits of co-creation with industry to engage students in extracurricular learning. We conclude that thoughtfully designed COIL initiatives can prepare future accountants for the ethical, global, and sustainability-oriented challenges of the profession.