ABSTRACT
Mindfulness has recently gained significant attention and momentum in academia. However, there is a paucity of literature on how management students make sense of mindfulness as a way of being. From the interpretative phenomenological perspective, this study has examined how management students make sense of mindfulness and its practices. In spite of their unfamiliarity with sitting meditation and art appreciation as mindfulness practices at first, the students have learned to transform their novel experiences into their embodied knowledge of themselves and their interpersonal relationships within a few weeks. Based on the analysis of the students’ meditation journals and their reflection essays on aesthetic appreciation, I propose that mindfulness and its practices are not merely useful tools for stress reduction but also effective meaning-making practices that can be more actively adopted to cultivate management students’ self-awareness, their sense of purpose and values, and social-emotional skills, all essential components of a sustainability mindset for the sake of more responsible management education. I also briefly discuss the pedagogical implications of mindfulness and its practices for developing management students’ practical wisdom.
