Do the young truly embrace sustainability? Evidence of the (un)willingness paradox of sustainability and implications for responsible management education and research

This study examines whether younger cohorts genuinely embody a transformative sustainability ethos or if their behaviors replicate the inconsistencies constraining earlier generations. Drawing on the Youth Talks international dataset ( n : 12,579 responses across 212 countries and territories), analyzed through semantic clustering and multinomial logistic regression, the study reveals that although many young people endorse environmental ideals, their willingness to relinquish life domains remains highly selective. In particular, the regression results indicate that when young people say they would give up things close to themselves (e.g., personal ambitions and resources, family and loved ones), they are less likely to select the environment as their non-negotiable priority, whereas those who say they would give up planet resources are more likely to select material consumption as their non-negotiable priority. In this regard, a key insight from the study, empirically grounded in these contrasts, is the discovery of the (un)willingness paradox of sustainability, which exposes personal trade-offs between ecological responsibility and deeply ingrained priorities. These findings challenge assumptions that generational change inherently produces stronger moral resolve. Instead, meaningful engagement appears contingent on responsible management strategies that reduce the perceived cost of and raise the perceived efficacy for sustainable choices, thereby aligning action with lived constraints. These observations, in turn, clarify a cognitive dissonance mechanism whereby defended near-sphere priorities (e.g., material consumption) coexist with personal adjustments (e.g., willingness to forgo lifestyle activities), elucidate value-belief-norm activation by specifying where perceived costs (e.g., family and loved ones) inhibit norm enactment (e.g., selecting the environment as non-negotiable), locate the tension between self-transcendence and self-enhancement in Schwartz's value structure within observed odds patterns (e.g., lower odds of selecting the environment [self-transcendence] among those willing to give up personal resources [self-enhancement]), and situate choice within a concentric locus of control and triple bottom line perspective that prioritizes controllable, proximate domains (e.g., individual) over less controllable, distal domains (e.g., social, environmental). Such insights, therefore, advance extant understanding of sustainability decision-making by specifying when selective sacrifices occur and which domains are defended, which, in turn, guide management educators and researchers in developing interventions that align sustainability goals with core personal commitments. • Challenges the assumption of ever-increasing generational moral resolve. • Identifies selective trade-offs in youth's willingness to sacrifice key life domains. • Reveals the (un)willingness paradox of sustainability. • Urges management education and research to adopt and promote pragmatic methods for sustainability. • Urges management practices to lower costs and reduce barriers to sustainable actions.