Business as a vocation: a formative foundation for advancing business toward a true profession

Purpose Business education faces growing pressure to address declining social trust, ecological challenges, stakeholder expectations and questions about the legitimacy and purpose of business. While efforts to establish management as a true profession emphasize specialized knowledge, ethical standards, public responsibility and social trust, business education often struggles to cultivate the internalized commitment needed to shape managerial identity and practice. This conceptual article argues that vocation is a necessary, though insufficient, formative condition for advancing business toward a true profession. It develops an occupation–profession–vocation (OPV) framework distinguishing three overlapping paradigms: occupation-centered education, focused on competence; profession-centered education, focused on responsibility and public trust; and vocation-centered education, focused on identity, purpose, service, and formation. Building on this framework, the article proposes a vocation-based business education (VBBE) model comprising ecological ontology, ecological epistemology, and formation-centered learning. These elements address the relational nature of business, the dialogical and integrative means of understanding it, and the kinds of persons business schools should seek to form. The article translates vocation from its theological origins into existential-ethical and pedagogical terms suitable for pluralistic and secular institutions. It also presents an implementation architecture involving learning outcomes, reflective and stakeholder-engaged pedagogies, formative assessment, faculty development, institutional alignment, and safeguards against coercion. Artificial intelligence is positioned as a supportive but non-substitutive educational tool. The article contributes to responsible management education by showing how ethics, ESG, CSR, stakeholder theory and PRME can be deepened through the formation of managers oriented toward society and the common good. Design/methodology/approach This conceptual article adopts an integrative approach, bringing scholarship on management professionalization into dialog with theological and secular accounts of vocation, responsible management education, stakeholder theory, and formation-centered pedagogy. Through this synthesis, it develops the OPV framework as a diagnostic and constructive model for identifying the contributions and limitations of occupation- and profession-centered business education. It then formulates the VBBE model in response to the formative gaps identified. The study does not test causal relationships empirically but constructs a theoretically grounded framework to guide pedagogical implementation and future empirical research. Findings The article finds that competence- and responsibility-centered approaches are necessary but insufficient for forming managers committed to stakeholders, society, and the common good. The OPV framework shows that vocation deepens occupation and profession by integrating competence and responsibility with identity, purpose, service and moral formation. The proposed VBBE model identifies ecological ontology, ecological epistemology and formation-centered learning as mutually reinforcing foundations for responsible management education. Vocation can be translated into pluralistic and secular contexts through reflective, stakeholder-engaged and formation-oriented pedagogy, while artificial intelligence can support but not replace human judgment, conscience and vocational discernment. Research limitations/implications As a conceptual study, the OPV framework and VBBE model have not yet been empirically validated. The article focuses primarily on the formative dimension of business professionalization and does not address fully the institutional requirements of a true profession, including professional bodies, governance, self-regulation and public accountability. Future research should test the model across diverse cultural, religious and institutional contexts and examine its effects on ethical reasoning, stakeholder awareness, professional identity, moral imagination and commitment to the common good. Longitudinal studies are particularly needed to assess whether vocation-centered education produces durable changes in managerial judgment and practice. Practical implications The VBBE model offers business schools a practical architecture for integrating competence, responsibility, identity, purpose, and service. Schools can embed vocation-based learning through reflective writing, stakeholder dialog, service learning, mentoring, ethical simulations, community-engaged projects and capstone experiences. Assessment should focus on ethical reasoning, stakeholder integration, reflective judgment, and responsible action. Faculty development, mission alignment and safeguards for pluralism and freedom of conscience are essential. VBBE can also support assurance of learning, PRME implementation and AACSB societal-impact goals, while using artificial intelligence as a supportive rather than substitutive educational tool. Social implications By forming managers whose professional identities are oriented toward stakeholders, society, and the common good, VBBE can strengthen the social legitimacy and public-serving role of business. Its relational and ecological perspective encourages future leaders to recognize the human, social, and environmental consequences of managerial decisions. The model may help reduce the gap between corporate commitments and practice by embedding responsibility within identity and purpose rather than treating it solely as compliance. It also supports more humane and accountable uses of artificial intelligence by placing technology within a broader commitment to dignity, justice, sustainability, stakeholder flourishing and social trust. Originality/value This article advances responsible management education by positioning vocation as a necessary formative complement to the professionalization of business. Its originality lies in developing the OPV framework and the VBBE model, which integrates ecological ontology, ecological epistemology, and formation-centered learning. It translates vocation from its theological genealogy into existential-ethical and pedagogical terms suitable for pluralistic and secular business schools. The article also provides an implementation architecture linking vocation to learning outcomes, pedagogy, assessment, faculty development, institutional alignment, and ethical safeguards, while clarifying artificial intelligence's supportive but non-substitutive role in human formation.