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The role of procurement managers is crucial for diffusing sustainability throughout the supply chain. Whether or not they are willing to pay for sustainability is an important and not yet fully understood question. The authors examine antecedents and consequences of their willingness to pay (WTP) for sustainability.

The authors develop a multi-level framework to examine the WTP for sustainability in a B2B context. The authors test this multi-level framework with 372 procurement managers from multiple sectors and countries using partial least squares structural equation modeling.

The authors find that individual values of procurement managers and institutional pressures directly, while ethical organizational culture indirectly influence WTP for sustainability. Functional and cognitive competencies of procurement managers improve the sustainability of procurement, but not WTP for sustainability. Importantly, WTP for sustainability directly influences the performance of the procurement function which in turn is positively associated with increased organizational performance.

The study, examining the interplay between individual, organizational and contextual factors, provides empirical evidence on the pivotal role of procurement managers in diffusing sustainability throughout the supply chain. The findings of the study, on the one hand, contribute to the literature on operations management and sustainability, and on the other hand, guide policy and managerial actions.

In this article, the author discusses works from the French Documentation Movement in the 1940s and 1950s with regard to how it formulates bibliographic classification systems as documents. Significant writings by Suzanne Briet, Éric de Grolier and Robert Pagès are analyzed in the light of current document-theoretical concepts and discussions.

Conceptual analysis.

The French Documentation Movement provided a rich intellectual environment in the late 1940s and early 1950s, resulting in original works on documents and the ways these may be represented bibliographically. These works display a variety of approaches from object-oriented description to notational concept-synthesis, and definitions of classification systems as isomorph documents at the center of politically informed critique of modern society.

The article brings together historical and conceptual elements in the analysis which have not previously been combined in Library and Information Science literature. In the analysis, the article discusses significant contributions to classification and document theory that hitherto have eluded attention from the wider international Library and Information Science research community. Through this, the article contributes to the currently ongoing conceptual discussion on documents and documentality.

This paper aims to analyze the thematic content of research addressing the relation between board of directors (BoD) and business transformation (BT) to obtain better understanding of status and to derive future areas of study.

This paper reviews literature through a bibliometric analysis based on co-occurrence of articles published in Web of Science Core Collection ™ (WoS) between 1990 and 2022, identifying key concepts, setting network of relations and identifying the strategic importance of clusters of concepts. Findings and implications are discussed, future lines of research are presented and limitations are noted.

Thematic research on boards addressing transformation shifted from the analysis of individuals' traits to an organizational approach with majority of research centered on the role of boards under different theories and the consequences of strategic changes on firm's performance. Further research is around gender diversity, sustainability and the moderating role of ownership structure and business culture.

Some limitations are also noted. This analysis considered articles indexed by WoS for Q1+Q2 publications as source of literature, while including others such as Scopus would increase knowledge base. Also, to identify main streams of research, the authors considered keywords with cumulative occurrence spanning from 30% to 40% while increasing this percentage would add terms that might improve precision to the connections among keywords. Other techniques could have been used such as co-citation or bibliographic coupling, although the authors find these as better suited to investigate the basic structure behind the foundational knowledge of the topic while the authors’ intention was to understand the positioning of study fields regarding the degree of research progress.

This paper presents some practical implications for future researchers. Those who wish to leverage previous evidence to address new research questions might look into principal themes covering BoD dynamics and composition to exert CG, and the relation between strategic decisions and performance measured by different variables. Those who wish to position their research as new findings to shed light on dilemmas, might find opportunities in the fields of climate change-sustainability, R&D for growth and innovation under the perspective of intangible assets.

This paper, is the first to the best of the authors’ knowledge, to identify research clusters for the intersection of boards and transformation and to determine their stage of development.

本文旨在分析探討董事會與業務轉型之間的關係的學術研究的專題內容，以能對有關課題的研究狀況有更深入的了解，並擬從分析中取得未來可供研究的範疇。

本文透過科學計量分析法來進行文獻探討。方法乃基於在1990年至2022年期間在Web of Science Core Collection 刊載的學術論文的共現分析而進行; 透過這個研究方法，研究人員建立了聯繫的網絡，並確認了各個概念群組的策略重要性。在本文中，研究結果和研究結果帶來的啟示會被討論，未來的研究領域和方針也會得到說明，研究的局限也會被認定和記錄下來。

探討董事會而又涉及業務轉型的專題研究，由當初集中探討董事個人的特質、轉移到現在研究整體的組織理念和處事取向，而就後者來說，大部份的研究都集中於在不同的理論框架裡董事會所扮演的角色，以及因策略上的改變而為公司的業績帶來的影響。進一步的學術研究都是圍繞著性別多元化、可持續性、所有權結構所扮演的緩和角色和商業文化的研究。

盡我們所知，本文乃為首篇學術論文，去鑑定關於董事會與業務轉型之間的關聯的研究集群，也是首篇學術論文，去確定這些研究集群的發展階段。

Key to transnational higher education (HE) cooperation is building trust to allow for seamless recognition of studies. Building on the Tuning Educational Structures initiative (2001) and lessons learnt from the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)-Assessment of Learning Outcomes in Higher Education (AHELO) feasibility study, this paper offers a sophisticated approach developed by the European Union (EU)-co-financed project Measuring and Comparing Achievements of Learning Outcomes in Europe (CALOHEE). These evidence the quality and relevance of learning by applying transparent and reliable indicators at the overarching and disciplinary levels. The model results allow for transnational diagnostic assessments to identify the strength and weaknesses of degree programmes.

The materials presented have been developed from 2016 to 2023, applying a bottom-up approach involving approximately 150 academics from 20+ European countries, reflecting the full spectrum of academic fields. Based on intensive face-to-face debate and consultation of stakeholders and anchored in academic literature and wide experience.

As a result, general (overarching) state-of-the-art reference frameworks have been prepared for the associated degree, bachelor, master and doctorate, as well as aligned qualifications reference frameworks and more detailed learning outcomes/assessment frameworks for 11 subject areas, offering a sound basis for quality assurance. As a follow-up, actual assessment formats for five academic fields have been developed to allow for measuring the actual level of learning at the institutional level from a comparative perspective.

Frameworks as well as assessment models and items are highly innovative, content-wise as in the strategy of development, involving renown academics finding common ground. Its value is not limited to Europe but has global significance. The model developed, is also relevant for micro-credentials in defining levels of mastery.

The literature on public procurement (PP) has increased significantly in recent years, and, to date, several reviews have been conducted to study this relevant subject. Nevertheless, a bibliometric analysis of the PP knowledge domain is still missing. To fill this knowledge gap, a bibliometric review is carried out to investigate the current state of PP research.

A total of 640 journal articles are selected from the Scopus database for the final analysis. The performance indicators of the literature are identified and explained through bibliometric analysis. Furthermore, the conceptual and intellectual structures are studied through a keyword co-occurrence network and bibliographic coupling.

The results of the review indicate that PP research has increased significantly in recent years. The top ten most productive journals, countries, authors and academic institutions are identified. The findings from the keyword co-occurrence network reveal six main research themes including innovation, corruption and green public procurement (GPP). By applying bibliographic coupling, the focus of PP research revolves around seven thematic areas: GPP, corruption, the role of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in PP, electronic PP, innovation, labour standards and service acquisition. The research potential of each thematic area is evaluated using a model based on maturity and recent attention (RA).

To the best of the authors' knowledge, this is the first study to successfully organise, synthesise and quantitatively analyse the development of the PP domain amongst a large number of publications on a large time scale.

Recently, there has been a shift toward the embodied energy assessment of buildings. However, the impact of material service life on the life-cycle embodied energy has received little attention. We aimed to address this knowledge gap, particularly in the context of the UAE and investigated the embodied energy associated with the use of concrete and other materials commonly used in residential buildings in the hot desert climate of the UAE.

Using input–output based hybrid analysis, we quantified the life-cycle embodied energy of a villa in the UAE with over 50 years of building life using the average, minimum, and maximum material service life values. Mathematical calculations were performed using MS Excel, and a detailed bill of quantities with >170 building materials and components of the villa were used for investigation.

For the base case, the initial embodied energy was 57% (7390.5 GJ), whereas the recurrent embodied energy was 43% (5,690 GJ) of the life-cycle embodied energy based on average material service life values. The proportion of the recurrent embodied energy with minimum material service life values was increased to 68% of the life-cycle embodied energy, while it dropped to 15% with maximum material service life values.

The findings provide new data to guide building construction in the UAE and show that recurrent embodied energy contributes significantly to life-cycle energy demand. Further, the study of material service life variations provides deeper insights into future building material specifications and management considerations for building maintenance.

Sustainability is increasingly at the forefront of the public debate in Europe and the world. However, despite this increased interest, research seems to have partially ignored the importance of its social dimension and the issues related to social equity, people care, protection and personal development at all stages of society and, consequently, of business. Accordingly, this paper aims at investigating the “soft” dimensions of sustainability, integrating its mainstream “technical storyline” with a “human/social storyline”.

In this paper a taxonomy of the main key drivers of the soft dimension of sustainability is proposed and tested on a sample of Italian companies. Through interviews with their managers, actions and needs in terms of sustainability soft drivers are identified.

The achieved results demonstrated that the case companies differently integrated the soft dimensions of sustainability within their companies. All the sample companies are aware of the role of social sustainability. According to the proposed taxonomy, the systemic drivers of soft sustainability are the main shared ones.

The paper provides new insights into the essence of the organizational soft dimensions and their centrality in the overall achievement of sustainability for companies. It also offers managerial insights into how to effectively manage these dimensions and policy implications about the need for clearer consideration.

Although existing literature emphasizes the significance of diversity and inclusion in management roles for employees, there is a notable absence of a standardized scale to assess employees’ perceptions of an inclusive climate, particularly in relation to practices that encourage acceptance of demographically diverse leaders. This study aims to bridge this gap by developing the perceived inclusion climate for leader diversity (PICLD) scale.

The scale development process was carried out in five phases which included: qualitative component (interviews); test for face validity; check for content validity; construct and criterion-related validity; and nomological network testing.

Following the first three phases of scale development, 12 measurement items were produced. Phase four results indicate that PICLD is distinct from both the intercultural group climate scale and diversity-oriented leadership scale, in which all three scales were found to be positively correlated with job satisfaction. Phase five results show that PICLD positively correlates with organizational justice. Organizational justice also mediates the relationship between PICLD and three employee outcomes (performance, engagement and turnover intention).

Organizations are encouraged to be open to suggestions made by managers from historically marginalized groups that motivate diverse leaders to voice their concerns to foster inclusionary climate perceptions among employees. Welcoming diverse managerial perspectives can dismantle systemic barriers, enabling marginalized leaders to thrive while fostering employees’ perceptions of an inclusionary workplace.

This study introduces the PICLD Scale to enhance comprehension of how policies supporting leader demographic diversity impact employee perceptions of inclusive climate. This research also contributes to the advancement of social exchange theory and literature on organizational justice, performance and engagement.