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Although medical schools do well in preparing the next generation of practitioners to diagnose and clinically treat illness, they struggle in preparing them with capabilities in the areas of health promotion and disease prevention. Similarly, health promoting schools (HPS) face challenges in working to enhance the health and educational outcomes of children. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

The authors draw from their local and international collaborative work as practitioners and medical educators to examine how health professions schools can work in partnership with HPS for mutual benefit.

Health advocacy is a core competency in medical education. A primary focus is on health promotion and disease prevention. However, providing practical, experiential opportunities – “learning-by-doing” – is a challenge. To overcome this difficulty, medical schools may be well served by partnering with HPS. This can provide mutually beneficial learning opportunities that will enable emerging physicians to develop health promotion-related knowledge and advocacy skills while the emerging generation of citizens (the children) are enabled to live healthier and more productive lives.

The parallel development of Health Promoting Schools and the teaching of health advocacy to health professionals has proceeded to the point where convergence of the gathered knowledge and experience can provide a powerful and synergistic model to advance both initiatives. This conceptual paper focuses outlines the actions that might achieve this.

Leadership education and training are challenging, multidimensional undertakings that require a willingness to engage in deep personal growth as the most critical antecedent to learning. This article explores the strategic alignment of values, efficacy, and goals using two tools in practice, which are part of a current research design. The Values-Based Leadership Model & Competency Map [Figure 1] and The Values-Based Leadership Taxonomy [Figure 2] are innovative tools for practitioners in Higher Education that may be applied to other industries as well. The powerful and innovative tools are in practice and are part of a current 2016-2017 research aimed at tracking leadership learning at Norwich University which will benchmark data from 9 other graduate degree programs involving over 800 instructors, staff, and executive leadership positions.

The previous chapter outlined the conceptual debates surrounding the multiplicity of activities that can be defined as already existing spaces of grassroots sustainability enterprise. The case has therefore already been made for a serious reflection on the contributions that these activities are making, and perhaps more importantly potentially could make, in terms of creating more resilient communities. In particular, the importance of grassroots sustainability enterprise has been emphasised for those who are already vulnerable to the vagaries of unsustainable development as currently practised around the globe. While these benefits, and the challenges that abound in terms of realising them, will be more carefully examined through detailed case study analysis in the second part of this book it is important to engage first with the complex issue of how such benefits can be elucidated in the context of sustainable development.

There is a growing interest in how firms respond to environmental degradation and societal challenges. Firms respond through their sustainability reports, but assurance of the reports gives confidence to the stakeholders. This study aims to identify the main research development in sustainability assurance which is rising in global studies.

This study uses a bibliometric analysis to assess the global trend in sustainability assurance studies. The methodology is based on descriptive, performance and science mapping. The set is based on 655 documents from the Scopus database, covering the period from 2005 to 2022.

The findings from the study suggest that sustainability studies are relevant, and the researcher's examination of the domain has dramatically increased from 2014 to date. This is due to the rise in the concerns expressed by stakeholders in satisfying themselves about the firm's responsibility to the Sustainable Development Agenda 2030. The findings also show that most research on sustainability assurance is from Spain, the USA, the United Kingdom (UK) and Australia. However, the UK has the most collaboration in terms of co-authorship. It is suggestive that the UK has more links than Spain, which is the most productive country with more publications. This may be attributed to the influx of more international students completing a second and third degree in the UK. The study highlights intellectual foundations and emerging trends and outlines avenues for future studies.

This study is limited to the data obtained from the Scopus database.

This study is the first bibliometric study of the sustainability assurance domain.

Canada is a country that has a democratized higher education system, based on solid principles of access, quality and accountability. Brazil, on the other hand, is a country that seeks to advance its higher education system. For this reason, this paper aims to understand with the main stakeholders of the systems, the perceptions in relation to higher education in terms of access, quality and accountability, confronting two educational systems, the Brazilian and the Canadian.

The author applied an exploratory and qualitative method through categorical content analysis in a multicase study. Data were collected through 10 interviews with government managers, 18 unstructured (open) questionnaires, where 13 were applied to professors and experts in higher education and four to student leaders.

The results demonstrate that, for Canadian participants, these principles should guide any nation, as it is something demanded by society itself: democratic access to the system, that the available system has quality and that the resources allocated to the system are being well applied. In addition, Brazilian participants understand that it is necessary to deepen this debate, including a new principle: permanence, as it is a country of traditional social inequality.

This study presented the perceptions of an educational system based on the principles of access, quality and accountability, the Canadian system and the perspectives for a system that intends to develop in this context in Brazil.

The paper defines the concept of inequity in health care and reviews the various approaches to identify causal relationships which lead to inequitable health outcomes. Notably, the input and process of health care delivery, the medical and social need factors, the external environment and the indirect influences channeled through ‘mediating’ factors. It further proposes a comprehensive model which integrates the combined effects of the several categories of components involved in determining inequitable outcomes between groups and individuals. While not exhaustive, the model provides a systematic attempt to define and trace inequities in health and potential causes of such, in operational terms. It can be used, therefore, for practical measurement of levels of inequity in outcomes.

In this decade we have witnessed in the Australian public sector tremendous pressures for change in the name of accountability and efficiency. Changes have occurred in public sector management and in public sector accounting. Techniques such as programme budgeting, financial management initiatives, enhanced annual reporting and performance audits have all been promoted. These changes have led to a “new” accounting for the public sector. Performance auditing is compared at the commonwealth and the state level, and a study is provided of how a change in accounting can affect the organisation, in a social and political context. Differences between performance auditing and traditional auditing are illustrated and then assessed within a framework of accountability.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of the choice of an assurance service provider on financial and social performance in an emerging economy. The study also examines whether the chief executive officer’s (CEO) characteristics influence the choice of an assurance service provider.

This study uses descriptive statistics, ordinary least square and probit regression to examine the 800 firm-year observations for the period 2010–2019 and with the Indian stock market as a testing ground.

The study shows that the engagement of assurance service providers reduces financial performance (stock price returns and Tobin’s q). The study also shows that consulting firms and auditing firms improve the social performance disclosure of the firm in an emerging economy. However, consulting firms outweigh auditing firms in improving social performance disclosure. Also, the implementation of mandatory reporting may slightly impede instead of an increase in social performance disclosure in an emerging economy. The study also shows that ageing CEOs prefer consulting firms over auditing firms in assurance service provision. Finally, the study shows that an extended stay in office by a CEO improves the choice of consulting firms, but the effect has a near-neutral significance.

The choice of CEO characteristics as an independent variable adds to the factors or drivers that cause the choice of an assurance service provider in an emerging economy. Also, the measurement variable of stock price returns and Tobin’s q expands the financial performance measurement in the relationship with assurance service providers.

The purpose of this study is to understand how board composition and independent non-executive director (INED) disclosures have changed in light of the global financial crisis (GFC) from an accountability perspective.

Content analysis techniques were undertaken on a random sample of 75 publicly listed companies across two time periods, 2005 and 2010.

The findings highlighted increased INED board membership and increased skill and experience disclosure across all board positions, with the most significant increase being the INED position. The results support the notion that firms are attempting to restore their accountability relationships post-GFC through more transparent mechanisms of governance. However, concerns are also raised in the way individual companies are meeting the ASX Corporate Governance independence requirements.

The results raise questions as to whether firms have implemented these changes to ensure effective governance and accountability responsibilities, or simply to give the appearance of good governance.

Little attention has been given in the literature to the characteristics of INEDs and whether board changes have been made in the wake of corporate and financial crises. The findings from this study contribute to an understanding of board composition and disclosures pre- and post-GFC.