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The study aims to investigate the state of higher education (HE) leadership research after the intensified focus on teaching and learning (TL) in academia.

The authors clarify the use of key concepts in English-medium empirical journal articles published between 2017 and 2021 by analysing 64 publications through qualitative content analysis.

The analysed papers on leadership of TL in HE activate a number of concepts, the commonest concepts being academic leadership, distributed leadership, educational leadership, transformational leadership, leadership and transformative leadership. Even if the papers highlight partly overlapping aspects of leadership, the study finds a rationale for the use of several concepts in the HE context. Contrary to the expectation raised in earlier scholarship, no holistic framework evolves from within the recent research to reveal the contribution that leadership of TL makes to leadership in HE generally.

Limitations: Nearly 40 per cent of the analysed articles are from the United States of America (USA), United Kingdom (UK), Australia and Canada, which leaves large areas of the world aside. Implications: The found geographical incoherence might be remediated and the research of leadership of TL in HE generally led forward by widening the cultural and situational diversity in the field.

This research contributes to an enhanced understanding of the field of leadership in TL in HE in that it frames the concepts used in recent research and makes the differences, similarities and rationale between concepts visible.

This study aimed to identify and describe how mentoring influences the mentor, by operationalising and specifying learning outcomes involved in mentoring.

This study used an action research approach, by uniting theory and practice to explore new ways of learning and evolve the field of practice in education. Thematic analysis was used to identify and organise patterns or themes that emerged from the data.

The results showed that mentoring changed the mentors' perspectives towards improved understanding, more flexibility and approval of other cultures. It seems that mentoring expanded the mentors' search for values, wishes and resources, including an awareness that our values, wishes and needs are more similar than different. Mentoring also seems to have improved the ability to reformulate, be flexible, strive to optimise user engagement and engage with people as they are, based on their own prerequisites.

The low number of participants means the results cannot be generalised, and voluntary participation may have led to more motivated involvement and positive results.

This study shows that mentoring has had an impact on students' development of intercultural competence and cultural sensitivity through regular meetings with individuals from a different cultural background. Mentoring seems to have revealed insights into underlying prejudices and changed perspectives towards better understanding, thus increased acceptance of other cultures.

Search for similar studies shows a lack of research that operationalises and specifies the learning outcomes that mentors gain from being a mentor.

The purpose of this paper is to answer the call for CSR communication research to develop and substantiate outcomes that may better explain CSR communication strategies and practices. The paper takes the research a step further, exploring the role of legitimacy in CSR communication research.

A literature collection methodology, combined with directed content analysis, was used to identify central themes in the literature.

The following categories of studies were identified: perception, impact and promotion studies; image and reputation studies; performance studies; and conceptual/rhetorical studies. Addressed from a legitimacy perspective, the study found that the most important types of legitimizing communicative practices articulated in the four types of studies were related to: seeking knowledge about stakeholders through perception, impact and promotion activities; monitoring and controlling the environment through image and reputation activities; creating stakeholder value through collaboration and engagement; and persuading and convincing stakeholders through rhetorics, CSR models and concepts. The study also found that practices and activities related to perceiving stakeholders’ expectations, needs and requirements are assumed to be most effective for corporations aiming at building or maintaining legitimacy.

The key contribution of the paper lies in exploring how corporate legitimacy is anticipated and extrapolated in the CSR communication literature, including which pinpointed CSR communication strategies and practices are assumed to be more effective than others in bridging stakeholders’ perceptions of corporations’ social and environmental actions. Until date, no reviews exist of the role of legitimacy in CSR communication research.