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1 – 9 of 9Higher educational institutions, such as universities of applied sciences, have a significant role in promoting progress towards a sustainable future as defined by the United…
Abstract
Purpose
Higher educational institutions, such as universities of applied sciences, have a significant role in promoting progress towards a sustainable future as defined by the United Nations (UN) sustainable development goals (SDGs). This paper aims to identify how the UN SDGs are featured in master’s theses set in work–life contexts.
Design/methodology/approach
Using a descriptive review and content analysis, this study identified the number of SDGs appearing in 31 master’s theses. Sustainable development (SD) and corporate social responsibility were reflected using the approaches and models in the literature. Finland’s eight objectives for committing to SD were used to examine the commitments made by the business school of the university of applied sciences to achieve Agenda 2030.
Findings
Emphasising the value of higher education for SD, this study found that SDGs three, eight and 12 appeared most frequently in the theses. Sustainable and responsible dimensions reflected several issues concerning both the worlds of business and industry among the firms and organisations investigated by the master’s degree students in the business school at the Jyväskylä University of Applied Sciences.
Practical implications
This research holds practical and pedagogical value, serving to encourage master’s and PhD students to further explore research on SDGs and to shape public policy.
Originality/value
Sustainability was looked at in a new way as investigated by the theses. Ways to integrate the SDGs into management degree programmes and conduct research in the fields of business administration, tourism and hospitality management were identified.
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Tomás Vargas-Halabi and Rosa Maria Yagüe-Perales
This research aimed to conceptualize organizations as open and purposeful systems to study how organizational culture (OC) influences firms' Innovative Performance (IP). The…
Abstract
Purpose
This research aimed to conceptualize organizations as open and purposeful systems to study how organizational culture (OC) influences firms' Innovative Performance (IP). The authors proposed goal setting and internal integration/external adaptation paradox as central to explaining OC's mediating and suppressing effects on IP.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors collected data from 372 Costa Rican organizations and analyzed them with structural equations. This research used the Denison Model instead of the usual typology-based approaches.
Findings
The mission had a direct and high impact on IP. The mediated effect via adaptability was also elevated, as well as the suppressor effect through consistency. There was no effect on IP of involvement. According to these results, the Open and Rational Systems Framework emerge as the main theoretical explanatory concepts.
Originality/value
Disaggregating the OC through a performance-oriented dimensional model makes it possible to study the dynamics between the elements that compound it and facilitate integrating these findings with other research streams.
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Given the important role of change capability for organizational development and competitive advantage, the purpose of this study is to clarify the influences of transformational…
Abstract
Purpose
Given the important role of change capability for organizational development and competitive advantage, the purpose of this study is to clarify the influences of transformational leadership (TL) on organizational change capability (OCC) via mediating roles of two specific aspects of trust in leadership namely disclosure-based trust and reliance-based trust.
Design/methodology/approach
Structural equation modeling is applied to test the degree of influences of TL and employee trust on OCC via empirical data collected from 376 participants in 115 small and medium firms in China.
Findings
The results show the positive and significant impacts of TL and aspects of employee trust in leadership on OCC. It indicated that disclosure-based trust in leadership has a greater influence on change capability in comparison with the effect of reliance-based trust in leadership. Especially, the findings have shown the evidence supporting the mediating mechanism of aspects of employee trust in leadership between TL and OCC.
Research limitations/implications
This study provides the practical initiatives that highlight the importance of applying TL style to build and improve the trust of employees in their leadership for fostering OCC.
Originality/value
The paper has significantly advanced and deepened insight of how transformational leaders nurture employee’s specific shades of trust in leadership for fostering OCC. The valuable findings of this study contribute to enriching the theoretical basis of organizational behavior and change management, and can be used to analyze and explain the relationships between TL, employee’s trust in leadership and organizational capability for change.
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This study aims to assess the spread of environmental literacy graduation requirements at public universities in the USA, and to highlight factors that mediate the adoption of…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to assess the spread of environmental literacy graduation requirements at public universities in the USA, and to highlight factors that mediate the adoption of this curriculum innovation.
Design/methodology/approach
The author analyzed the undergraduate general education curriculum requirements at all 549 public BA-granting higher education institutions in the USA between 2020 and 2022.
Findings
The study found that only 27 US public universities out of 540 have an environmental literacy graduation requirement, which represents 5% of universities and is substantially lower than previous estimates.
Originality/value
First, this study provides a more complete, more reliable and more current assessment of the graduation requirement’s presence at US tertiary institutions, and shows the number of universities that have implemented this innovation is lower than was estimated a decade ago. Second, it draws from the scholarship on the infusion of sustainability into the university curriculum to provide a comprehensive discussion of factors that mediate the pursuit and implementation of the graduation requirement. As well, it identifies factors that played a key role in one pertinent case.
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Almina Bešić, Christian Hirt and Zijada Rahimić
This study focuses on HR practices that foster employee engagement during Covid-19. Companies in transition economies are particularly vulnerable to crisis and downsizing and…
Abstract
Purpose
This study focuses on HR practices that foster employee engagement during Covid-19. Companies in transition economies are particularly vulnerable to crisis and downsizing and other recessionary practices are frequently used.
Design/methodology/approach
Drawing on the model of caring human resource management, we utilise interviews with human resource representatives of 10 banks in the transition economy of Bosnia and Herzegovina. We analyse the banks at two different times to demonstrate how and why companies adapt their HR practices.
Findings
Our findings show a changing mindset in the deployment of highly context-specific HR practices. Strengthening company culture through a sense of community and communication ensure stability and continuity in work. Rather than layoffs, flexible work has become standard.
Practical implications
By highlighting the interplay between HR practices and employee engagement, we contribute to the discussion on engagement in exceptional circumstances and challenging settings and demonstrate how caring responsibilities “migrate” into HR practices in the professional context of a transition economy.
Originality/value
We propose a context-specific “protective caring approach” to foster employee engagement during crises.
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Armando Di Meglio, Nicola Massarotti and Perumal Nithiarasu
In this study, the authors propose a novel digital twinning approach specifically designed for controlling transient thermal systems. The purpose of this study is to harness the…
Abstract
Purpose
In this study, the authors propose a novel digital twinning approach specifically designed for controlling transient thermal systems. The purpose of this study is to harness the combined power of deep learning (DL) and physics-based methods (PBM) to create an active virtual replica of the physical system.
Design/methodology/approach
To achieve this goal, we introduce a deep neural network (DNN) as the digital twin and a Finite Element (FE) model as the physical system. This integrated approach is used to address the challenges of controlling an unsteady heat transfer problem with an integrated feedback loop.
Findings
The results of our study demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed digital twinning approach in regulating the maximum temperature within the system under varying and unsteady heat flux conditions. The DNN, trained on stationary data, plays a crucial role in determining the heat transfer coefficients necessary to maintain temperatures below a defined threshold value, such as the material’s melting point. The system is successfully controlled in 1D, 2D and 3D case studies. However, careful evaluations should be conducted if such a training approach, based on steady-state data, is applied to completely different transient heat transfer problems.
Originality/value
The present work represents one of the first examples of a comprehensive digital twinning approach to transient thermal systems, driven by data. One of the noteworthy features of this approach is its robustness. Adopting a training based on dimensionless data, the approach can seamlessly accommodate changes in thermal capacity and thermal conductivity without the need for retraining.
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Huiwen Shi and Lok Ming Eric Cheung
While most language departments of the university offer service-learning (SL) subjects based on language teaching, such as “Teaching Chinese as a Second Language in Local Schools”…
Abstract
Purpose
While most language departments of the university offer service-learning (SL) subjects based on language teaching, such as “Teaching Chinese as a Second Language in Local Schools” and “Serving the Community through Teaching English,” this paper aims to argue that teaching students to teach language(s) is yet to be the best strategy to serve the service recipients.
Design/methodology/approach
SL is widely understood as an experiential learning pedagogy that integrates academic focus, reflection and community service and is shown to be impactful. In Hong Kong, the first university that has made SL a graduation requirement is the Hong Kong Polytechnic University (the University). Considering this, new SL courses have proliferated over the past decade. Adopting a narrative inquiry approach, this paper examines personal narratives from a new SL subject aiming to raise awareness of refugees in Hong Kong. The data includes students’ reflective journals, co-created personal narratives and podcasts and semi-structured interviews.
Findings
This paper finds that crafting and recording narratives of shared experiences deepens cultural understanding, cultivates empathy and facilitates language learning in a genuine setting.
Social implications
Ultimately, this paper advocates a well-designed SL that combines language, content and technology as a powerful, transformational experience for both college students and service recipients.
Originality/value
This paper focuses on a brand new SL course, “Storytelling for Understanding: Refugee Children in Hong Kong,” offered in Semester 1, 2022–2023. The subject was developed by the two authors from a language division affiliated to the University. The deliverables were podcast recordings, co-authored and co-edited by the students and the children.
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With the rise of the gig economy, management positions are increasingly staffed with flexible labor, so-called interim managers. They plunge into organizations for a limited…
Abstract
Purpose
With the rise of the gig economy, management positions are increasingly staffed with flexible labor, so-called interim managers. They plunge into organizations for a limited period, operating in a liminal position as partly insider, partly outsider. Although several contributions to their client organizations are acknowledged, it is unknown how the interim manager’s knowledge from previous assignments is made useful in the new context under these particular working conditions. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to increase the understanding of how the interim manager’s knowledge is transferred to the client organization while operating from a liminal position.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper presents an interview-based multiple case study of six interim assignments where knowledge transfer is considered a social and context-dependent process.
Findings
The findings unveil the multifaceted nature of the liminal position, which consists of task orientation, time limitation, political detachment and cultural distance. These facets contribute to knowledge transfer in terms of new shared understandings and joint interests, which in turn might create new practices that augment continuous knowledge-sharing patterns.
Originality/value
The results contribute to the research on flexible work arrangements by shedding light on how the liminal position, predominantly depicted as an obstacle for the individual, might facilitate knowledge transfer. Through the process of knowledge generation, it is shown how a short-term engagement might enable the organization to increase its knowledge over time.
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Mine Karatas-Ozkan, Renan Tunalioglu, Shahnaz Ibrahim, Emir Ozeren, Vadim Grinevich and Joseph Kimaro
Sustainability is viewed as an encompassing perspective, as endorsed by the international policy context, driven by the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). We aim to…
Abstract
Purpose
Sustainability is viewed as an encompassing perspective, as endorsed by the international policy context, driven by the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). We aim to examine how women entrepreneurs transform capitals to pursue sustainability, and to generate policy insights for sustainability actions through tourism entrepreneurship.
Design/methodology/approach
Applying qualitative approach, we have generated empirical evidence drawing on 37 qualitative interviews carried out in Turkey, whereby boundaries between traditional patriarchal forces and progressive movements in gender relations are blurred.
Findings
We have generated insights into how women entrepreneurs develop their sustainability practice by transforming their available economic, cultural, social and symbolic capitals in interpreting the macro-field and by developing navigation strategies to pursue sustainability. This transformative process demonstrates how gender roles were performed and negotiated in serving for sustainability pillars.
Research limitations/implications
In this paper, we demonstrate the nature and instrumentality of sustainable tourism entrepreneurship through a gender lens in addressing some of these SDG-driven challenges.
Originality/value
We advance the scholarly and policy debates by bringing gender issues to the forefront, discussing sustainable tourism initiatives from the viewpoint of entrepreneurs and various members of local community and stakeholder in a developing country context where women’s solidarity becomes crucial.
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