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Aim of the present monograph is the economic analysis of the role of MNEs regarding globalisation and digital economy and in parallel there is a reference and examination of some legal aspects concerning MNEs, cyberspace and e‐commerce as the means of expression of the digital economy. The whole effort of the author is focused on the examination of various aspects of MNEs and their impact upon globalisation and vice versa and how and if we are moving towards a global digital economy.

Realising the sustainable development goals (SDGs) will require substantial efforts from both governments, businesses, civil society and academic researchers. This paper aims to discuss the contributions that the international business (IB) discipline can make to promoting the SDGs.

The paper is conceptual.

The authors argue that IB can contribute to promoting the SDGs, given IB’s expertise on the multinational enterprise (MNE) and knowledge that is relevant to the international dimensions that most SDGs have. However, paradigmatic features of IB such as a focus on firm-level financial performance and on the MNE as an organisation, and dominance of quantitative methods, may presently restrict the discipline’s contributions to the SDGs.

The authors present a set of recommendations for IB research on the SDGs, many of which imply an extension of the boundaries of the current IB paradigm.

This paper aims to explore the differences in first-year and senior engineering students’ engineering agency beliefs and career goals related to sustainable development. The authors also sought to understand how topics related to sustainable development in engineering courses affect senior engineering students’ goals to address these issues in their careers. This work provides evidence of how students’ agency beliefs may be shaped by higher education, which is essential to workforce development.

Findings stem from two national surveys of engineering first-year (Sustainability and Gender in Engineering, n = 7,709) and senior students (Student Survey about Career Goals, College Experiences, n = 4,605). The authors compared both groups using pairwise testing by class standing.

The results indicate that undergraduate studies tend to reinforce students’ engineering agency beliefs to improve their quality of life and preserve the environment. Significantly more senior students selected career goals to address environmental issues compared to first-year students. In general, students undervalue their roles as engineers in addressing issues related to social inequities. Those topics are rarely addressed in engineering courses. Findings from this work suggest discussing sustainability in courses positively impact setting career goals to address such challenges.

The study compares results from two distinct surveys, conveyed at different periods. Nonetheless, the sample size and national spread of respondents across US colleges and universities are robust to offer relevant insights on sustainable development in engineering education.

Adapting engineering curriculum by ensuring that engineering students are prepared to confront global problems related to sustainable development in their careers will have a positive societal impact.

This study highlights shortcomings of engineering education in promoting social and economic sustainability as related to the engineering field. Educational programs would benefit from emphasizing the interconnectedness of environmental, social and economic dimensions of sustainable development. This approach could increase diversity in engineering education and the industry, and by ripple effect, benefit the communities and local governance.

This work is a first step toward understanding how undergraduate experiences impact students’ engineering agency beliefs and career goals related to sustainability. It explores potential factors that could increase students’ engineering agency and goals to make a change through engineering.

This paper aims to discuss the tax-related illicit financial flows from a human rights perspective. It argues that curbing illicit financial flows, and specifically tax abuse, is essential not only for realizing human rights but also for achieving the sustainable development goals. It provides definitions of tax evasion and avoidance, as well as estimations of illicit financial flows. It studies the tax abuse implications for human rights and sustainable development, as well as the obligations in the field of human rights and tax abuse. It also critically assesses the recent international initiatives aim at curbing illicit financial flows. It concludes with a set of recommendations on how to curb illicit financial flows.

This paper combines economic, legal and policy perspectives to study the multidimensional, complex and global problem of illicit financial flows. It not only proposes an explanation of the volume, roots and economic, social and human rights implications of illicit financial flows but it also proposes reforms that states and other stakeholders need to implement in order to curb this phenomenon.

Combating tax abuse and illicit financial flows more broadly, is essential to make better progress in realizing international human rights obligations. The inclusion of a specific target to reduce illicit financial flows under the sustainable development goals makes clear that curbing such flows is also essential for creating an enabling environment for sustainable development. While we should applaud that reducing illicit financial flows is mentioned in one of the targets of the sustainable development goals, the target remains broad and vague. Specific measures to operationalize this target are needed to ensure that progress is achieved and that such progress can be tracked and measured. The author presents recommendations for discussion. To promote accountability, the recommendations are addressed to specific stakeholders.

This paper tries to contribute to improve our knowledge and understanding of illicit financial flows and tax abuse more specifically at global level and their implications for human rights, to make the need for change more compelling, as well as to stimulate the debate around reforms that need to be implemented to curb illicit financial flows.

COVID-19 has been a major challenge to global governance, highlighting the necessity for stepping up innovative governance. Beginning in 2020, governments have been trying to adjust in dealing with the massive challenges of COVID-19, implying that attention has been diverted from attaining the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to handling the pandemic. COVID-19 poses a genuine threat to economic progress, food safety, health, and educational parity in developing countries. The article examines the pandemic's impact on achieving the Sustainable Development Goals through a comparative lens of Bangladesh and the Philippines.

This study aims to examine the possible gains and challenges for the enhancement of bilateral trade ties between India and Pakistan. It is interested specifically in analyzing and deliberating an attempt to identify the key challenges and bottlenecks in cross-border trade.

This paper offers in-depth case study of trade between India and Pakistan using time-series data and through various stake holders' interviews. As further discussed in the paper, the data investigation and interviews highlight impediments in India–Pakistan trade from trade policy to other policies involved in this process.

Based on time series data and stakeholders’ interviews, the study concludes that poor trade logistics and abysmal transport infrastructure, high tariffs and non-tariff measures, lengthy customary procedures, heavy import duties, port restrictions, lack of appropriate storage facilities, strict visa regime, financial transaction barriers and lack of telecommunication facilities are the major challenges in the way of regional trade.

The study proposes some key reforms and policy measures to boost the formal trade to minimize the trade obstacles such as public–private partnerships and inclusion of private sector in a joint trade commission to strength the business relations between the two countries.

The aims of this study is to put on the agenda discussions concerning the approach of sustainable goals and indicators, in terms of how they relate to each other and how to list their importance within a network of contemporary city management. From the millennium objectives experience, UN has launched the continuity of the development program, through the sustainable development goals (SDG), which have the purpose of giving support to local and regional governments for the 2030 agenda in local sphere. In the city context, sustainable development has also been approached in regulations, like ISO 37120: 2017 “Sustainable development of communities: Indicators for city services and quality of life”. These instruments have in common the concern of offering parameters of public services to citizens and promoting in a uniform manner both social and economic growth of the urban environment.

The present study aims to compare these two sustainable development tools by means of a documentary analysis and to analyze the feasibility of the proposed indicators and their qualitative evaluation goals to improve citizens’ quality of life.

The results suggest that the main urban challenges are related to unplanned urban growth and poor-quality public services, which generate a lack of commitment to enforce laws and to achieve sustainable development goals.

The study establishes bases for guiding the discussion to support managers and investors decisions to promote paradigm changes in the citizens’ life and in the way cities are planned.

The purpose of this paper is to introduce the case of the cross‐border RCE Rhine‐Meuse established as the first Regional Centre of Expertise (RCE) on Education for Sustainable Development in Europe. RCE Rhine‐Meuse is an initiative of two institutions of higher education in the South of The Netherlands, but reaching out to the German and Belgian border regions.

The case of the RCE Rhine‐Meuse is used to give a comprehensive description of the building of a multi‐national and multi‐stakeholder collaboration network aiming at knowledge dissemination on education for sustainable development. The regional approach is complementary to the global approach behind the RCE network.

The development of the RCE Rhine‐Meuse over the last two years, shows the development of a functional RCE as described by United Nations University. A regional network for collaboration in the field of learning for sustainable development is created. The governance of the RCE is stable and the activities create an added value to the development of the region.

The case of the RCE Rhine‐Meuse does not provide a blue‐print for setting up an RCE like network. What the case of the RCE Rhine‐Meuse does show, is the influence of the regional context on the development of the RCE. In addition, the RCE Rhine‐Meuse does provide general notions that can be of use for other regions that want to establish an RCE.

The case of the building of the oldest RCE in Europe over the period 2004‐2008 provides the first comprehensive overview of the creation of a new mechanism that is focussing on knowledge transfer to further regional sustainable development.

This study aims to assess progress toward achieving international (United Nations’) goals and targets for attaining sustainable development and discuss the risks of worldwide failure.

The authors highlight the relationship between global goals/targets and governance, relate this to the concept of sustainable development, outline and compare Millennium Development Goals and their successors, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and lastly view SDG implementation from two major spaces i.e. the governance and science space, respectively.

Governance and culture as new components of sustainable development may be sine qua non for humanity’s transformative action toward global and just sustainable development. Through fostering informed decision and policymaking, modern science, as sketched in this contribution, should provide the framework for realizing Agenda 2030. Earth System Science and its innovative notions such as the Anthropocene, planetary boundaries, tipping points and tipping elements will be key in the process of “designing” blank a sustainable future of and for Homo sapiens.

This essay proposes developing holistic approaches to cooperate at all levels in urgent efforts to meet goals projected for 2030 and 2050. The complexity and functioning of the governance space, comprising a system of governance systems, is illustrated not only in the diversity of the institutional landscape but in particular through the blurring of all scales – local to global.

This paper aims to contribute to the debate regarding the understanding of the multiple manifestations and alternatives for the implementation of sustainable development goals (SDGs) across national borders. For this purpose, the Colombian context is taken as a case study.

The present study performs an exploration of SDGs implementation in Colombia, cutting across the macro and meso levels and the perspectives of governance-making and governance-taking. To answer the research questions, this study applies a two-stage qualitative research design with summative content analysis.

The study finds that the companies in Colombia are showing an interest in incorporating the SDGs into their corporate sustainability reporting. Although companies show a general interest in adopting the SDGs as part of their sustainability strategies, the findings demonstrate that very few would go deeply into the analysis of the SDG targets. The Colombian case might be a good example of how local governments are taking actions for the implementation of SDGs in their national action plans, policies and strategies.

As is frequent with qualitative research, and particularly with content analysis, the generalizability of the findings obtained may only be applicable to those organizations included in the sample. The analysis at the meso level is limited to the private sector, and the findings are not applicable to other organizational actors, such as civil society organizations or academia. Future research can broaden the spectrum of analysis, both at a national and cross-national level.

The paper is of use for actors from the public, private and civil society sectors in Colombia, as well as for international actors with an interest in the ways in which the global sustainable development agenda can be translated into local action.

This paper contributes to the understanding of the different ways in which the sustainable development agenda is moving from the global level to the local implementation.