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This study aims to offer a mid-range theory conceptualization of factors central to understanding and facilitating business actor engagement (BAE). Reports on a study of real estate companies and their sustainable development goal (SDG) driven business initiatives. The aim is to identify the factors that need to be in place to facilitate positive engagement amongst actors in business-to-business (B2B) settings.

A case study of real estate companies (landlords of business premises) and their business customers (tenants of offices and warehouses) – comprising interviews and workshops – offer insights related to the factors that need to be in place to facilitate BAE types and outcomes.

The identified central factors of BAE – needed to understand and facilitate positive engagement to unfold – are the actors’ perception of: willingness (to act), resourcefulness (to contribute and solve issues) and influence (to affect decisions) regarding solutions related to the business initiative at hand. Failing to facilitate these factors may result in negative outcomes of BAE where “engagement” merely constitutes perceived obligations and responsibilities.

The study offers theoretical and managerial insights on how to manage the factors needed for BAE. It also sheds light on how actors can use SDG-driven business initiatives to achieve sustainability goals.

It contributes to the concept of BAE, by emphasizing the dynamics of engagement, from the motivational and behavioral dimensions specific to B2B settings. It offers insights how to managerially cogovern rather than control BAE. It presents central factors needed to include and capacitate customers, facilitating successful implementations of SDG-driven business initiatives to reduce absent or negative outcomes.

The motivation and practices of business network members are explored with the purpose of determining what leads businesses to fully share and learn sustainable practice from each other and how chambers contribute to an urgent need.

In this exploratory case study using in-depth interviews, SMEs belonging to a chamber of commerce green initiative address their unconventional thoughts regarding their participation and willingness to share their own sustainable practices.

The expectancy theory of motivation explains why members of a green business network participate in conventional and unconventional sustainable practices and the role networks play in recognizing but not increasing sustainable business practice.

This study is unique in that it explores the motivation and reticence of chamber of commerce business members to fully participate in a green initiative. Filling a literature gap, this study provides optimism that a chamber's green initiative may contribute to providing support for promising sustainable practice.

To be successful, a company has to capture the initiative in an industry from its competitors. The author offers a detailed prescription for getting and keeping the strategic initiative in the face of countermoves by your opponent.

Student entrepreneurs account for a considerable number of start-up ventures derived from university settings. Nevertheless, there is little research that demonstrates how university entrepreneurship education (EE) directly influences students’ start-up activities. The primary purpose of this study is to examine the effectiveness of various types of university entrepreneurship activities (incorporate entrepreneurial courses, extra-curricular initiatives, and start-up support) on student start-up behavior. This quantitative research utilized questionnaire data collected from university students (n = 1,820) in southeast China and was analyzed with hierarchical Poisson regression in STATA procedures. Research results indicate that engaging in any type of university entrepreneurship activities positively predicts students’ start-up activities, yet this positive effect is contingent on students’ prior start-up experience and the overall university entrepreneurial climate. These findings advance our understanding of crucial elements within university entrepreneurial ecosystems and how various entrepreneurship activities within these ecosystems potentially impact students’ venture creation.

The purpose of this paper is to compare the similarities and differences relating to sustainability initiatives between health-care organizations. The aim is to provide a framework of factors and their determinants to enable a profiling of organizational sustainability initiatives.

Based on an inductive approach, judgmental sampling was applied to select relevant health-care organizations. Informants were identified according to their knowledge of their organizations’ sustainability initiatives.

Several factors and their determinants for characterizing differences and similarities were found. The results also reveal that organizational sustainability initiatives are either value-driven or business-driven.

The reported framework of factors and their determinants serves the purpose of profiling organizational sustainability initiatives. Opportunities for further research are provided.

This paper provides managerial guidance for characterizing the differences and similarities with respect to organizational sustainability initiatives in relation to other organizations.

This study establishes a framework for characterizing organizational sustainability initiatives. It also contributes to reveal whether organizational sustainability initiatives are value – or business-driven and considers intrinsic-oriented differences and extrinsic-oriented similarities.

The purpose of this paper is to attempt to develop a framework that will help managers to design firm level corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives which can be of strategic interest for an organisation.

The paper reviews concepts from the domains of strategic management and CSR literature. The concepts are deliberated and analyzed to build up a strategic corporate social responsibility (CSR) framework. The article starts by identifying the salient stakeholders of a firm, based on the three stakeholder attributes of power, legitimacy, and urgency. The framework then talks about the identification of a firm's interest in CSR, on the basis of firm value chain, context of competitiveness and intention of creating new business opportunities. Finally, this literature talks about the expected benefits to be achieved by carrying out strategic CSR initiatives.

In a competitive atmosphere, it is important to utilize the firm resources in a proper manner and for a worthy cause. The undertaking of CSR initiatives calls for the sacrifice of firm resources. Resources are scarce and valuable. Managers can design CSR initiatives in a number of ways. But the real challenge for managers is to design firm CSR strategy in such a manner that it helps address a social issue and also provides the organization with some business benefits.

Though managers are aware of the need and benefits of undertaking strategic CSR, a comprehensive theoretical framework which can guide CSR managers to design and implement CSR activities for strategic gains is not present. This study provides for such an integrated framework from the stage of identification of stakeholders, to the design of CSR, to the nature of strategic gains to be incurred.

The support for local initiatives by large organisations has become substantially institutionalised in the UK through Business in the Community. How much further it will go, and how much it will be supported by government, is the subject of debate and conjecture. An overview of how large firms support small and medium enterprise development — the motivations and how they are changing — is provided. The problems in evaluation and a case study of Shell UK Ltd are provided, and future directions, possible shifts and influences are considered.

The purpose of this paper is to describe collaboration between businesses, universities and industry associations in Australia with the aim of developing an appropriate set of competencies for supply chain professionals.

Three related initiatives are described involving questionnaire surveys (Initiatives 1 and 3) and a series of meetings involving representatives from businesses, universities and industry associations (Initiative 2).

Initiative 1 identifies that although supply chain professionals in Australia are highly educated, they had limited training in relation to supply chain management. Initiative 2 developed a set of 20 competencies for supply chain professionals and their importance was then assessed in Initiative 3. Generally, high importance is highlighted for the set of competencies. Maintaining momentum of the collaboration is identified as a challenge.

One specific limitation is the somewhat low response rates achieved for the two questionnaire surveys conducted: 15 per cent and 16 per cent, respectively. Australia is unique in many respects; hence generalisation of the findings is limited.

The paper identifies Australian industry needs reflected in the set of competencies developed. The paper highlights the value of collaboration between business, universities/colleges and industry associations.

This paper identifies a set of supply chain competencies considered highly important by supply chain professionals in Australia. These can be used by academic institutions in developing future programs, by businesses for assessing performance of supply chain professionals that they employ and by industry associations in developing appropriate services for their members.

The purpose of this study is to explore the motivation of social and environmental initiatives among small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Indonesia.

Using institutional and resource-based theory, this study uses qualitative approach, and data were collected by interviewing 17 SMEs owners who adopt social and environmental initiatives in their business.

This study found that SME engagement in social and environmental practices is more by the intrinsic values of the owners with strong morality-based motives than the organisational need for competitive advantage. This finding indicates that the SME owner's personal values are translated into corporate values with limited consideration for organisational capacity. Nevertheless, there are various antecedent factors related to SMEs' social and environmental engagement. SMEs' social motives are driven more by the religious values of the owners, while environmental initiatives are generated as a result of the internalisation of knowledge and insight from the education system of the owners.

This study finding revealed that experiences of SME owners during their school time significantly affect their environmental interests. Accordingly, the authors argued that the education for sustainable development agendas should be thoughtfully designed in higher education's curriculum and ecosystem. So, the mindset of social and environmental awareness had been cultivated as the core value of future entrepreneurs.

The paper describes antecedent factors of social and environmental interests of SMEs in Indonesia.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how horizontal collaboration aids organisations in responding to modern slavery legislation and in gaining a socially sustainable competitive advantage.

Action research has been conducted in the textiles and fashion industry and a relational perspective adopted to interpret five collaborative initiatives taken to tackle modern slavery (e.g. joint training and supplier audits). The primary engagement has been with a multi-billion pound turnover company and its collaborations with 35 brands/retailers. A non-government organisation and a trade body have also participated.

Successful horizontal collaboration is dependent on both relational capital and effective (formal and informal) governance mechanisms. In collaborating, firms have generated relational rents and reduced costs creating a socially sustainable competitive advantage, as suggested by the relational perspective. Yet, limits to horizontal collaboration also exist.

The focus is on one industry only, hence there is scope to extend the study to other industries or forms of collaboration taking place across industries.

Successful horizontal collaborative relationships rely on actors having a similar mindset and being able to decouple the commercial and sustainability agendas, especially when direct competitors are involved. Further, working with non-business actors can facilitate collaboration and provide knowledge and resources important for overcoming the uncertainty that is manifest when responding to new legislation.

Social sustainability improvements aim to enhance ethical trade and benefit vulnerable workers.

Prior literature has focussed on vertical collaboration with few prior studies of horizontal collaboration, particularly in a socially sustainable supply chain context. Moreover, there has been limited research into modern slavery from a supply chain perspective. Both successful and unsuccessful initiatives are studied, providing insights into (in)effective collaboration.