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Safety and security (S&S) are critical concerns in South Africa, especially in Cape Town, one of the country’s most crime-ridden cities. The University of Cape Town (UCT), situated on a large, open campus, has experienced increased malefaction. Facilities management (FM) services at universities bear the primary responsibility for providing S&S to their communities. To comprehensively understand and address the community’s demands regarding S&S, the current study was conducted to investigate the challenges specific to open universities. This study aims to determine whether implementing community-based FM (CbFM) principles and using technological innovations could offer a more effective and sustainable solution.

The study adopted interpretivist overarching case study methodology, which is ontologically based. A mixed-method approach was used to incorporate the strengths and limitations of the weaknesses of both methods. The data collection took the form of an online survey of the university community and semi-structured interviews with university executive management to obtain data from the single case study of UCT. Descriptive statistics were used to analyze the quantitative data, and thematic analysis was used to identify emergent themes from the qualitative data.

The study presents an overall view of the provision of S&S at UCT, the unique challenges faced by management and the main S&S issues affecting the community. Moreover, the study reveals that UCT has implemented community participation processes in the past with limited success. This is because the strategies implemented constitute a narrow perspective of community participation. Therefore, a much smarter and more inclusive perspective using technological innovation is required for successful community participation to occur and to be successfully used in providing S&S toward achieving future-proofing facilities.

This research has demonstrated the influence of CbFM and innovative technologies on the S&S of the open campus. Hence, future-proof facilities can be achieved when FM actively engages university communities in managing campuses through technological innovation.

The study aims to identify the evoked “sense of place” that the campus community attributes to a watershed area in a Malaysian higher institution, aiming to enhance their participation in watershed conservation. Central to this objective is the incorporation of the concept of a watershed as a place, serving as the conceptual framework for analysis.

This case study explores an urban lake at Universiti Malaya, Malaysia’s oldest higher institution. It uses diverse qualitative data, including document analysis, semi-structured interviews, vox-pop interviews and a co-production workshop, to generate place-based narratives reflecting the meanings and values that staff and students associate with the watershed. Thematic analysis is then applied for further examination.

The data patterns reveal shared sense of place responses on: campus as a historic place, student, staff and campus identity, in-place learning experiences and interweaving of community well-being and watershed health. Recommendations advocate translating these narratives into campus sustainability communication through empirical findings and continuous co-production of knowledge and strategies with the campus community.

The research findings play a critical role in influencing sustainable campus planning and community inclusion by integrating place-based frameworks into sustainable development and watershed management. The study recommends the process of identifying place-based narratives with implications for the development of sustainability communication in a campus environment.

This paper contributes both conceptually and empirically to the sustainable management of a campus watershed area through place-based thinking. It outlines a process for enhancing campus sustainability communication strategies.

This paper aims to present insights on the governance of sustainability transitions in higher education in Africa. The authors interrogate the research literatures on the governance of socio-technical transitions in water, electricity, transport and waste management, and identify barriers and enabling factors that enhance transformative practices in universities.

The analytical framework proposed in this paper combines the elements of governance network theory (GNT) and transition topology. The framework of this study is grounded in an actor-centric approach using GNT to understand networks conducive to sustainability transitions. Events and governance networks were mapped on a transition topology to visualise organisational and institutional changes over time. The study engaged students, management, academic and administrative staff in building a community of practice towards sustainability. This research is based on qualitative content analysis grounded in interview data, focus group discussions, workshops, webinars and secondary data analysis.

The findings show that the university has consolidated a sustainability vision and targets, but several factors prevent the community from achieving these targets, including hierarchical decision-making processes, a multitude of disjointed committees and fragmentation in the campus community.

This research adds to an emerging body of literature in the field of sustainability in higher education with two contributions. Firstly, the study presents a novel perspective(s) on the governance of sustainability transitions by combining the literatures on governance and sustainability transitions using a new methodological approach of transition topology to show organisational and institutional changes. Secondly, the study presents new empirical evidence for improving the governance of sustainability transitions in a diverse and highly unequal African university community in the process of (de)colonisation of knowledge and governance.

Sustainable development involves companies on an individual, organizational and social level requiring the adoption of business models or innovations capable of privileging the co-creation of mutual value with a view to sustainability. From an organizational perspective, this paper aims to show that knowledge brokers, by making explicit their roles as mediators of interactions and acting on dynamic capabilities (DCs), can generate a proactive approach to the three dimensions of sustainability and specifically allows capabilities to positively impact the propensity toward sustainable supply chain management (SSCM) practices.

This study offers an empirical analysis of 200 companies in the agro-food sector participating in a knowledge brokerage system activated by protection consortia. It uses a multiple regression technique that allows for observing relationships between DCs and SSCM.

Absorptive, adaptive and innovative capabilities, when understood and brokered, have a positive and direct impact on the SSCM.

As there have rarely been frameworks developed that correlate knowledge brokerage, DCs and sustainability, this paper suggests that DCs, when adequately valued by the knowledge broker, allow for identifying the requirements of the various stakeholders regarding sustainability and changes in market scenarios to generate sustainability practices along the supply chain.

The learning outcomes of this study are to identify and discuss ways in which energy consumption in a residential educational institute can be reduced by improving demand-side energy management for sustainable development; summarise the challenges that an institute faces in transitioning to a more environmentally friendly mode of operations concerning energy management; illustrate the difference between operating expense and capital expenditure methods used for solar rooftop projects from the perspective of Goa Institute of Management (GIM); and analyse different project proposals for solar rooftop power generation energy using capital budgeting techniques.

Dr Ajit Parulekar, director at GIM, was evaluating the steps taken over the past few years for sustainable energy management to understand their impact and consider ways in which to take the environmental sustainability agenda forward. One of the projects that he was considering was the rooftop solar power plant. GIM had received proposals from several different vendors and evaluated three proposals out of these. He needed to decide on the capacity of the rooftop solar power generation and the type of contract that he should get into for the implementation of the project. This case study describes the differences and highlights the advantages and disadvantages of all the mentioned models with respect to GIM.

This case study is suitable for post-graduate level management students, as well as for undergraduate-level finance and management students.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS4: Environmental management.

Studies have shown that higher education institutions (HEIs) need to achieve deep organizational learning to develop and implement long-term strategies for responding to the climate crisis. This study aims to analyze the sustainability efforts of HEIs, in particular those who use the sustainability tracking, assessment and rating system (STARS), to ascertain what type of organizational learning is being achieved.

This paper does this by analyzing perceptions of learning amongst this group of HEIs. More specifically, it analyzes survey data regarding perceptions of types and system levels of organizational learning achieved by 116 HEIs in the USA that currently use or have used STARS in the past. The approach also aims to develop a macro view of the relationships between practicing campus sustainability, using sustainability reporting tools and learning as an organization.

An examination of the practice of campus sustainability and its relationship to organizational learning reveals that the use of sustainability reporting promotes broad learning, but deep learning at the level of the organization is seldom achieved.

Given the success of using sustainability reporting tools to diffuse knowledge and foster broad learning, this paper argues that such tools should incorporate more metrics relative to soft organizational characteristics of HEIs to shift organizational cultures and foster deeper organizational learning.

This work constitutes one of the few studies analyzing empirical data on campus sustainability, sustainability reporting and organizational learning for a large number of HEIs.

This study aims to explore talent retention in knowledge-intensive industries by investigating the mediating processes between the existence and application of human resource management (HRM) and employee turnover. Toward this end, drawing on the conservation of resources and job demands–resources theories, a three-dimensional model is examined, which includes the relationship between HRM, knowledge management (KM) and change management (CM), as well as their relationship with employee engagement and employee turnover intention.

The proposed research model has been studied with a sample of 168 talented employees in over six European countries, using a quantitative approach, involving the structural equation modeling method. All data were gathered by a multidimensional questionnaire via prolific, an academic crowdsourcing platform.

Results indicated that knowledge-intensive services firms may achieve higher talent retention through the interaction of HRM with KM and CM practices, which may lead to enhanced employee engagement.

Possible limitations of the study include the relatively small sample size, the self-rate questions for the collection of data and the use of cross-sectional data.

To retain their talented employees, organizations should identify ways to improve their HRM, CM and KM practices. In addition, HR practitioners ought to include their talented employees in all organizational change and KM processes and create mechanisms that successfully support knowledge acquisition, creation, sharing, retention and codification.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to examine various factors of retaining talented employees in knowledge-intensive services. Furthermore, the study took place in six European countries, i.e. UK, Poland, Italy, Germany, Portugal and Greece, where the research on talent retention is very limited.

Facilities management (FM) activities affect citizens’ health and safety, long-term urban environmental sustainability and the relationships between the built and natural environments of cities. This study aims to comprehend the status of smart FM tools application, how they are used to improve the delivery of FM services and the barriers to their implementation.

To investigate the current smart solutions that leverage the quality of FM service, a case study based on the FM practice in Hong Kong was carried out. The case study was conducted in two phases of data acquisition based on a qualitative research methodology. After conducting in-depth interviews to determine the application of smart FM tools in different types of properties and to identify the initiatives and barriers to smart FM tool application, three workshops were conducted to validate the findings and further investigate the influence of FM professionals on smart FM tools application in Hong Kong.

The findings of the case study revealed, firstly, that four types of smart FM tools – user-centric, safety and hygiene, maintenance and sustainability-oriented – are used to assist the delivery of FM services. Secondly, smart FM tools are shown to be useful in assisting FM activities. Thirdly, the existing barriers to smart FM tool application manifest differently in shopping malls, office buildings and residential buildings. Fourthly, smart FM tools are used to address the four attributes of user needs: comfort, health and wellbeing, convenience and information to occupants.

The value of this study lies in its focus on the industry level (FM industry) and the application process of smart FM tools in different types of property, revealing the benefits, initiatives and barriers to their future application. This study provides a comprehensive picture of the current status and elaborates the barriers to smart FM tool application, which will help FM practitioners to make strategic decisions on selecting and developing smart FM tools. Also, this study will facilitate smart FM tool application policy development.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between sustainable leadership and sustainable project performance. Specifically, the study aims to examine the mediating role of knowledge integration, examining how knowledge integration within an organization influences project outcomes. In addition, the study seeks to explore the moderating role of top management knowledge values, examining how the values and beliefs of top management influence the relationship between sustainable leadership and project performance.

A three-wave survey of 392 employees working in construction sector projects in Pakistan used both hierarchical regression analysis and Hayes’ PROCESS macro method to evaluate the hypotheses.

The study results show that sustainable leadership positively relates to sustainable project performance and knowledge integration mediating this relationship. In addition, the top management knowledge value moderates the indirect effect of sustainable leadership on sustainable project performance via knowledge integration.

Although the model was tested using three-wave data, it is important to note that the data were obtained from a single source. Therefore, it is possible that common method bias may have influenced the results, and this cannot be disregarded.

Organizations seek to prioritize sustainability and integrate sustainability considerations into their project management processes. Organizations can achieve improved sustainable project performance by investing in sustainable leadership development, fostering a culture of knowledge sharing and learning, prioritizing top management support for sustainable performance and integrating sustainable considerations into project management processes.

The study’s grounding on organizational learning theory adds an original and valuable perspective to the relationship between sustainable leadership and sustainable project performance. This investigation is original, as it combines sustainable leadership, knowledge integration and the moderating role of top management knowledge value to understand their impact on sustainable project performance. This unique approach contributes to the literature by providing new insights into these relationships and mechanisms in the construction industry.

Facilities management (FM) plays a key role in the performance of businesses to ensure the comfort of users and the sustainable use of natural resources over operation and maintenance. Nevertheless, reactive maintenance (RM) services are characterised by delays, waste and difficulties in prioritising services and identifying the root causes of failures; this is mostly caused by inefficient asset information and communication management. While linking building information modelling and the Internet of Things through a digital twin has demonstrated potential for improving FM practices, there is a lack of evidence regarding the process requirements involved in their implementation. This paper aims to address this challenge, as it is the first to statistically characterise RM services and processes to identify the most critical RM problems and scenarios for digital twin implementation. The statistical data analytics approach also constitutes a novel practical approach for a holistic analysis of RM occurrences.

The research strategy was based on multiple case studies, which adopted university campuses as objects for investigation. A detailed literature review of work to date and documental analysis assisted in generating data on the FM sector and RM services, where qualitative and statistical analyses were applied to approximately 300,000 individual work requests.

The work provides substantial evidence of a series of patterns across both cases that were not evidenced prior to this study: a concentration of requests within main campuses; a balanced distribution of requests per building, mechanical and electrical service categories; a predominance of low priority level services; a low rate of compliance in attending priority services; a cumulative impact on the overall picture of five problem subcategories (i.e. Building-Door, Mechanical-Plumbing, Electrical-Lighting, Mechanical-Heat/Cool/Ventilation and Electrical-Power); a predominance of problems in student accommodation facilities, circulations and offices; and a concentration of requests related to unlisted buildings. These new patterns form the basis for business cases where maintenance services and FM sectors can benefit from digital twins. It also provides a new methodological approach for assessing the impact of RM on businesses.

The findings provide new insights for owners and FM staff in determining the criticality of RM services, justifying investments and planning the digital transformation of services for a smarter provision.

This study represents a unique approach to FM and provides detailed evidence to identify novel RM patterns of critical service provision and activities within organisations for efficient digitalised data management over a building’s lifecycle.