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This paper focuses on governance in higher education in China. It sees that governance as distinctive on the world scale and the potential source of distinctiveness in other domains of higher education. By taking an historical approach, reviewing relevant literature and drawing on empirical research on governance at one leading research university, the paper discusses system organisation, government–university relations and the role of the Communist Party (CCP), centralisation and devolution, institutional leadership, interior governance, academic freedom and responsibility, and the relevance of collegial norms. It concludes that the party-state and Chinese higher education will need to find a Way in governance that leads into a fuller space for plural knowledges, ideas and approaches. This would advance both indigenous and global knowledge, so helping global society to also find its Way.

The aim of the study is to assess the extent to which Taoist philosophy offers thematic and ethical insights relevant to current global crises, including climate change, food insecurity, renewed conflict and increased authoritarianism.

A critical review of specific verses from the Tao Te Ching and research sources relevant to them is carried out.

Taoist philosophy, of ancient origins, is surprisingly relevant to modern crises. While not offering definitive answers, it does provide thematic and ethical insights for reorienting governance in more productive ways.

While there is a large literature on Taoist philosophy itself, there is a paucity of research articles on the modern relevance of Taoist philosophy to pressing current issues. The article brings together and assesses these sources, considering relevant research.

Spirituality and leadership, both have an intrinsic goal where they incorporate clarity of understanding, vision and collective action and both have the potential to empower an individual or a team, with commitment and productivity. It is one of the rapidly growing areas of leadership. It takes responsible policymakers and leaders to build a nation that benefits multiple stakeholders and all citizens. The aim of the chapter is to explore the concept of spirituality and show how applied spirituality can provide moral and practical guidance for leaders of public policy to take bold and enlightened steps towards achieving sustainable development (SD) goals. We define spirituality as a way of understanding, inner awareness, personal integration, and a source of values that give ultimate meaning or purpose beyond the egoic self. As such the chapter will go beyond existing discussions of ethical, moral, or values-based leadership and raise issues of how a deeper spiritual understanding of human nature can guide leaders. Some helpful practices like mindfulness are also covered in this chapter. There are various relevant leadership styles including transformational leadership, servant leadership, moral leadership and participatory leadership. Although each of these has some positive characteristics, this chapter with the help of those characteristics would try to get a deeper insight and understanding of how spirituality can stimulate and add more value, and bring integrity, motivation and strong leadership qualities. This chapter covers the existing gap in the literature on applied spirituality and leadership and concludes that leadership when incorporated with spirituality plays a vital role in honing the skills of the leaders and changing their perspective towards the team. The chapter will conclude with ideas for discussion among faculty and students and suggestions for further research into the use of applied spirituality for leadership in sustainable development policy.

This study aims to conceptualize the potential stimuli and consequences of perceived yuanfen in the accommodation service encounter by interpreting how Chinese customers perceive yuanfen during their stay in accommodations.

Online accommodation reviews containing yuanfen perception were interpreted using a grounded theory approach. Group interviews were conducted to verify the interpretations.

Positive outcome-generated emotional accommodation experiences (e.g. happiness) can elicit perceived yuanfen, which then evokes customers’ feelings of gratitude, emotional attachment to an accommodation and memorable accommodation experiences. Also, perceived yuanfen facilitates customers’ tolerance of service failures and promotes customers’ intention to stay longer at, recommend and revisit the accommodation.

This study contributes to the literature on accommodation experiences, loyalty, word-of-mouth and service recovery. Future research can explore the interventions that trigger Chinese customers’ perceived yuanfen during accommodation.

This study informs practitioners of the importance of perceived yuanfen in enhancing accommodation experiences and service recovery. Moreover, the conceptualized characteristics and stimuli of perceived yuanfen offer possible guidelines for practitioners on how to stimulate customers’ yuanfen perception.

This study fills the gap of how perceived yuanfen functions in the service encounters in accommodations.

The aim of this article is to understand the definitions, trends and gaps currently existing in the literature regarding the concept of void in the built environment.

The method used for this article is based on a bilingual narrative literature review, the authors being fluent both in French and English. The advantage of any literature review is that it allows researchers to gather and analyse existing academic literature on a specific subject. The chosen technique gives a thorough understanding of the study and helps in identifying research gaps. The literature review was sequential, online and used ScienceDirect, Scopus and Sage Knowledge as databases.

There are three main findings regarding this literature review. The first shows that the void is lacking consensus regarding its definition and attributes, yet this is unanimously considered as an existing space in the city. The second finding shows that voids are talking to our emotions and perceptions and more studies could investigate a new planning/design approach in taking this into consideration. At last, the third findings shows that there are some gaps that need to be further researched, such as the difference between Western and Eastern cultures to use voids in architecture.

In compiling 35 articles focussing on the void, this article proposes a valuable source of knowledge regarding this topic, as well as delineates new research directions.

Loneliness is widely prevalent in modern society. Despite the growth in studies, very limited studies so far have attempted to systematically review the literature. This study aims to consolidate the antecedents of loneliness by reviewing the literature.

The systematic literature review method is adopted to identify the antecedents. Full texts of each article were taken for analysis which was published from 2002 to 2022. Multiple databases were examined and total of 60 articles were included for systematic literature review.

The study presents the descriptive analysis of the articles. Also, the paper thematically presents the key antecedents of loneliness in three themes (a) Loss of love, (b) Individual cognitive and personal factors and (c) Childhood experiences and parenting practices. The study also highlights the moderating effect of demographic factors and lifestyle changes.

The current study is the first systematic literature review to present the antecedents of loneliness. The study contributes by offering an enhanced understanding of loneliness. Also, the study presents contemporary understanding of loneliness and proposes a conceptual framework. The findings are useful to academicians as well as policymakers.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the alternative accounts produced by Green Earth Volunteers (GEV), a Chinese environmental non-governmental organisation, over a 10-year period in the context of their campaign to create visibilities about hydroelectric dam projects along the Chang Jiang.

Drawing on conceptions of the human–nature relationship, including those evident in ancient Chinese philosophy and mythology, and the Chinese way of viewing and resolving conflict, this paper offers an interpretive analysis of the alternative accounts of GEV in terms of their form and content.

In terms of their content, the alternative accounts reflect elements of interrelated thinking, being underpinned by a recognition of the relationship between humans and nature, which is evident in Confucianism, Taoism and ancient Chinese mythology. The strategies adopted by GEV are a non-confrontational but feasible way to promote their ecological beliefs in the Chinese context.

The study suggests that social and environmental accounting (SEA) in developing countries is steeped in local cultural and philosophical traditions that need to be considered and incorporated into the design of alternative accounts.

The study contributes to the very limited literature that offers qualitative analyses of SEA in developing countries.