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The purpose of this paper is to understand the corporate sustainability culture of contracting firms, particularly in the Midwest. Many of the local firms operate nationally. The local corporate culture influences their regional offices. Other than convenience, the firms are selected from Midwest since their headquarters are situated in Midwest region and comprises of more number of employees than their other regional offices. This helped the research to approach more contractors for better survey and interview responses. The paper documents the study on existing management and construction practices these contractors adopt on sustainability and examines how their sustainability efforts influence the firms’ performances.

This research utilized surveys and interviews as the primary means of data collection. The data were collected from survey and interviews with selected companies operating in the Midwest region of the USA. One of the companies also operates offices across the country. Data from the interviews and surveys were analyzed using statistical analysis system software application. χ² analysis, particularly the frequency procedures using the Cochran-Mantel-Haenszel (CMH) method was the primary analysis method used to study the relationships between different factors. The CMH method compares the association between and within two groups and permits adjustments of the control variables.

The findings of this paper include the results from various Midwest commercial building contractors. The results on different aspects of sustainable practices and their success rates among the contractors are determined and discussed, and future scope of improvements are mentioned at the conclusion of this paper.

In summary, sustainable business practices are beneficial to society and favorable for the construction business. Embracing sustainable business practices has a positive impact on firm strategic performance for commercial building contractors through employee satisfaction, project opportunities, and market advantage. Sustainable business practices extend into the lives of individuals involved which exceedingly impacts society. The construction industry has advanced sustainability efforts, but there is a long way to go on the journey to being better stewards of the environment and resources.

A rival theory became apparent during the investigation that a new building consolidating all local company employees could have an impact on firm strategic performance. Third, this paper is confounded by a great recession that made project opportunities and revenue considerations analysis problematic. Some information regarding these aspects were helpful; however, expanding this paper during a more stable and typical economic period could provide additional insight.

As universities operate in a global environment, internationalisation is inevitable for higher education (HE), as it is driven externally by political, economic, and socio-cultural globalisation forces. Through decoding and deconstructing the English language proficiency of international students and the international student experience at universities in the UK, this chapter investigates how university academics should consider employing both scaffolding strategies and cultural intelligence in their teaching and learning to enhance the international student experience and bridge the gap in educational attainment between home and international students. This calls for academics to re-assess and re-conceptualise what teaching, and learning means in a culturally and linguistically diverse context. It also aims to encourage further research around the convergence of English language and the disciplines, as well as the internationalisation and equality, diversity and inclusivity of HE policies and strategies.

This study aims to contribute to the existing social marketing literature by considering young adults’ views and perceptions about social marketing and social marketing campaigns in the context of alcohol consumption.

Eighteen interviews were conducted with young adults aged 25-30 years in Australia and the USA. Biographical interviews were used to collect information on individuals’ drinking histories and how their attitudes towards social marketing campaigns have formed during their lives.

Four main themes emerge in the study, namely, ethicality (freedom of choice), expensiveness, exaggeration and effectiveness. These four issues represent the main barriers and challenges for social marketers. Future research needs to explore the relationship between the attitudes of the target audience towards social marketing, and the actual effectiveness of social marketing campaigns.

This is an exploratory study that is limited by its context, sample size and participants’ demographical characteristics.

This study provides empirical evidence behind challenges and barriers facing social marketing identified by Andreasen (2002).