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This chapter examines the role of higher education institutions (HEIs) as partners in multi-stakeholder initiatives to implement sustainable development goals (SDGs) in tourism. Accordingly, the study describes the actions and leadership of the HEIs, explaining how they engage with diverse stakeholders to enable transformative change at various levels. A conceptual model is proposed and used to evaluate the 12 case studies identified by a systematic literature search. The results generate insights into the actions of the HEIs in terms of modes of partnership and their commitment. The cases document the diversity of roles assumed by HEIs for creating impact at different levels when integrating SDGs in tourism and paving the way for transformative change and sustainable development through tourism. The findings suggest a critical leadership role for HEIs through sense-making, interpretation of societal challenges, and alignment of stakeholders’ values and goals by facilitating multi-stakeholder consultations.

The purpose of the study is to identify barriers to collaboration among female administrators at a Ghanaian technical university (TU), based on the social identity theory (SIT).

A mixed-method approach was adopted, integrating qualitative interviews of 15 female administrators and completing structured questionnaires from 117 randomly sampled female administrators. The SIT, as the analytical framework, identified themes emerging from the data on barriers to collaboration among female administrators. While exploratory factor analysis identified measures of factors hindering collaborations, the use of structural equation modeling (SEM) enabled the confirmation of relationships among the barriers to collaboration with female administrators.

There existed statistically significant relationships between four of the barriers: intergroup relations conflict, trust with stakeholders and among females and structural barriers (SBs). For the quantitative analysis, it was found that SBs, intergroup relations, conflict and trust were statistically significant except for weak cultures. For the qualitative, results showed that SBs, lack of trust with stakeholders and among females and intergroup conflict hinder collaboration.

The study has a limited scope in using only one TU and focusing on a particular gender. The implications of this research will enrich the literature on barriers to female administrative collaboration in technical education based on the SIT.

Promoting administrative collaborations in the TU will ensure sustainability and efficient administrative systems.

Institutional policies should include gender inclusivity and equality on networking opportunities and provide mentorship programs for efficient administrative systems.

We used the SIT to determine barriers to collaboration among female administrators in a technical education institution, and the mixed methodology added a unique dimension to the study.

In the African context, the threat of the disruption of traditional business value-creation processes, currently facilitated by the growing information technology (IT) ecosystem, came with the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Thus, this paper aims to investigate the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on interfirm relationships within the context of the digital ecosystem in Africa.

This study employs an explanatory–exploratory qualitative approach from an interpretivist stance to investigate the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on interfirm relationships. The authors conducted seven in-depth interviews with top management executives in a Nigerian technology company, together with the company's archival data that provided the pre, during and post pandemic (2018–2021) business-to-business (B2B) relationship structures, to determine how these relationships have been affected.

The results suggest that the pandemic had a minimal effect on partnership relationships in the B2B ecosystems of the case company but affected only non-partnership relationships.

The authors' qualitative study is interpretive and the sample size is limited. Hence, there is a need for caution in generalizing the findings. The framework can be further validated across a wider population.

Partnerships can help organizations weather business crises. Consequently, organizations should maintain a healthy number of partnership relations to deal with periods in which challenges emerge in the business landscape. In other words, with tight contracts and a strategic focus on goals and objectives, partnership relations can help organizations weather business crises.

This study builds upon the burgeoning body of literature on digital ecosystems within the African context, which is a relevant contextual contribution.

This study examines the public participation in the implementation of the Historic Urban Landscape (HUL), a United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) approach for urban development. HUL has six Critical Steps and four Tools Categories relating to community engagement, knowledge and planning, regulatory system and financial instruments. The HUL public participation component has materialized variably across the adopting cities, challenged by the local implementation capacity. In response, we have singled out two research questions revolving around the participants’ characteristics and participation methods.

This study instrumentalizes case studies as a research methodology and thematic literature as a theoretical context. The HUL projects for Ballarat, Australia and Cuenca, Ecuador have been selected as sources of published information because they exhibit comparative differences in completing community engagement. We have compared the community engagement accounts of the two cities.

The Ballarat and Cuenca HUL project accounts point out to commonalities and variances in responding to the HUL public participation mandate. The findings for the participants’ characteristics involve project setting, participants categories and participants empowerment; the findings for the participation methods involve initial preparation, domestic and international expertise and public conversation.

The results of the study help define public participation practices in HUL project implementations. The results present an opportunity for city officials, HUL project planners and field administrators for making informed decisions particularly in relation to the two public participation domains, the participants’ characteristics and the engagement methods.

This study aims to highlight the growth and development of Indo-German collaborative research over the past three decades. Moreover, this study encompasses an in-depth examination of funding acknowledgements to gain valuable insights into the financial support that underpins these collaborative endeavours. Together with this paper, the authors provide an openly accessible data set of Indo-German research papers for further and reproducible research activities (the “Indo-German Literature Dataset”).

The data were retrieved from the Web of Science (WoS) database from the year 1990 till the 30th of November 2022. A total of 36,999 records were retrieved against the used query. Acknowledged entities were extracted using a named entity recognition (NER) model specifically trained for this task. Interrelations between the extracted entities and scientific domains, lengths of acknowledgement texts, number of authors and affiliations, number of citations and gender of the first author, as well as collaboration patterns between Indian and German funders were examined.

The study reveals a consistent and increasing growth in the publication trend over the years. The study brings to light that Physics, Chemistry, Materials Science, Astronomy and Astrophysics and Engineering prominently dominate the Indo-German collaborative research. The USA, followed by England and France, are the most active collaborators in Indian and German research. Largely, research was funded by major German and Indian funding agencies, international corporations and German and American universities. Associations between the first author’s gender and acknowledged entity were observed. Additionally, relations between entity, entity type and scientific domain were discovered.

The study paves the way for enhanced collaboration, optimized resource utilization and societal advantages by offering a profound comprehension of the intricacies inherent in research partnerships between India and Germany. Implementation of the insights gleaned from this study holds the promise of cultivating a more resilient and influential collaborative research ecosystem between the two nations.

The study highlights a deeper understanding of the composition of the Indo-German collaborative research landscape of the past 30 years and its significance in advancing scientific knowledge and fostering international partnerships. Furthermore, the authors provide an open version of the original WoS data set. The Indo-German Literature Data set consists of 22,844 papers from OpenAlex and is available for related studies like literature studies and scientometrics.

This chapter concludes the book by addressing the complexities and challenges associated with smart cities. Despite the widespread enthusiasm and progressive policies surrounding smart cities, navigating this world remains a desirable yet complex challenge. Drawing on existing literature, this final chapter serves as a synthesis of the key points covered throughout the book and offers practical guidelines for navigating the landscape of smart cities. This chapter provides valuable tips and insights for both citizens and policymakers, recognizing their pivotal roles in shaping the future of smart cities. Additionally, it delves into the current challenges faced by smart city initiatives and discusses potential future directions. Emphasizing the need for ongoing adaptation and innovation, this chapter highlights the importance of overcoming obstacles and capitalizing on opportunities in the rapidly evolving digital age. By offering a comprehensive overview and practical recommendations, this chapter aims to equip readers with the knowledge and tools to navigate the complexities of smart cities effectively. It concludes the book on a forward-looking note, emphasizing the dynamic nature of smart city development and the continuous need for adaptation and innovation.

Sherwood Forest is a mosaic of heritage, habitats and stakeholder relations. Scheme Manager, Steve Little, and Senior Lecturer in Museum Studies, Charlie Gregson, share their story of developing a working methodology in this complex landscape. By evaluating their relationship through the lenses of knowledge brokering and collaborative mentoring, they identify six themes relating to how their working environment evolved and functioned. Discussion finds significant overlap between collaborative mentoring, KE and the attainment of the Sustainable Development Goals in their ability to enable more nuanced and holistic changemaking that is contextualized in a deep understanding of need.

Knowledge brokering, a process by which an individual (or an organization) supports the transfer of research evidence into policy and practice, can improve evidence-based decision-making through knowledge exchange (KE) but is, on the whole, poorly defined in academia (Cvitanovic et al., 2017). This chapter seeks to contribute to the ‘necessary and urgent’ need for evaluation of KE in practice (Rycroft-Smith, 2022) by providing edited snippets of dialogue, analysis and key learning points. It is intended as inspiration and encouragement for academics, professionals, students and volunteers developing human-centric projects or design-thinking methodologies between universities and external partners.

The purpose of this study was to gather insights from sport marketing professionals and identify key opportunities, challenges and knowledge that sport marketing educators and researchers could utilize in developing curriculum and research agendas.

A qualitative approach was used, and data were collected through in-depth interviews with 15 sport marketing professionals. Participants were asked questions related to the knowledge, skills and experiences that they believe are important for students to have to be successful in the industry, as well as the types of research that would be most useful in their day-to-day work.

Industry professionals noted collaboration, transformation in digital marketing, data and analytics and experiential marketing as key trends facing the industry today. The findings suggest that sport marketing curriculum should focus on soft skill development such as communication, relationship building and empathy alongside hard skill development such as data analysis and storytelling. As well, findings show research areas where scholars can aid practitioners with a focus on consumer insights, technology, measuring ROI and experiential marketing.

With these findings, educators and scholars can better prepare students for successful careers in industry and contribute to the ongoing advancement of the scholarly field. This study serves as a starting point for further research in this area, and it is hoped that it will spark continued collaboration between academia and industry.

Despite the burgeoning interest in corporate universities (CUs), their pragmatic application and ongoing evolution present challenges. This study aims to analyze the South Korean CU landscape from a balanced perspective to draw implications for the sustainable development of CUs.

The study uses a case study method to systematically explore CUs in South Korea by reviewing the South Korean government reports on CUs. The cases of CUs are analyzed based on the holistic model of CUs, which functions as an analytical framework.

By analyzing four groups of CUs, namely, in-house colleges, corporation colleges, technical colleges and in-house college-type lifelong educational establishments, implemented in South Korea, this study draws implications for the sustainable development of CUs, using the holistic CU model.

By analyzing cases of CUs from a new perspective, this study contributes to expand knowledge on CUs and suggests implications for organizations aiming to establish and sustain their own CUs tailored to their specific needs. Furthermore, this paper delves into the support necessary for the successful implementation and sustainable development of CUs, spanning organizational/team, national and individual levels.

Nature’s contribution to people (NCP) is a concept that specifically recognizes the relationship of “humans and the natural environment” similarly to concepts of “cultural landscapes” and consistent to “heritage.” These concepts are essential in incorporating a diverse range of stakeholders from different scales, which is important for policy and practice. The paper aims to review the existing peer-reviewed papers in the Philippines, using meta-analysis and systematic review. We addressed the significant interlinkages that help facilitate the transition and strengthen the correlation of cultural ecosystem services (CES) and NCP in a cultural landscape setting.

To distinguish and support claims for NCP from CES, we conducted a meta-analysis and systematic review based on the 30-existing peer-reviewed articles on the Philippine cultural ES in the lenses of “heritage” and “cultural landscape.”

The results generated a few numbers of the Philippine CES studies, yet it has increased cumulatively year by year consistent with previous international studies. We found that most studies are focused on topics associated with “Indigenous People, Ancestral Domains, Protected Areas/Landscapes, and Indigenous and Local Knowledge” on the linkages concurrently distinguishing NCP to CES, and may signify stronger economic valuation in uncovering the sociocultural dimensions of these scholarships through its relational values in the lenses of cultural landscape and heritage.

The authors limited the search to peer-reviewed journal articles published from online databases and did not consider Philippine University based and local publications to have a systematic review. This is to prevent underestimating the vast amount of CES literature and avoid gray literature that is not peer-reviewed; hence, being able to analyze and produce focused, yet, credible data.

In a generalizing perspective, NCP 1, 6, 8, 12, 13, 15, 16, 17 and 18 have the most realized positive correlations of the reporting categories to the Philippine CES studies. The majority of the context-specific perspective NCP has strong conceptual claims in the existing Philippine CES literature through the studies’ variables aside from NCP 3, 4, 5, 7, 8 and 11 that are still mostly in the nature of generalizing perspective.

In conclusion, our results imply that the previous and existing CES studies in the Philippines harbor more attributes presented by the NCP reporting categories. This is deemed more suitable, and may signify stronger economic valuation in uncovering the sociocultural dimensions of these scholarships through its relational values in the lenses of cultural landscape and heritage.