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The purpose of this paper is to present alternative ways of addressing inequality in age-friendly work by drawing attention to the limitations of place-based approaches in meeting the needs of dispersed communities.

A case study of the age-friendly programme Ambition for Ageing (AfA) is used to explore three examples of working with minority communities.

Place-based age-friendly development risks further marginalising older people belonging to dispersed communities of identity or experience; therefore, we need to adopt adopt an intersectional approach to inequality in later life.

Three ways that age-friendly programmes may become more inclusive of minority groups who are geographically dispersed are identified: bringing community members together; co-production; and supporting visibility in mainstream settings.

This paper brings together insights from the AfA programme, critically assessing place-based approaches in relation to working with dispersed communities of identity. It offers some ways to mitigate limitations through adopting tailored equality approaches.

This paper aims to explore the social impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, focusing on issues facing older people living in urban areas characterised by multiple deprivation.

The paper first reviews the role of place and neighbourhood in later life; second, it examines the relationship between neighbourhood deprivation and the impact of COVID-19; and, third, it outlines the basis for an “age-friendly” recovery strategy.

The paper argues that COVID-19 is having a disproportionate impact on low-income communities, which have already been affected by cuts to public services, the loss of social infrastructure and pressures on the voluntary sector. It highlights the need for community-based interventions to be developed as an essential part of future policies designed to tackle the effects of COVID-19.

The paper contributes to debates about developing COVID-19 recovery strategies in the context of growing inequalities affecting urban neighbourhoods.

Recent works by organisational anthropologists have identified bureaucracy as a major challenge for unskilled workers in the global economy. Daily encounters with bureaucratic processes only enhance general feelings of inadequacy, frustration and insecurity experienced by social groups who have to rely on precarious work. However, a focus on people’s homespun strategies and on the role of the non-profit sector in helping them to navigate bureaucracy is still incipient. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

The research, ethnographic in its approach, unveils some of these challenges by drawing on 29 interviews with migrant workers in a third sector organisation in Manchester, UK. It explores migrants’ work experiences and aspirations, and the strategies used to navigate the bureaucracy embedded in the organisation of their lives. Informed by the different roles the researcher performed at the centre and by the inter-disciplinary nature of the projects, the methodology includes interviews, participative observation, analysis of life story narratives and drawings, and participation in community workshops.

While acknowledging that bureaucracy can keep people in liminal spaces and enhance their sense of insecurity, this paper reveals how personal aspirations and the ability to make connections across different social networks provide the much needed drive that enables migrants to acquire language skills, a tool that helps them to learn the ropes of bureaucratic processes, become culturally savvy, and leave the stage of quasi-citizenship.

Responses highlight the significance of recent welfare reforms and reveal adaptive mechanisms to deal with resulting uncertainties, which include the use of a variety of social networks, learning hew digital and language skills, and seeking specialized knowledge found in organisations in the third sector. The study also questions the taken-for-granted rationality of bureaucracy, unveiling its messy and ambiguous logic.

There is a widely held belief that sustainable development (SD) policies are essential for universities to successfully engage in matters related to sustainability, and are an indicator of the extent to which they are active in this field. This paper aims to examine the evidence which currently exists to support this assumption. It surveys a sample of universities in Brazil, Germany, Greece, Portugal, South Africa and the UK and the USA to ascertain the extent to which universities that are active in the field of sustainable development have formal policies on sustainable development, and whether such policies are a pre-condition for successful sustainability efforts.

The study involved 35 universities in seven countries (five universities respectively). A mixed-methods approach has been used, ranging from document analysis, website analysis, questionnaires and interviewing.

Although only 60 per cent of the sampled universities had a policy that specifically addressed SD, this cannot be regarded as an indicator that the remaining 40 per cent are not engaged with substantial actions that address SD. Indeed, all of the universities in the sample, regardless of the existence of a SD formal policy, demonstrated engagement with environmental sustainability policies or procedures in some form or another. This research has been limited by the availability and ability to procure information from the sampled universities. Despite this, it is one of the largest research efforts of this kind ever performed.

This research has been limited by the availability and ability to procure information from the sampled universities.

The findings provide some valuable insights into the connections between SD policies on the one hand and the practice of sustainable development in higher education institutions on the other.

Universities with SD policies can contribute to models of economic growth consistent with sustainable development.

The study is the one of the largest research efforts of this kind ever performed.

This paper aims to assess how cocoa supply chain companies disclose sustainable development goals (SDGs) information in their sustainability reports. This assessment highlights strategic aspects of sustainable supply chain management and reveals leveraging sustainability points in the cocoa industry.

The two-step qualitative approach relies on text-mining company reports and subsequent content analysis that identifies the topics disclosed and relates them to SDG targets.

This study distinguishes 18 SDG targets connected to cocoa traders and 30 SDG targets to chocolate manufacturers. The following topics represent the main nexuses of connections: decent labour promotion and gender equity (social), empowering local communities and supply chain monitoring (economic) and agroforestry and climate action (environmental).

By highlighting the interconnections between the SDGs targeted by companies in the cocoa supply chain, this paper sheds light on the strategic SDGs for this industry and their relationships, which can help to improve sustainability disclosure and transparency. One interesting input for companies is the improvement of climate crisis prevention, focusing on non-renewable sources minimisation, carbon footprint and clear indicators of ecologic materiality.

This study contributes to policymakers to enhance governance and accountability of global supply chains that are submitted to different regulation regimes.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, no previous study has framed the cocoa industry from a broader SDG perspective. The interconnections identified reveal the key goals of the cocoa supply chain and point to strategic sustainability choices for companies in an important global industry.

This study aims to investigate the main areas in which researchers are focusing their efforts in terms of sustainability in higher education (curriculum, campus greening, research, governance or outreach), the format in which this research is performed (in terms of individual or combined efforts) and the primary research focus (in terms of local or global issues).

Trends on sustainability research were investigated by means of an online survey – the World Survey on Sustainability Publishing and Research in Higher Education, which was disseminated among members of the European School of Sustainability Science and Research and the Inter-University Sustainable Development Research Programme.

The survey collected responses from 103 researchers across over 40 countries. Three trends emerged: in spite of the intrinsic value of sustainability research in higher education, this area is not as mature as one could expect; the range of themes covered is wide and addresses a variety of areas; and individuals working alone is the most common means of doing research, whereas research at the university, department and faculty level appears to be less common.

The paper outlines some measures via which higher education institutions may be able to take more advantage of the many opportunities sustainability research offers to them.

This study aims to examine the causal relationship of subjective incentive schemes on counterproductive knowledge behavior. Besides, this study also identifies the moderating role of cognitive orientation on the relationship between those two variables.

This study used a 2 × 2 between-subjects laboratory experiment with accounting undergraduate students as the subjects.

Subjective-based incentive schemes reduce the tendency for counterproductive knowledge behavior. Also, the collectivist cognitive orientation negatively influences the behavior. However, cognitive orientation does not act as a moderator in the causal relationship of incentive schemes and counterproductive knowledge behavior.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first that investigates and finds the effect of inclusion of subjectivity in incentive schemes and the level of individual’s collectivism on the reluctance to share knowledge in the workplace. This study has also strived to reduce an overlapping between the concept of knowledge sharing and counterproductive knowledge behavior by applying the right basic concept during the experiment.

Sustainability has become a global concern to deal with complex and unprecedent survival, social, political and peace issues. Higher education institutions play a key role in this transformation. This paper aims to conduct a comparative analysis by continents of innovation and sustainability barriers in universities. The document also offers opportunities and potential actions for universities to create initiatives to minimize barriers and move towards a sustainable future.

To carry out the study, 25 closed questions, composed of a five-point Likert scale, were applied to 283 university representatives (rectors, managers or specialists in the area of innovation and sustainability), to check the degree of application of the questionnaire.

From an exploratory statistical analysis, it was found that the main barriers were lacking of planning and focus, lacking of environmental committee, lacking of applicability and continuity of actions and resistance to changes. Among continents, Africa and Oceania presented the best innovation and sustainability indicators in universities. The main approach of this exploratory study on barriers in universities is as an international research, whose findings showed that several barriers currently prevent universities from getting involved in sustainable development efforts. However, as we debate sustainable development, which is gaining momentum, universities are supposed to move forward to overcome barriers for the sake of implementing goals and initiatives. In addition, universities must seize opportunities to contribute through innovation in teaching, research and initiatives to achieve the 17 sustainable development goals.

This study has two main limitations: first, online research has involved professionals working in the field of sustainable development in higher education. Second, there were no interviews conducted to gather personal information with students and servers. However, the broad scope of the study and its strong international base provide important results that enable the design of an adequate profile of sustainability and innovation challenges that are currently found in universities.

The study showed that there is lack of knowledge management to connect science, technology, innovation and sustainability, to improve management conditions, innovate, make decisions, support initiatives, create incentives and control mechanisms. Trends suggest that future professional activities involve skills in dealing with complex problems, sometimes in careers and jobs yet to be created. Traditional teaching methods are generally only prepared for routine tasks and for existing jobs, thus requiring the creation of new approaches capable of stimulating creativity and autonomy, which are essential for the present and future demands of innovation and sustainability.

The exploratory study on barriers in universities brings international research as main approach, which made it possible to check that several barriers currently prevent universities from getting involved in sustainable development efforts. However, as we debate sustainable development, which is gaining momentum, it is important that universities should move forward to overcome the barriers to implementation of goals and initiatives. In addition, universities should take advantage of opportunities to contribute through innovation in teaching, research and action to achieve the 17 sustainable development goals.

Developed countries are leaders in promoting sustainability, while developing or underdeveloped countries are laggards. In this approach, the study sought to verify the differences through a comparative analysis across continents. As for originality and innovation, this paper presents an international study in the view of specialists who respond based on the experience of their university.

The concept of sustainability evokes a multiplicity of meanings, depending on the field. Some authors have criticized the concept for its vagueness. Notwithstanding this criticism, worldwide efforts to meet the sustainable development goals (SDGs) are in progress and are expected to yield results by 2030. This paper aims to addresses two issues and make two primary contributions. First, the concept of sustainability is revisited to develop its integrative understanding. This concept is built on systems thinking – specifically, on the concepts of synergy, emergence, recursion and self-organization. Second, an approach is developed to help determine whether the efforts being made towards the SDGs can be expected to be effective (i.e., whether the world can hope to soon be a system that self-organizes towards sustainability).

Based on the assumption that the SDGs and their respective targets are systemically interrelated, the data on the progress towards the SDGs are correlated and the outcome is analysed.

The emerging pattern of correlations reflected the systemic coherence of the efforts as an indication of self-organization towards sustainability. This pattern also revealed that the efforts are still spotty and that the systemic synergy has not yet taken place. This correlation approach to Brazil is then applied. The data about Brazil’s progress towards the SDGs from the World Bank’s Word Development Indicators (WDI) database are gathered. The outcomes indicated that Brazil as a whole cannot yet be seen as self-organizing system that is evolving towards sustainability.

To enable the calculation of the correlation matrix, the data series were not allowed to have missing values. Some of the WDI data series had many missing values and had to be eliminated. This unfortunately reduced the variability of the original data. In addition, the missing values in the remaining data series had to be calculated by means of interpolation or extrapolation. There are alternative algorithms to perform such functions. The impact of the interpolation and extrapolation of the missing values on the study, as well as the pros and cons of different algorithms, required investigation. It is important to remark that the WDI series was the only global and open data set that aligned with the SDGs.

In Brazil, it is important to maintain the public policies that affect SDG 1-6, but it is necessary to develop policies geared towards SDG 12. Environmental goals also need more public policies (SDGs 14 and 15). To achieve this 2030 Agenda, much effort will be required for SDG 17, which is related to greater synergy through partnerships.

Three qualitatively distinct levels of efforts to sustainability are identified: individual, organizational and world activities. At the individual level, progress regarding sustainability depends on personal attitudes, including the willingness to abandon a self-centred lifestyle in favour of a more cooperative way of living and making decisions, and to embrace a new approach to ethics, which replaces self-interest by self-denial and self-sacrifice (de Raadt & de Raadt, 2014). At the organizational level, a paradox of the need to internalize environmental and social costs into generic strategies and the sustainability strategy that involves core businesses are challenges for systems working towards sustainability. When it comes to global level, in this paper, the authors tried to make a contribution to push forward the frontier of knowledge by proposing an approach to understand whether the progress made towards the SDGs in the past 25 years indicates that the world is, after all, organizing for sustainability (Schwaninger, 2015).

This study investigates which dimensions of the management control system (MCS) increase the perception of organizational justice and reduce unethical behavior in the perception of managers. The purpose of this paper is to validate the theoretical model of the study of Langevin and Mendoza (2012), testing the theoretical hypotheses formulated by the authors.

A survey was performed in companies listed among the Best and Largest of Exame Magazine, and the sample is composed of 102 respondents of the research, which consists of 41 assertions.

The results of the structural equation modeling show that the definition of objectives increases the perception of procedural justice, but the same was not observed regarding the remuneration of the managers. Likewise, disregarding aspects that are uncontrollable by managers in performance evaluation does not lead to the perception of procedural and distributive justice. However, feedback quality leads to the understanding that the MCS is fair. Perception of procedural and distributive justice was also observed in the use of multiple measures of performance by the company.

Other factors that have not been investigated may interfere with and contribute to the reduction of unethical behavior (budget slack and data manipulation).

The only variable that interferes in the reduction of unethical behavior is feedback quality. The non-confirmation of all the hypotheses instigates the replication of the research in other contexts for empirical validation of the theoretical model of Langevin and Mendoza (2012).