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The purpose of this paper is to identify the key aspects of transformation of universities towards sustainability, such as the ideal characteristics of the “sustainable university”, and the drivers and barriers in the transformation, by comparing the strategies of seven universities world‐wide.

A systems transformation analysis of seven case studies has been applied through a self‐evaluation based on the tridimensional Framework‐Level‐Actors (FLA) method.

The study shows that none of the three dimensions of change is predominant over the others. The main barrier to be overcome is the lack of incentive structure for promoting changes at the individual level. The main drivers for change are the presence of “connectors” with society, the existence of coordination bodies and projects, and the availability of funding, all of which are important for progress. Enhancing interdisciplinarity is a strategic objective at almost all of these universities, while transformative learning is less present. A common characteristic for most of the institutions is establishing and supporting networks of expertise within the universities. These universities show important strategic efforts and initiatives that drive and nucleate change for sustainable development, the result of a combination of drivers.

The FLA‐method has proved useful for being used at the level of comparing case‐studies through a bird's‐eye perspective.

The paper demonstrates the application of a simple tool that gives a global perspective on transformational strategies used in seven cases world‐wide in the search for commonalities and differences.

This paper aims to outline the global research landscape of sustainability curricula implementation processes in higher education. The focus is twofold and investigates where research that aims at integrating sustainability into the curriculum is happening and how the research area of curriculum change for sustainability is developing.

A systematic review of peer-reviewed case studies published in English in selected journals and edited volumes between 1990 and 2017 was carried out. Data (n = 270 publications) were analyzed via descriptive statistics and bibliometric analysis.

The study demonstrates that research on sustainability curricula implementation processes in higher education has produced a growing output in a broad range of journals. Nevertheless, the cross-country distribution is imbalanced, with most cases coming from the USA, Europe and Asia, but with the relatively highest density in Oceania. A citation network analysis revealed that the “Western world” is quite well interlinked, whereas other countries are not, indicating that sharing information between and learning from other cases is limited.

The exclusion of non-English publications likely skewed the global distribution of the research landscape included in this study.

These findings demonstrate the need for more research and funding for case studies in countries that have not yet been adequately examined.

This study offers the first systematic reflection on the current global research landscape in sustainability curricula implementation and can guide further research endeavors.

Foreign direct investment in the infrastructure (FDII) of developing countries has a history of at least four decades. Bullish demand for foreign infrastructure services in developing countries, in combination with unstable political environments, has buoyed attention in political risk management (PRM). Even so, research into PRM of FDII remains fragmented and unmapped. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to identify the current body of knowledge in this area, uncover deficiencies and lay the foundation for further practical PRM research in FDII.

This paper offers a bibliometric-qualitative review of current literature on political risk in foreign infrastructure in developing countries. A 36-year period is identified, from 1983 to 2018. Publication year, area of focus, author(s), institution and country are classified and analyzed through the medium of social network analysis. The tools used are VOSviewer, CiteSpace and Gephi to analyze citation networks of 345 published papers. Out of 345 papers, 94 highly related studies were selected for further content analysis.

The study identified the research trends in related areas of PRM in infrastructure (e.g. PRM in international construction and foreign direct investment) by bibliometric analysis, which includes scattered researcher collaboration, wide-ranging and unfocused journal selection, unsystematic and discontinuous research themes. The specific research weakness in PRM in FDII is recognized by qualitative analysis from the perspective of PRM process, which reveals a lack of understanding of the impact of political risk factors, subjective risk estimations, lacking application of mature political risk database in FDII, combined with a shortage of complete and effective strategies for PRM in FDII in developing countries.

This paper is the first of its kind, providing a comprehensive benchmark survey of the research to date in PRM in foreign infrastructure investment in developing countries. It proposes a framework of future research agenda on PRM in FDII, including special issues on this topic, identification and assessment of political risk factors with objective methods, proposition of PRM strategies on FDII with proactive and active approaches, completing strategies of PRM with reactive strategies from the perspectives of whole life cycle of infrastructure projects, political risk factors and stakeholders. It also addressed the need to investigate the suitable literature databases for researching in this area.

Higher education institutions (HEIs) are critical in the sustainability agenda, not only as catalysts for promoting sustainability practices but also because their activities have substantial social, economic and environmental impacts. Yet there is limited research that examines their sustainability performance. This paper aims to investigate the factors that are associated with sustainability performance in HEIs. Specifically, drawing from the stakeholder theory and exploiting Ullmann’s (1985) conceptual framework, this study examines the association between sustainability performance and stakeholder power, strategic posture and financial slack resources.

The authors draw the sample from the People & Planet University Green League Table for the period 2011–2019 and use the generalised estimating equations for the modelling approach.

This study finds that stakeholder power, in particular, funding grant income, tuition fee income and student and staff numbers, are positively associated with sustainability performance. In relation to strategic posture, this study finds that sustainability performance is negatively associated with governing body independence and gender diversity, and positively associated with internal structures. Finally, regarding financial slack resources, this study finds that surplus income (staff costs) is positively (negatively) associated with sustainability performance.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this research contributes to several existing literature focusing on the not-for-profit sector by documenting, for the first time, the role of stakeholder power, strategic posture and slack financial resources on sustainability performance.

The paper includes relevant implications for HEI managers and regulators for promoting sustainability.

These results contribute to the literature on the factors influencing sustainability performance.

This study aims to explore barriers and pathways to a whole-institution governance of sustainability within the working structures of universities.

This paper draws on multi-year interviews and hierarchical structure analysis of ten universities in Canada, the USA, Australia, Hong Kong, South Africa, Brazil, the UK and The Netherlands. The paper addresses existing literature that championed further integration between the two organizational sides of universities (academic and operations) and suggests approaches for better embedding sustainability into four primary domains of activity (education, research, campus operations and community engagement).

This research found that effective sustainability governance needs to recognise and reconcile distinct cultures, diverging accountability structures and contrasting manifestations of central-coordination and distributed-agency approaches characteristic of the university’s operational and academic activities. The positionality of actors appointed to lead institution-wide embedding influenced which domain received most attention. The paper concludes that a whole-institution approach would require significant tailoring and adjustments on both the operational and academic sides to be successful.

Based on a review of sustainability activities at ten universities around the world, this paper provides a detailed analysis of the governance implications of integrating sustainability into the four domains of university activity. It discusses how best to work across the operational/academic divide and suggests principles for adopting a whole institution approach to sustainability.

This paper aims to explore how sustainability practices were implemented in a higher education institution within a local setting in the Gulf and Arab Emirates Region. This study examined the impact of social and cultural requirements on the development of the master plan for the New Kuwait University campus with regards to sustainability to illustrate how current social and cultural requirements impact the design of a future learning environment whilst highlighting the essential role of organisational actors in this implementation process.

Using an in-depth case study approach, the authors conducted 21 semi-structured interviews with educators and administrative staff who had been involved in the sustainability implementation process at Kuwait University. These participants were involved at different stages in the implementation of a major sustainability project at Kuwait University. The interviews were further supplemented by analysing supporting documents and communications.

The analysis reveals that sustainability was embedded in a narrative that was repeated at the practice level; this directed the setting of objectives for the project and its various sub-tasks. It also helped actors to develop their understandings of practice and the importance of social emotions, self-intentions and patterns of culture in the process. This study further reveals that participants mainly focused on environmental issues regarding saving paper/electricity and overlooked aspects of a wider concepts and core values of sustainability, and there is a significant amount of lack of knowledge and awareness on matters about sustainability, especially with the understanding of its definition.

This study draws on practice-organisation framework used by Schatzki (2002, 2010), suggesting that sustainability implementation is a process led by rules, practical understanding, general understanding and teleoaffective structures, to highlight the role of agency and change among various actors in implementing sustainability. A practice-theory framing is used to signpost the roles played by various actors in establishing goals and tasks for the project while taking account of local understanding and independence in the implementation of sustainability practices. Engaging with practice theory framework offers us theoretical basis that is fundamentally different from the theories of interaction-oriented approaches in sustainable design.

The purpose of this case study is to explore the principles and practices of sustainable development (SD) in the university curriculum.

To explore the principles linked with the sustainable development goals (SDGs) and the learning and teaching practices in sustainability at the International University of Catalonia (Universitat Internacional de Catalunya, UIC, in Catalan), an empirical study was carried out by using a mixed methodology for data collection. Indicators related to SDGs found in the University curriculum (quantitative analysis) were measured using Excel, combined with in-depth semi-structured interviews to the deans of different faculties (qualitative study), which were analysed using Atlas.ti.

Several visions, difficulties and challenges were identified in this mixed-method study around the concept of sustainability, which allowed the authors to describe and portray a specific starting position in relation to the SDGs at the UIC.

The presence of dimensions linked to the SDGs in the University curriculum were analysed by means of a quantitative study. However, global competences related to education for sustainable development were not studied.

Special emphasis was given to the challenges and opportunities for training future graduates and the whole University community in SD.

This paper shows a methodological exploration of the principles related to the SDGs and the learning and teaching practices in sustainability in higher education.

The purpose of this study is to identify the barriers to including sustainability in management education institutions (MEIs) in India, and subsequently, to analyze the structure of the causal relationships among the barriers.

In this study, the decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory methodology are applied to analyze the structure of the causal relationships among the identified sustainability barriers.

Through an extensive literature review and expert interviews, this paper identified 4 primary barriers and 46 sub-barriers. Encompassing sustainability in Indian MEIs results in changes in behavior involving increased respect for the environment, hence, leading to improved sustainable efficiency.

The present study is limited to MEIs in India.

The inclusion of sustainability in MEIs equips future managers with the economic, ecological and technical knowledge required to demonstrate sustainable behavior in the workplace. It assists also equips managers with the ability to affect social change at an organizational level. MEIs has been acknowledged as playing a crucial role in societal transformations, including the need for transformation toward sustainability.

The present study adds to the current knowledge base regarding the structure of the causal relationships among the identified sustainability barriers. To the author’s knowledge, this is the first paper to identify such barriers to including sustainability in an Indian MEI context.

This study aims to identify stakeholders’ perceptions of the effects associated with different components of intellectual capital (IC) on the sustainable development (SD) practices of higher education institutions (HEIs).

The empirical approach uses a structural equation model to provide new empirical findings in relation to 738 students and 587 lecturers/researchers at seven Portuguese state HEIs through quantitative research.

The results obtained are, firstly, important contributions to the literature on the IC and SD practices of HEIs, as a relationship between these two constructs is confirmed, especially through relational capital (RC) and structural capital (SC). Secondly, the stakeholders considered show different perceptions of the influence of the components of HEIs’ IC on these institutions’ SD practices, and thirdly, perception of the economic dimension is most influenced.

The empirical findings indicate the need to provide better information about HEIs’ policies and practices of SD and how the latter contribute to the SD of the institution and its region of influence.

No previous studies investigate students and teachers/researchers’ perceptions of the social, environmental, economic and organizational dimensions of SD in HEIs and at the same time how those perceptions can be influenced by the components of IC (e.g. human capital, SC, RC) in that institution.

This study aims to better understand the communication of sustainability by Canadian universities, specifically the use of websites, interactive features and sustainability plans.

A total of 95 Canadian universities were included in this study. The mixed-methods approach sought to capture the communication of sustainability via websites, the interactive features used, as well as to evaluate the quality of sustainability plans.

The study revealed that 67% of universities address sustainability on their websites. On average, universities offer three to four interactive features on their sustainability-related Web pages, and the average score of the quality of campus sustainability plans was 29 (out of 41).

This study does not investigate the extent to which interactive features enhance the involvement and participation in sustainability efforts or the extent to which the sustainability plans were put into practice by universities.

The findings assist with understanding how higher education institutions (HEIs) can enhance their sustainability communication via their websites to encourage interaction and engagement in campus sustainability. The findings can also help universities to enhance the effectiveness of sustainability plans.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first research to assess sustainability content and the interactive features on sustainability-related pages of Canadian universities’ websites. The quality of sustainability plans is also evaluated. The study informs the present understanding of communicating sustainability by Canadian universities and provides a basis for future investigations in HEIs in Canada and beyond.