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This empirical chapter contributes to international business (IB) research on the United Nations’ sustainable development goals (SDGs) by opening a new research trajectory on sustainable headquarters (HQ) buildings. This multidisciplinary study conceptualizes the notion of a sustainable HQ based on a case study and three streams of literature – research on HQs, sustainable office design and the SDGs in IB. It offers a novel angle to prior research on HQs that has largely focused on their functional roles. While IB scholars are increasingly embracing the SDGs, limited attention has been devoted to SDG 11, “sustainable cities and communities.” This chapter draws on a real-time, longitudinal, single case study of a Nordic multinational in renewable products. The authors adopt a future-facing, phenomenon-based approach to envision and reimagine the modern wooden corporate HQ building on a culturally sensitive site in the heart of Helsinki, Finland. The findings emphasize the environmental, social, economic and cultural considerations of HQ buildings. By combining HQ premises with commercial spaces, and by opening the building to citizens, sustainable HQ buildings create a lively city space and increase urban social cohesion. The use of wood as a construction material and the application of design principles that promote human–nature relationships, have a positive impact on climate and human health. By focusing on the physical building, the authors aim to change the way IB scholars understand and study the role of HQ as a part of sustainable cities.

Human resource (HR) process research emerged as a response to questions about how (bundles of) HR practices related to organizational outcomes. The goal of HR process research is to explain variability in employee and organization outcomes by focusing on how HR practices are intended (adopted) by senior managers, the way that these HR practices are implemented and communicated by line managers, and how employees perceive, understand, and attribute these HR practices. In the first part of this chapter, we present a review of 20 years of HR process research from the start, to how it developed, and is now maturing. Within the body of HR process research, several different research theoretical streams have emerged, which are largely studied in isolation without benefiting from each other. Therefore, in the second part of this chapter, we draw on previous work to propose a staged process model in which we integrate the different research streams of HR process research, recognizing contingencies in the model. This leads us to an agenda for future research and practical implications in the final part of the chapter.

In the first two decades of the twenty-first century, low-cost carriers grew rapidly in many low- and middle-income economies. In this chapter, we examine the geography and network structure of low-cost carriers in such economies across Asia in 2018. We use these analyses to explore the relationship between budget airlines and economic development. Levels of disposable income and infrastructure adequacy help to account for the significance of low-cost airlines in some middle-income economies. And in turn, these airlines by fostering higher levels of accessibility and personal mobility may help catalyze faster development. However, the environmental externalities associated with aviation, especially atmospheric emissions, raise concerns about the sustainability of this mode. We assess these concerns and focus in particular on the development of low-cost carriers fleets in Asia. We ask whether the acquisition of more fuel-efficient aircraft will ameliorate aviation's environmental impact.

Successful smart cities' implementation will require organisational leadership decision-making competences. The foundation of smart cities is digital technologies; many of these technologies are emerging technologies that require IT skills, which are scarce and will exacerbate the battle for talent between organisations. Filling the talent gap will necessitate global hiring, which has implications for organisational culture, cultural diversity and organisational leadership. Organisational cultural mix is an important contributor to leadership decision-making. However, decision-making is underpinned by trust. Blockchain is an emerging technology that has the potential to engender organisational trust in decision-making and, by extension, in the leadership with the ‘right’ organisational culture. Smart cities will be required to leverage emerging technologies to give business performance a competitive advantage and use emerging technologies’ applications to build a sustainable competitive advantage.

Work-life flexibility policies (e.g., flextime, telework, part-time, right-to-disconnect, and leaves) are increasingly important to employers as productivity and well-being strategies. However, policies have not lived up to their potential. In this chapter, the authors argue for increased research attention to implementation and work-life intersectionality considerations influencing effectiveness. Drawing on a typology that conceptualizes flexibility policies as offering employees control across five dimensions of the work role boundary (temporal, spatial, size, permeability, and continuity), the authors develop a model identifying the multilevel moderators and mechanisms of boundary control shaping relationships between using flexibility and work and home performance. Next, the authors review this model with an intersectional lens. The authors direct scholars’ attention to growing workforce diversity and increased variation in flexibility policy experiences, particularly for individuals with higher work-life intersectionality, which is defined as having multiple intersecting identities (e.g., gender, caregiving, and race), that are stigmatized, and link to having less access to and/or benefits from societal resources to support managing the work-life interface in a social context. Such an intersectional focus would address the important need to shift work-life and flexibility research from variable to person-centered approaches. The authors identify six research considerations on work-life intersectionality in order to illuminate how traditionally assumed work-life relationships need to be revisited to address growing variation in: access, needs, and preferences for work-life flexibility; work and nonwork experiences; and benefits from using flexibility policies. The authors hope that this chapter will spur a conversation on how the work-life interface and flexibility policy processes and outcomes may increasingly differ for individuals with higher work-life intersectionality compared to those with lower work-life intersectionality in the context of organizational and social systems that may perpetuate growing work-life and job inequality.

The Syrian refugee crisis is too big and complex for any single country to mount an adequate response. Mitigating the human tragedy, deciphering its root causes, and developing sustainable solutions require effective international collaboration. To teach collaboration of this kind to university students, researchers in the US, UK, and Lebanon used accessible communication technology in development of a Virtual Exchange in Global Health, connecting students in medical and allied health fields. Through a problem-based learning curriculum, students from Cardiff Metropolitan University in Wales and the Modern University for Business and Science in Beirut worked collaboratively to conduct desktop research on the crisis and develop a protocol to interview camp residents about the public health issues affecting them. Students in Beirut then conducted interviews and gathered 360-degree video footage of conditions in the camp, which students in the UK studied using low-cost Virtual Reality (VR) viewers. Student feedback provided preliminary indications that the problem-based learning methodology, including the immersive VR experience, contributed to the participating students’ intrinsic motivation to study the problem. The students collaborated in dividing and distributing tasks as well as in engaging with each other in a Joint Problem Space, and began to build relationships outside class, relationships that will serve them well as practicing professionals in the field of global health. These outcomes create warrant for further development of the program and suggest possibilities for deployment of this high impact model for teaching in other fields where complex problems require international collaboration.

In the 21st century, placing higher education institutions in the global world has become the norm. Therefore, many higher education institutions in Ghana and across the globe have set out to internationalise or become world-class universities as part of their strategic ambitions. Thus, finding ways to become visible on a global scale and transcend beyond the countries in which they operate has become of major interest to most universities. The authors of this chapter were curious to determine how universities adopt imported organisational templates as a strategic ambition. One should not assume that the semblance of such imported concepts is mere institutional isomorphism stemming from internationalisation and globalisation. The study employed semi-structured interviews and institutional documents as data collection tools among ten (10) university actors in a flagship university in Ghana. The study used postcolonial theory to critically examine the drivers and current practices embedded in dominant hegemonic global discourses, such as internationalisation. The findings revealed that the drivers and reforms underpinning university internationalisation ambition are framed within economic rationalities, producing human capital, self-marketisation to promote visibility, and a quest for global competition couched within global neoliberal ideology. The study recommends the need for university actors to (re)focus and (re)evaluate university internationalisation discourse to ensure a balance between local relevance and global forces.

The malfunction variables of power stations are related to the areas of weather, physical structure, control and load behaviour. To predict temporal power failure is difficult due to their unpredictable characteristics. As high accuracy is normally required, the estimation of failures of short-term temporal prediction is highly difficult. This study presents a method for converting stochastic behaviour into a stable pattern, which can subsequently be used in a short-term estimator. For this conversion, K-means clustering is employed, followed by Long-Short-Term Memory (LSTM) and Gated Recurrent Unit (GRU) algorithms are used to perform the Short-term estimation. The environment, the operation and the generated signal factors are all simulated using mathematical models. Weather parameters and load samples have been collected as part of a data set. Monte-Carlo simulation using MATLAB programming has been used to conduct experimental estimation of failures. The estimated failures of the experiment are then compared with the actual system temporal failures and found to be in good match. Therefore, for any future power grid, there is a testbed ready to estimate the future failures.

There has been a reduction of arts funding the United States educational system, even though research has identified the need for socioemotional learning policy/guidelines/requirements in the US Ed. and more school teachers and counselors. In Texas, geopolitical issues and natural disasters impact learners in the state and corporal punishment is still allowed in some districts, such as Pampa Independent School District (ISD). A study of six art teachers across a large urban school district was conducted to better understand this conundrum vis-a-vis semi-structured interviews with art teachers working in public Middle and High Schools. This chapter investigates the impact of art practices and art teachers on socioemotional self-regulation of students, as we consider the impact on teacher retention using the Heuristic model of child self-regulation and reactivity and school outcomes (Liew, Erbeli, Nyanamba, & Li, 2020). Finally, the ironic finding that teaching art classes is financially emotionally draining for teachers to the point of decreasing retention, yet some are still impassioned to teach art classes, is juxtaposed with attachment theory. Recommendations for art education policy and pedagogy are made using the lens of socioemotional learning, art therapy, empathy, and emotional self-regulation.