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The purpose of this paper is to provide evidence of connections between sustainability policy goals included in public procurement tenders and offers and their achievement through contract award.

Two hypotheses based on extant literature and the inducement–contribution theory were tested by means of a survey of 281 procurement files from 2007 to 2009 relating to eight product categories and four European Union (EU) member states. Data were analyzed using structural equation modeling.

Findings indicate that public procurement was more effective in influencing socially responsible goals than environmental goals. In terms of supplier readiness, vendors achieved greater progress in delivering green than socially responsible operations.

The collection and analysis of data are based on procurement files, which is a new but also a complex procedure. In comparison to survey data, the data from procurement file analysis are less biased.

Public procurement practitioners and sustainability policymakers should consider the use of public procurement as a lever to attain environmental and socially responsible goals.

Evidence has been provided to demonstrate the strategic use of public procurement impacts on environmental and socially responsible goals, thereby benefiting society.

This study contributes in three main ways: first, by adding to existing, limited research on the use of public procurement as a lever of policy goals attainment; second, by examining environmental and socially responsible policy in one study; and third, through providing evidence across EU member states.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the feasibility and utility of developing an independently defined and accredited benchmark standard for responsible food marketing. To identify provisional evidence and insights on factors likely to be critical to its successful development and its capacity to strengthen the effectiveness of responsible food marketing policy.

Desk-based cross-policy domain case study.

There is promising evidence that the development and deployment of an evidence-based, independently defined and verified responsible food marketing standard is feasible. Provisional findings on factors critical to the development of an effective standard and strategically significant evidence gaps are presented as insights in support of future food marketing policy and research planning.

Further investigation of these preliminary findings is required.

The study has provisionally identified an innovative intervention with the potential to strengthen statutory, voluntary and internationally coordinated food marketing control policy approaches.

This is the first report of research into the potential for an independent benchmark standard to advance and strengthen responsible food marketing policy goals.

COVID-19 has changed the landscape within which we travel. Working from Home (WFH) in many countries has increased significantly, and while it was often forced on a society it has delivered some unintended positive consequences associated in particular with the levels of congestion on the roads and crowding on public transport. With a likelihood of some amount of WFH continuing as we move out of the active COVID-19 period, the question being asked is whether the post-COVID-19 period will return the pre-COVID-19 levels of traffic congestion and crowding. In many jurisdictions, there is a desire to avoid this circumstance and to use WFH as a policy lever that has appeal to employees, employers and government planning agencies in order to find ways of better managing future levels of congestion and crowding. This chapter uses the ongoing research and surveys we have been undertaking in Australia since March 2020 to track behavioural responses that impact on commuting and non-commuting travel, and to examine what the evidence tells us about opportunities into the future in many geographical settings to better manage congestion and crowding. This is linked to a desire by employers to maintain WFH where it makes sense as a way of not only supporting sustainability charters but also the growing interest in a commitment to a broader social licence. We discuss ways in which WFH can contribute to flattening peaks in travel; but also the plans that some public transport authorities are putting in place to ensure that crowding on public transport is mitigated as people increasingly return to using public transport. Whereas we might have thought that we now have plenty of public transport capacity, this may not be the case if we want to control crowding, and more capacity may be needed which could be a challenge for trains more than buses given track capacity limits. We conclude the chapter by summarising some of the positive benefits associated with WFH, and the implications not just for transport but for society more widely.

The purpose of this paper is to illustrate how for a business located in a local area that does not portray the characteristics of the “Silicon Valley” stereotype, developing a strategy that pretends to autonomously set its boundary spanning may lead to unsustainable growth.

This work suggests Dynamic Performance Management (DPM) as a method to implement an outcome-based view of sustainable development of small- and micro-sized organizations in their own context. A case study shows how collaboration between the public and the business sector may improve local area's outcomes and develop common goods in the context.

Among the “abnormally-grown” small-and-micro businesses, this paper identifies “dwarf” and “small giant” firms as examples of context-based organizations, where an outside-in perspective may support sustainable development. To enable such firms to build up a capability to survive and grow in their contexts, local area common goods can be leveraged to pursue collaborative strategies and generate value. To this end, education may play a crucial role. Results from a fieldwork focused on the design and use of an educational package are illustrated.

A change in decision-makers mental models is a prerequisite to introduce the use of “lean” DPM systems as a method to implement an “outside-in” perspective to pursue sustainable development in such organizations.

This work has a multidisciplinary track; it uses a simulation-based methodology to understand performance dynamics, to assess policy's sustainability, and to foster a learning-oriented perspective to planning.

A conceptual framework for collaboratively based integrated health and social care (IHSC) integration is proposed to aid in understanding how to accomplish IHSC.

This model is based on extant literature of successfully IHSC initiatives.

The model aims to identify enabling integration factors that support collaborative integration efforts between healthcare and social services organizations. These factors include shared goals and vision, culture, leadership, team-based care, information sharing and communications, performance measurement and accountability agreements, and dedicated resources and financing. It also identifies factors that act as external influencers that can support or hinder integration efforts among collaborating organizations. These factors are geographic setting, funding models, governance structures, and public policies. These factors are intended to ensure that a realist lens is applied when trying to understand and explain IHSC.

This model is intended to provide a framework to support research, policy and implementation efforts.

Although high-quality comparative data from international assessments are now more widely available, to what extent is that data being used to trigger, inform, and direct educational change in non-Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD) countries? The purpose of this paper is to develop a theoretical framework to guide a case analysis of Trinidad and Tobago's system response to international assessment data.

This is a single-nation explanatory case study using data from policy documents and elite interviews. Findings are generated through inductive thematic analysis.

The four emerging themes were: first, weaknesses in the national evaluation system; second, policy-making practices not attuned to data; third, lack of collaboration and stakeholder involvement; and fourth, challenges in accessing and using data. Findings suggested that data rarely acted alone to trigger system change. Critical to initiating and sustaining effective data use for system reform were policy-making contexts and mental maps of system leaders, which in this context acted as barriers. Respondents believed that greater strategic leadership from politicians and technocrats could ensure data-informed systemic change.

The study focuses upon data use and data-driven decision making for whole system reform within a single country context. However, it advances theory that might be applied to other non-OECD cases.

The findings contribute to the refinement of a conceptual model explaining data-driven system reform applicable to non-OECD contexts. The role of system leaders when using international assessment data is clarified.

The purpose of this paper is to establish necessity and methods for considering greenhouse gas (GHG) mitigation policies at a system‐level. The research emphasizes connecting narrowly focused GHG mitigation objectives (e.g. reduce single occupancy vehicle travel) with broader institutional objectives (e.g. growth in student population) to demonstrate how policies operating at different scales individually and collectively influence GHG reductions.

First, a framework for defining divergent policy types and associated GHG impacts is developed. Second, relying on data from a higher education institution, a quantitative model for testing policy impacts is formulated. Last, through adjustment of the model's policy levers, GHG emission trajectories by policy type are compared.

The central finding is that broad level policies associated with housing stock and student growth are more capable of influencing GHG emissions than traditionally classified mitigation policies such as investing in alternatives transportation services. Moreover, based on the divide between stationary and mobile emission sources and related energy intensities, the incentive exists for reducing housing investments and increasing student commuting rates as a means of cost‐effectively managing GHG emissions in the short term.

Tradeoffs exist in GHG mitigation efforts and wider higher education planning. However, institutions lack the methods and tools to evaluate these tradeoffs, either within the narrow field of GHG mitigation efforts or across broader institutional priorities. This research presents a method and case study for better understanding tradeoffs through a systems approach.