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This study investigates the barriers and drivers of using green methods and technologies (GMTs) in supportive educational buildings (SEBs) in South Africa, and assesses their impact on the circular economy (CE) in achieving net-zero carbon goals. While there has been extensive literature on green building technologies, there is limited research on the barriers and drivers of using GMT in SEBs, as well as their impact on the circular economy (CE) in achieving net-zero carbon goals.

This study adopts an interpretivist approach with an ontological basis, using an overarching case study of a SEB at the University of Cape Town (UCT). Semistructured interviews were conducted with executive UCT management, and a field survey of a UCT supportive education building was performed.

At UCT, multiple GMTs have been installed across various buildings to enhance monitoring and management of water and energy consumption. Moreover, initiatives to positively influence student behavior, such as water and energy-saving campaigns around UCT premises, have been introduced. The findings further indicate that UCT has recently emphasized the implementation of GMTs, resulting in improved resource efficiency, CE practices and progress toward achieving net-zero carbon targets for supportive education buildings and the university as a whole.

This research highlights the positive impact of GMTs on a SEB’s CE and net-zero carbon operations. As a result, facility managers should consider incorporating GMTs when planning the development or refurbishment of SEBs.

This study aims to investigate how Living Labs of Van Hall Larenstein UAS perform as sustainability-oriented, transdisciplinary learning environments. It shows how the sustainable development goals (SDGs) can be used as a compass and debates the sustainability impact of applied research.

A case study approach was adopted, including a literature review, scoping visits, online workshops and peer-to-peer inter-vision/learning, using the SDGs as a compass and framework for analysis.

Most Living Labs use a “silo-approach” on the SDGs and are designed from a technological-expert perspective. This results in blind spots, particularly on SDGs related to reducing socio-economic inequality and just institutions. Debating unsustainable systems, cultures and practices is avoided. To contribute to sustainability transitions, universities need to invest in developing transformative capacity. This refers to SDG-transition competences such as collaborative communication, constructively engaging with diversity and conflicts, discussing values, norms and ethics and encouraging reflexivity.

Mainly lecturer-researchers were involved in the study. COVID-19 travel restrictions hindered the research at the grassroots level in India and Indonesia.

The study revealed the importance of creating Living Labs as safe and brave inter- and transdisciplinary learning environments to practice reflexivity: encouraging students, researchers and stakeholders to look at sustainability issues from plural perspectives and questioning unsustainable practices, which combined lead to changing perceptions, practices and relations and a deeper understanding of how change happens. The SDGs as a compass method supports reflexivity among stakeholders and in redirecting strategies towards a sustainable future.

This paper aims to find the incidence of university sustainability, as sustainability practices, in university performance at private universities.

Quantitative research using structural equation modelling. Data collection and analysis followed sustainability and performance scales from previous research. The scales were validated by surveying students, teachers and administrative staff of five private universities in Medellin, Colombia. The responses (i.e. 5,344 useful answers) were collected between April 2019 and December 2020 and analysed using the Smart partial least square (PLS) software and the PLS calculation methodology.

The results confirmed the reliability and validity of the sustainability and performance university measurement models and validated the dimensions proposed to determine sustainability and performance holistically in private universities. The results confirmed that universities implementing sustainability holistically in their system positively impact their performance as higher education institutions. The university sustainability is forecasting the University Performance in about 60% of the universities analysed, with a considerable contribution from sustainability in outreach and strategic management.

This study was cross-sectional and empirically validated the model of sustainability and performance at five private universities in a single period and territory. A broader validation from longitudinal studies considering other universities in Colombia and Latin America is suggested to understand local and regional trends better.

Results provided a model for better understanding the incidence of sustainability in performance holistically at private universities in developing countries such as Colombia. In addition, the proposed dimensions and model could help regional decision-making on higher education.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this paper is one of the first attempts relating a structural equation model and inter-university research on the incidence of sustainability in private university performance. This work contributes to a local consensus on sustainability and performance models at private universities. Furthermore, from this research emerged a joint policy framework for incorporating sustainability holistically and regionally as an effective strategy for universities and their commitment to sustainable development.

This integrative literature review aims to explore themes within higher education that may be applicable to leadership education including: descriptions of trauma, trauma-informed practices and trauma-informed practitioners.

Integrative, systematic literature review.

The results suggest that trauma and trauma-informed practices may have a place in leadership education pedagogy.

There is no work being done in trauma informed practice in leadership education. This study provides future direction for both research and practice.

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.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze how sustainability was operationalized in the Spanish universities through plans and actions that contribute actively to the achievement of the sustainable development goals (SDGs).

A systematic search and content analysis served to examine information available on websites belonging to the 76 universities listed in the Conference of Rectors of the Spanish Universities (CRUE).

The participation of Spanish universities on initiatives focused on sustainability is very limited, highlighting the negligible role of private institutions in which topics like sustainability and the 2030 Agenda/SDGs were scarcely addressed.

The study outlines the actual extent of the inclusion of sustainability in particular co-curricular actions toward the SDGs in the CRUE. The findings enable to define a long-term sustainability road map for the Spanish university system.

The purpose of this study is to discuss how ethnicity and gender influence high-tech entrepreneurship in the Cambridge cluster emphasizing homophily and how and why bridging and bonding ties are created in moving individuals from the periphery to cross the threshold into acceptance.

The authors present findings on the micro-dynamics of ethnicity and gender in high-tech entrepreneurship underpinned by homophily. The authors discuss how ethnicity and gender influence who enters and stays in high-tech entrepreneurship university spinouts. Through an entrepreneurial narrative qualitative approach, the authors explore how and why bridging and bonding ties may be created and the challenges for those at the periphery to cross the threshold into acceptance. The study adopts an entrepreneurial narrative qualitative approach using interviews with individuals associated with the Cambridge cluster.

The authors add to the entrepreneurship literature by responding to the call for multiplexity within homophily, and the research indicates that homophily strongly influences who enters and who leaves the cluster based on bridging and bonding ties. The findings address the need for more focused understanding of entrepreneurial clusters and how mechanisms can be developed to create an environment to nurture both bridging and bonding ties. It is possible for an entrepreneurial cluster to be perceived as attractive and thriving while being homophilous. Ethnic individuals and women continue to struggle to gain acceptance in the Cambridge cluster.

Interviews were conducted by one person – an ethnic minority female – for continuity of all interviews. Yet as many of the participants were not minorities, it is possible that an interviewer who was not an ethnic minority may have elicited different narratives.

The study adds to the entrepreneurship literature by focusing on multiplexity within homophily in examining the dynamics of homophily in the context of the Cambridge cluster and the significance of nurturing bridging and bonding ties. The research comments on implications for practice among three interlinked but autonomous groups: first, the individual entrepreneurs; second, the networks she/he belongs to; third, the university as both fertile ground for entrepreneurship and an educational institution where entrepreneurship education is engaged in for encouraging and supporting spinouts.

This paper attempts to investigate the effect of corruption on the real and accrual earnings management of target firms in the process of mergers and acquisitions.

The sample includes target firms from the European area that participate in mergers or acquisitions announced during 2010–2020. The preliminary empirical part estimates the level of earnings management during the period two years before the deal's announcement to identify whether the sample follows the manipulation behavior that the literature suggests for target firms. The primary empirical analysis focuses on the impact of corruption on real and accrual-based earnings management proxies, employing regression models and two alternative proxies for corruption. The existing literature points out that the combination of low levels of corruption and an integrated legal system reduces earnings manipulation.

The findings provide strong evidence for systematic downwards accounting manipulation practices, whereas the findings for real earnings management are not significant. The findings of the main empirical part show that corruption is positively associated with accrual-based manipulation and negatively related to real earnings management. In essence, in economies with a high level of transparency, managers adopt the manipulation of operating activities as a less detectable practice of earnings management instead of engaging in accounting procedures.

This study contributes to the literature highlighting the diversification of these firms' manipulation strategies according to the national level's corruption status.

This study aims to explore how the boundary between science and society can be addressed to support the transformation of higher education towards sustainable development (HESD) in the sense of the whole institution approach. It analyses students’ learning experiences in self-led sustainability projects conducted outside formal curricula to highlight their potential contribution to HESD. The students’ projects are conceived as learning spaces in “sustainability-oriented ecologies of learning” (Wals, 2020) in which five learning dimensions can be examined.

Using an iterative, grounded-theory-inspired qualitative approach and sensitising concepts, 13 in-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted exploring students’ learning experiences. Interviews were categorised in MAXQDA and analysed against a literature review.

Results revealed that students’ experiences of non-formal learning in self-led projects triggered deep learning and change agency. Trust, social cohesion, empowerment and self-efficacy were both results and conditions of learning. Students’ learnings are classified according to higher education institutions’ (HEIs) sustainability agendas, providing systematised insights for HEIs regarding their accommodative, reformative or transformative (Sterling, 2021) path to sustainable development.

The education for sustainable development (ESD) debate focuses mainly on ESD competences in formal settings. Few studies explore students’ learnings where formal and non-formal learning meet. This article investigates a space where students interact with different actors from society while remaining rooted in their HEIs. When acting as “change agents” in this hybrid context, students can also become “boundary agents” helping their HEIs move the sustainability agenda forward towards a whole institution approach. Learning from students’ learnings is thus proposed as a lever for transformation.

Websites, search engines, recommender systems, artificial intelligence and digital libraries have the potential to support serendipity for unexpected interaction with information and ideas which would lead to favored information discoveries. This paper aims to explore the current state of research into serendipity particularly related to information encountering.

This study provides bibliometric review of 166 studies on serendipity extracted from the Web of Science. Two bibliometric analysis tools HisCite and RStudio (Biblioshiny) are used on 30 years of data. Citation counts and bibliographic records of the papers are assessed using HisCite. Moreover, visualization of prominent sources, countries, keywords and the collaborative networks of authors and institutions are assessed using RStudio (Biblioshiny) software. A total of 166 papers on serendipity were found from the period 1989 to 2022, and the most influential authors, articles, journals, institutions and countries among these were determined.

The highest numbers of 11 papers were published in the year 2019. Makri and Erdelez are the most influential authors for contributing studies on serendipity. “Journal of Documentation” is the top-ranking journal. University College London is the prominent affiliation contributing highest number of studies on serendipity. The UK and the USA are the prominent nations contributing highest number of research. Authorship pattern for research on serendipity reveals involvement of single author in majority of the studies. OA Green model is the most preferred model for archiving of research articles by the authors who worked on serendipity. In addition, majority of the research outputs have received a citation ranging from 0 to 50.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this paper may be the first bibliometric analysis on serendipity research using bibliometric tools in library and information science studies. The paper would definitely open new avenues for other serendipity researchers.