Search results

The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of women as human capital on sustainable development in the Egyptian community factories. Presently, sustainability has become one of the targets all over the world , especially the Egyptian strategy that focuses more on women’s empowerment as human capital. There is a positive trend among organizations, governments and communities to focus more on the lead of sustainability in all our daily activities and business activities.

Self-administered questionnaires were distributed to gather data from 100 engineers (50 women and 50 men) employees of Egyptian factories and industries located in Egypt. To analyze, the collected data, regression analysis and correlation coefficient were employed to examine the study objectives and questions. A statistical Package for Social Sciences has been used for data analysis.

Results reveal that there is a direct positive relationship between women as a capital and sustainable development with its four interrelated pillars (economic, social, environmental and education) in a positive and significant way and the three factors of Human Capital (leadership and motivation, qualifications and satisfaction and creativity).

The findings only apply to the sample (engineering women, men) that has participated in the questionnaire in the Egyptian factories. More research would be recommended in terms of further research study, highlighting the role of women in other categories in the STEM field as they are the human capital crucial for sustainable development and highlighting its impact on the Egyptian sustainable strategy 2030.

Although the Egyptian strategy reinforces gender equality and gaining more roles for women in the Egyptian community, there is still absence of women in factories and science. Based on the findings, there are three concerns that must be addressed: First, opportunities need to be embedded in the factories for more women, especially in engineering categories. Second, authorities must encourage human capital development for women. Third, there is a strong need to create responsible leadership between all human capitals which are especially important in areas of industry.

Egyptian factories need to support women’s enthusiasm for innovation, continuously advance science and engineering, foster a business environment that fosters the coexistence of science and technology, the economy and society, support enterprise transformation and optimize the industrial structure of Egyptian industry. Simultaneously, it should encourage and promote the transformation of female achievements and strengthen the role of women leadership enterprises in Egyptian society. In order to promote the ideas of women, more money must be spent on scientific research, human capital must be allocated more effectively and fresh momentum for sustainable economic growth must be generated. It must expand training investment, encourage high-quality human capital and remove the bottleneck.

This paper is unique in presenting women as human capital in Egyptian society and reflects its impact on sustainable development pillars. Although much literature and study is dealing with the two topics of human capital and sustainable development separately or with links to other topics, they have not been dealt with together and there is a scarcity in the literature related to these topics focusing on women separately.

In this paper the authors aim to examine the dominance of machine and organism metaphors in organisational studies. They argue that these metaphors impede progress towards sustainable development because they perpetuate a story that dehumanises and de‐prioritises humans at the expense of the organisation which in turn becomes a rarefied and prioritised subject. This result is not consistent with the whole of humanity narrative that is entwined within sustainable development. To develop these arguments, the authors discuss sustainable development, highlighting how the concept implicates the central role of humans. They then discuss the limitations of the machine and organism metaphors relative to sustainable development. The paper then offers a different view of metaphors and suggests a more holistic understanding that is compatible with the achievement of sustainable development.

As a conceptual paper, this article reviews existing literature and offers critique of the use of the dominant metaphors of machine and organism.

Machine and organism metaphors perpetuate a language and understanding that dehumanises work and organisations. The implication of this is that organisational practice and research needs to adopt new metaphors to facilitate sustainable development.

As a conceptual document, this manuscript offers new avenues for future research and practice.

The arguments presented challenge scholars', educators' and practitioners' use of machine and organism metaphors when discussing organisations.

The originality/value of this paper lies in reflecting upon the metaphors of organism and machine relative to sustainable development and in turn reflecting upon the metaphors associated with and the central role of humans within the sustainable development concept.

This article aims to contribute to the literature linking the three pillars of sustainable development with the human development field. To do so, it analyzes how a group of stakeholders that participate in collective action for nature governance in Segre–Rialb, Catalonia, build collective capabilities and reconcile a holistic sustainable development with human development and collective well-being. The analysis is performed using nature governance and the capability approach theories. In particular, the framework providing the lenses to examine the collective action for nature governance is based on Elinor Ostrom's Institutional and Analysis framework and the collective capabilities concept.

The study is based on documental analysis (legal document namely and online resources available in Catalonian website) and a few online interviews since all fieldwork was canceled due to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic.

The case study reveals that collective action for nature governance has a twofold function: it materializes holistic sustainability and produces capabilities, reconciling sustainable and human development. Therefore, the research proves that people who work together to govern nature can boost a holistic perspective of sustainability and reconcile sustainable and human development.

First, this work aims to reconcile sustainable and human development fields that have been usually separated in academia, contributing to the research body that has attempted to relate human development and sustainability. This analysis uses a holistic perspective of sustainability, including the social, economic and environmental aspects connecting them to human development; this was not deeply explored before. Finally, the rigorous documental analysis, namely legal texts that allow reaching conclusions, is relevant since all fieldworks were canceled in 2021.

This paper aims to critically analyze the empirical literature on health and human development in high-, middle- and low-income countries to develop a sustainable model for investing in human health. The model is critical in building a comprehensive health-care system that fosters the stakeholders’ financial stability, economic growth and high-quality education for the local community.

A comprehensive literature review was carried out on health, human development and sustainable health investment. After thoroughly examining theoretical frameworks underlying the strategies of successful human health systems, a summary of empirical articles is created. Summaries provided in this paper represent relevant health-care strategies for Kenya.

Based on the empirical review of literature, a Nexus Health Care model focusing on human development, social and cultural development, economic development and environmental development in high-, middle- and low-income countries is proposed. The goal of this model is to enhance sustainable development where wealth creation is accompanied with environmental uplifting and protection of social and material well-being.

This paper is limited to a comprehensive literature review presenting empirical evidence of human development and sustainability.

Kenya like other developing nations aspires to contribute significantly in improving health through development of health products but the approaches used have been limiting. In most cases, the use of Western theories, lack of empowering the community and dependence on donor support have hindered the country from achieving comprehensive health and human development. This papers seeks to develop a model for health-care investment and provide strategies, operations and structure of successful health systems and human development for a developing country, such as Kenya.

A key development in South Africa's response to the HIV/AIDS epidemic has been the recognition that there are a number of external factors in the socio-economic and physical environment in which people live that are central to the spread of the epidemic. A growing body of evidence suggests that poverty, inequality, inadequate shelter, overcrowding and other symptoms of underdevelopment are fundamental drivers in undermining people's ability to practice and negotiate safe sex, thereby enhancing vulnerability to HIV infection. Similarly, these factors affect the ability of individuals, households and communities to cope with the subsequent health and socio-economic effects of infection. In a context where large numbers of South Africans live in poverty, without adequate shelter and access to basic resources and services, HIV/AIDS will thus have far reaching and serious impacts, not only on citizens and communities but also for and on the state.

The South African government has shifted its approach to housing development from the provision of housing to a sustainable human settlements approach, as encapsulated in its 2004 development plan ‘Breaking New Ground’. This paper explores the conceptual and theoretical links between this sustainable human settlements agenda and HIV/AIDS. It argues that the creation of sustainable and integrated human settlements is potentially a crucial component in the response to HIV/AIDS. However, this can only be achieved if HIV/AIDS becomes an explicit component of sustainable human settlements planning, development and management. In light of this, the paper discusses key characteristics of integrated, sustainable human settlements and reviews the current instruments for the implementation of a sustainable settlement agenda in South Africa in relation to the dynamics and implications of HIV/AIDS both for the South African state and its people. The paper concludes with a set of policy recommendations to make HIV/AIDS an integral component of the sustainable human settlements agenda.

The purpose of this paper is to address the issue of environmental development in view of the Islamic ethical responsibilities, and the extent to which businesses should be involved in environment development activities will be addressed.

This study integrates the mainstream and Islamic positions on the subject of the environment and sustainable development based on published literature and argues that whichever definition of environmental development one might subscribe to eventually each arrives at an environmental concern. It takes inspiration from the verses of the Holy Quran and ethics of the sayings of Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) in respect of environment and business that indicate a way out of this impasse.

This study shows that the Islamic approach is more agreeable to environmental protection, and the issues associated with environmental and sustainable development have moral, ethical and social responsibilities, and the businesses should have on intense commitment to Islamic ethics in justice and welfare of human beings. Because of environmental ethics in Islam, and the value chain of suppliers through customers, businesses should be aware of the environmental aspects and impacts of their companies.

This paper enhances the understanding of Islamic ethical responsibilities in business, environmental and sustainable development and attempts to show attributes of the various levels of behaviour of an organisation.

This paper aims to set the scene for an emerging conversation on the Rights of Nature as articulated by a philosophy of law called Earth Jurisprudence, which privileges the whole Earth community over the profit-driven structures of the existing legal and economic systems.

The study used a wide range of thought from literature relating to philosophy, humanities, environmental economics, sustainable development, indigenous rights and legal theory to show how Earth Jurisprudence resonates with two recent treaties of Waitangi settlements in Aotearoa New Zealand that recognise the Rights of Nature.

Indigenous philosophies have become highly relevant to sustainable and equitable development. They have provided an increasingly prominent approach in advancing social, economic, environmental and cultural development around the world. In Aotearoa New Zealand, Maori philosophies ground the naming of the Te Urewera National Park and the Whanganui River as legal entities with rights.

Recognition of the Rights of Nature in Aotearoa New Zealand necessitates a radical re-thinking by accounting researchers, practitioners and educators towards a more ecocentric view of the environment, given the transformation of environmental law and our responsibilities towards sustainable development.

This relates to the application of Earth Jurisprudence legal theory as an alternative approach towards thinking about integrated reporting and sustainable development.

Sustainable development seems to be something like motherhood and apple pie — everyone finds it a good thing, there is almost universal appreciation. At first sight, this is highly positive, as this could signal the entering of a holistic and responsible thinking into the world of politics and society. But as it often happens with other catch phrases that suddenly come into vogue, like “empowerment” and “participation”, it might not be more than a rhetoric which fails to translate into practice, this all the more so because sustainable development can be given several different interpretations.

To date, sustainability in technology firms has focused on improving outputs while maintaining the same inputs. The purpose of this paper is to propose a six‐stage model for enhancing inputs as well as outputs, named sustainable human capital. The paper extends traditional views of individuals as human capital, measured as formal education and direct experience to incorporate more holistic and humanistic views of informal education and indirectly related experience. This allows technology firms, whose lifeblood is innovation, to increase employee satisfaction and performance, quality and quantity of technology firm innovation, and societal well‐being in the form of sustainable products and services.

This paper extends concepts in innovation management to build a holistic model of employees as sustainable human capital. By bridging theory and practice, this paper provides a framework for knowledge‐building partnerships and, thus, relational wealth, or the value created by and for a firm through its internal relations among and with employees.

A model of sustainable human capital starts with pre‐hiring processes (raw materials), on‐boarding (design stage), training and development (production stage), developing external partnerships and integrating individual employees with the ecosystem (distribution stage), building internal relationships through mentoring (use and maintenance stage), and employee's exit through succession planning (recovery stage).

Technology managers have been utilizing a lifecycle approach for product innovation, yet have de‐coupled the product from the people, the fundamental source of innovation. Thus, re‐incorporating the human aspect to the lifecycle approach offers practices for holistic engagement of employees in innovation. Just as management literature pushed economists to shift their views of employees from homogeneous units of human capital to heterogeneous individuals, sustainability literature must evolve in its approach to start thinking of employees as discrete individuals with differentiated skills that change over time.

The purpose of this study is to identify the pathway that leads to cities to proceeding towards urban sustainability.

This study intends to propose a theoretical analysis on the city as sustainable community that drives urban development adopting a smart vision for urban growth.

Cities as sustainable urban communities develop smartness as a vision for change understanding and developing the potential offered by information technology reinforcing the community by shaping collaborative governance.

Cities using information technology as a source for urban sustainability develop smartness to evolve as smart communities following a managerial and organizational view towards sustainability as a source for continuous innovation and change within urban ecosystem.

Cities identify a sustainability-oriented and community-driven pathway as a vision for continuous change that helps to improve urban competitiveness, innovation and democracy ensuring high quality of life by strengthening the potential offered by technology-enabled and human-centred smartness.