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Despite the boom corporate social responsibility (CSR) and sustainability are enjoying nowadays in the agendas of both small and big companies, we still have difficulties in providing a clear definition of the concept of sustainability. There is no consensus on the criteria to be used to define and enhance responsible management that creates sustainable development.

After a systematic revision of the literature, authors have been mapping the limits of the research already done at different levels, dimensions, and horizons, so we do have a 360° map of the research on sustainability. Future developments are also explored to enrich and align the diverse approaches demanded to define this wide, complex, and by now, equivocal concept and the conclusions reveal the many gaps not yet covered in the research field, signposting key issues for further work.

In the academic field of business management, several potential theories were established during the last decades to explain companies' decisions, organizational behavior, consumer patterns, and internationalization, among others. As a result, businesses and scholars were able to analyze and decide based on theoretical approaches to explain the current conditions of the market. Secondary research was conducted to collect more than 36 management theories. This chapter aims to develop the most famous theories related to business applied in the international field. The novelty of this chapter relies on the compilation of recognized previous research studies from the academic literature and evidence in international business.

The study set out to understand how the regional competitiveness index (RCI) in the department of Ancash related to the human development index (HDI) from 2008 to 2021. For a more complete understanding of the findings, each component or dimension of the RCI was analyzed. Ancash's HDI and its competitiveness index over a 14-year period were used as the population for this applied, longitudinal, descriptive-correlational study, which was based on secondary data extracted from the “Instituto Nacional de Estadística e Informática” (INEI) and business school of the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú (CENTRUM) statistical databases. Multiple linear regression was used to find the relationship. The research found a strong and positive correlation between regional competitiveness and human development between 2008 and 2021. No correlations were found between the HDI and the health, education, employment, or institutional dimensions of regional competitiveness, but direct and significant correlations were established between the economic environment and the HDI and between the infrastructure dimension and the HDI.

At present, Higher Education Institutions around the world are developing and implementing university social responsibility(USR) as part of their strategy. They do so because they seek to assure the quality of higher education systems, as well as to positively impact their surrounding environment. This chapter aims to analyze the university’s role in the process of building social responsibility in line with efforts to adequately fulfill its three missions of teaching, research, and linking with society. The case study herein refers to the Universidad Panamericana (UP), a private university in Mexico with humanistic and Christian roots, which recently celebrated its 50th year. The analysis demonstrates the UP’s significant efforts to build a social responsibility system and its achievement of significant social impact through programs that support the community, healthcare, and people with disabilities. However, management of USR should be done at an institutional level and across the board.

It is unfortunately too easy to find examples of absurd functioning in the university. It has never been a perfect institution, because that is an impossibility. One observes in recent years that while its chronic problems have not disappeared, they have lost prominence in the face of a steamroller working at the planetary level. The university has plunged into an even greater absurdity. This institution that was created to be free and clearly work for human emancipation, through the expansion of knowledge, has chosen to submit itself as a slave to the dynamics of the current global model of society. By so doing, it further fosters slavery by strengthening this global hegemony. In the present contribution I choose three concrete examples of this absurdity. The first alludes to the recruitment and shaping of obedient teachers. In this sense, the university is not an exception to the banking system of education, but it raises the production of individual adaptation and obedience to its maximum exponential. The second example refers to the renunciation of the social usefulness of the knowledge that it produces. This is done by adopting operational models from the production of commodities, such as quality measurement and the like, which undermine the institutional mission of universities. The third great absurdity refers to the destruction of thought and language diversity, which are two sides of the same coin. While the aforementioned processes are readily noticed, there are alternatives to the absurd university that entail encouraging projects and realities under construction. My aim with this contribution is to present an analysis of the absurd university, and give visibility to these alternatives under way, linked to grassroots university movements and other hopeful socio-educational projects. This chapter has a particular focus on language, due to its complexity and relative neglect in academia.

Public libraries in the twenty-first century are facing the challenges of being relevant in the face of new technologies, neoliberal cost cutting, and changing social realities. One of the fastest growing and changing social realities is associated with the trans community. We may be able to talk about the transgender tipping point; but in Spain, positive representations, access to information, and dialogue between local communities and the trans collective have traditionally been notable for its absence. In order to address these shortcomings in the public library system in Catalonia (Spain), a group of staff at the Biblioteca Nou Barris in Barcelona created the “Trans Identities and Gender” project.

The project envisioned creating a collection of materials aimed at the trans and gender-variant community as well as to all those who might be interested. In addition to the collection, activities were planned to use the library as a communal meeting point between the local and the trans communities as well as a means of promoting the collection and its use. The chapter focuses on the development of the project, on the growing relationship between the library, trans authors, trans community, and general public, and how new possible futures are being forged.

This chapter presents an analysis of the constitutional definitions of the right to education. Four countries of the Southern Common Market are selected: Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay (member countries) and Chile (an associate State). A conceptual definition of the right to education -from the human rights-based perspective- is provided in order to analyze, from a comparative standpoint, the constitutional norms of each country. In recent decades, these countries have experienced recurrent school reforms which, as they are framed within legal definitions, have regulated the right to education as a premise for overcoming social inequalities. First, a definition of this concept is provided. Second, the national constitutions of each country are analyzed so as to identify the definitions they have in this field. Subsequently, a comparative discussion of the underlying regulatory definitions of the right to education is carried out. Finally, the scope and limitations that the constitutional texts of these countries have on the right to education are discussed, which allow for a better understanding of school reform processes that were carried out during the last decades and that had the right to education as an object of regulation and reconfiguration.