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The purpose of this paper is to focus on the relevance of citizen complaints as a new source of information for local environmental governance. It represents an initial attempt to construct a fresh approach to the field.

The paper comprises a brief literature review around the concept of environmental governance, the role played by institutions, and the challenges of local environmental governance; an empirical study of a Portuguese municipality based on environmental complaints submitted to its City Council and a comparative analysis between the results garnered from the empirical study and the areas of intervention in the Municipal Environmental Plan.

The results suggest that the information gathered from public complaints on environmental issues has the potential to reveal the most significant environmental problems from the standpoint of local actors. This knowledge is relevant for self‐evaluation by local authorities whilst remaining a promising avenue for local public participation in decision‐making processes.

The authors take the view that concerns raised by local populations are important, latent sources of information that can have a positive impact on delineating necessary action for the management and resolution of local environmental problems.

The aim was to identify the competencies professionals need to promote co-creation engagement within communities.

Co-creation could contribute to building community capacity to promote health. Professional development is key to support co-creative practices. Participants were professionals in a position to promote co-creation processes in health-promoting welfare settings across Denmark, Portugal, France and United Kingdom. An overarching unstructured topic guide was used within interviews, focus groups, questionnaires and creative activities.

The need to develop competencies to promote co-creation was high across all countries. Creating a common understanding of co-creation and the processes involved to increase inclusivity, engagement and shared understanding was also necessary. Competencies included: How to run co-creation from the beginning of the process right through to evaluation, using feedback and communication throughout using an open action-oriented approach; initiating a perspective change and committing to the transformation of co-creation into a real-life process.

Overall, learning about underlying principles, process initiation, implementation and facilitation of co-creation were areas identified to be included within a co-creation training programme. This can be applied through the framework of enabling change, advocating for co-creative processes, mediating through partnership, communication, leadership, assessment, planning, implementation, evaluation and research, ethical values and knowledge of co-creative processes.

This study provides novel findings on the competencies needed for health promoting professionals to embed co-creative processes within their practice, and the key concerns that professionals with a position to mediate co-creation have in transferring the abstract term of co-creation into a real-world practice.

The main focus of this paper is on a study of environmental perceptions in the municipality of Aveiro, Portugal.

The study draws pn complaints regarding environmental matters submitted to the City Council and on a critical analysis of the results in comparison with the opinions of local government authorities and non‐governmental organisations, which have responsibilities for local environmental management, and experts.

The results reflect the local actors relevant to the protests, including, among these citizens and local authorities, the main concerns intrinsic to the complaints and questionnaire responses, such as those relating to urban solid waste, water, air pollution, noise and unhealthy lots; and the “preferential zones” in which environmental problems are most likely to generate complaints, more specifically the dense urban areas and, to a lesser extent, the classified natural areas, and the preferential zones for the occurrence of environmental problems in the opinion of the respondents, namely the hydrographical nets and associated margins and the rural or sparse areas. The respondents were also encouraged to identify measures required to solve the local environmental problems, revealing a great range of suggested procedures, from educational to coercive types.

There are few studies concerning complaints on environmental issues and a comparison of these data with the perceptions of local decision‐makers and experts offers a useful route to the characterisation and evaluation of local environmental concerns, identifying the most significant environmental problems within the study area. Proper management of this information can positively influence the decision‐making processes, allowing a more directed and efficient performance on the part of local government.

Self-assessment (SA) and peer-assessment (PA) are considered useful tools in the development of lifelong learning and reflective skills. The authors implemented a teaching intervention using SA and PA amongst a large cohort of final year undergraduate students. The purpose of this study was to investigate students' perceptions of online SA and PA in order to understand the differences between these perceptions and to allow instructors to adopt differentiated instruction in developing a diverse student group's professional skills.

The research design adopted a mixed methods approach through the use of surveys that were administered before and after the SA and peer-assessment intervention in a taxation module taught at a large public South African university. Through the use of a series of open and closed questions students' perceptions on SA and peer-assessment were analysed both quantitatively and qualitatively.

The findings show that student perceptions of SA and peer-assessment differed significantly, where perceptions of SA were more positive than those towards PA. The findings indicate that SA and peer-assessment still present a challenge in an online context for large student cohorts, despite improved tracking, faster feedback and anonymity.

The study contributes to the literature by analysing students' perceptions about SA and peer-assessment in an accounting education context and in an online setting in South Africa.

Population worldwide has experienced several challenges related to sustainable development, such as scarcity of natural resource, unsustainable consumption, poverty, injustice, violence, social inequality and natural disaster (including floods, tsunami and landslide). These issues interfere in sustainable development and target to achieve societal balance, structuring without compromising economic and environmental resources of future generations. The higher educational institutions are included in this context because they play a role in professional training and in education to promote sustainable practices. The higher educational institutions can assume a prominent position in the 2030 Agenda implementation for sustainable development of the United Nations, especially in the Goals 4 and 10, quality education and reduced inequalities, respectively. The purpose of this research study aims to develop a literature review and analyze the higher educational and sustainable themes, involving the Brazilian scenario.

This research study develops a literature review based on researches that involve higher educational and sustainable themes in the Brazilian scenario. Inclusion criteria are papers in English, with the search equations in their titles, and peer-reviewed papers. Paper publication year was not an exclusion criterion. This research aimed to understand opportunity and challenge processes in the Brazilian higher educational institutions and their actions, so that the Sustainable Development Goals are completely achieved and the 2030 Agenda for sustainable development is fulfilled. For this, a research central question was established: What are the opportunities and the challenges to achieve the 2030 Agenda for sustainable development in the Brazilian higher education?

A total of 636 papers were recovered. The “Higher Education AND Opportunities,” “Higher Education AND Challenge,” “Higher Education AND Challenges,” “Higher Education AND Opportunity,” “Brazilian AND Higher Education” and “Brazil AND Higher Education” search equations found, respectively, 165, 146, 131, 74, 62 and 25 papers, involving 94.8% of the total number of the papers found. The papers recovered enabled the vision of five clusters: policy; inclusion; culture; relationship; and environment, society and economy. The paper analyses found that innovation process, sustainable practical implementation and holistic look, involving professors and students, can allow the 2030 Agenda achievement.

The authors of this research study presented a framework based on the literature analyzed through five clusters: policy; inclusion; culture; relationship; and environment, society and economy, considered from opportunity and challenge perspectives. The authors introduced and discussed the Brazilian higher educations and their opportunities and challenges. The Brazilian panorama was linked with the 2030 Agenda for sustainable development, in specific, with the Goals 4 and 10. Implications of this research study are related to the higher educational opportunities and challenges in policy, inclusive, cultural, sustainable and relationship contexts, involving governmental and nongovernmental sectors, professors and students for the Brazilian educational improvement.

We present a critical literature review debating Brazilian research on social and environmental accounting (SEA). The aim of this study is to understand the role of politics in the construction of hegemonies in SEA research in Brazil. In particular, we examine the role of hegemony in relation to the co-option of SEA literature and sustainability in the Brazilian context by the logic of development for economic growth in emerging economies. The methodological approach adopts a post-structural perspective that reflects Laclau and Mouffe’s discourse theory. The study employs a hermeneutical, rhetorical approach to understand and classify 352 Brazilian research articles on SEA. We employ Brown and Fraser’s (2006) categorizations of SEA literature to help in our analysis: the business case, the stakeholder–accountability approach, and the critical case. We argue that the business case is prominent in Brazilian studies. Second-stage analysis suggests that the major themes under discussion include measurement, consulting, and descriptive approach. We argue that these themes illustrate the degree of influence of the hegemonic politics relevant to emerging economics, as these themes predominantly concern economic growth and a capitalist context. This paper discusses trends and practices in the Brazilian literature on SEA and argues that the focus means that SEA avoids critical debates of the role of capitalist logics in an emerging economy concerning sustainability. We urge the Brazilian academy to understand the implications of its reifying agenda and engage, counter-hegemonically, in a social and political agenda beyond the hegemonic support of a particular set of capitalist interests.

The purpose of this paper is to study the evaluation and control processes in the governance systems of higher education institutions (HEIs).

This study compares the performance and control processes of strategic management in four HEIs in two European countries with binary systems – Portugal and The Netherlands. Using a case study approach, the authors find that HEIs with different missions and contexts have performance and control systems that are generally indistinguishable.

The controlling strategies in the public HEIs have taken on isomorphic characteristics based on processes that enhance competition, decentralize functions and solidify performance management.

In this paper, the authors “unpackage” strategic management to focus on the forms of control associated with performance evaluation. Performance evaluation is central to the management process and increasingly assuming an integral part of the institution’s identity and culture.

This paper aims to describe the different locations of campuses developed to stimulate innovation. The paper aims at supporting strategic decisions in the development of new and existing campuses and similar innovation-driven areas. Additionally, it aims to outline the key role of location for urban and regional competitiveness in the knowledge economy.

This paper tests an existing planning tool that proposes location and connectivity as key aspects to stimulate innovation in campus development. This tool is used to analyse and compare 39 campuses with different locations characteristics worldwide.

Findings describe five types of location characteristics in existing campuses developed to stimulate innovation. These characteristics are dynamic, and exhibit differences in connectivity aspects enabling more or less efficient access to amenities and knowledge networks.

Empirical findings were used to revise and improve the planning tool. Further research exploring the relation between connectivity aspects and innovation processes is recommended.

This paper supports decision-makers of new and existing campuses struggling with location decisions, by outlining that campus’ connectivity is crucial regardless of whether the campus is in an inner-city or a peripheral setting. Improving campus connectivity may be an efficient way to spend the many public and private resources invested on campus development to stimulate innovation.

This paper provides a unique comparison of cases that can be useful to planners of existing campuses to benchmark their current locations in relation to their ambitions on innovation.

Exerting a peculiar fascination on both managers and academics, Millennials can be distinguished from other cohorts by their intense exposure to the internet and heavy use of social media, which, in turn, affect their identity formation, brand engagement, loyalty and purchase behaviour. Yet, uncertainties regarding online engagement and the real benefits brands can reap from Millennials’ avid use of social media remain. Therefore, by developing a holistic model of drivers and outcomes, this study aims to understand how Millennials engage with their most loved, self-expressive brands across social media platforms and its impact on loyalty-related intentions.

Data was gathered using a self-administered survey, answered by 343 millennial generation social media users and based on self-selected self-expressive, loved brands. Considering brand loyalty as a key outcome, a holistic model was developed and tested using partial least squares-structural equation modelling, emphasizing not only the role of social media engagement but also including brand love, experience and identification as direct and indirect antecedents.

Findings suggest a disconnection between online and offline brand relationships: though Millennials love and are very loyal to their favourite brands, they are not actively engaged in social media, which helps to explain the non-significant effect of engagement on brand loyalty. Moreover, together with brand identification, brand experience was found to play a major role in developing brand love, which, in turn, is positively related to engagement and loyalty.

Theoretically, this study contributes to bridging a gap in the literature, as research on engagement, its drivers and outcomes is scant and there is no robust evidence about its impact on brand loyalty, particularly among Millennials. Moreover, research on disengaged consumers who exhibit limited willingness to engage is still scant. Managerially, this study provides insights for brand managers wishing to successfully engage and build relationships with Millennials and to identify key routes to Millennials’ loyalty.

This paper aims to analyze the current state of integration of sustainable development (SD), in the academic curricula of Business Sciences degrees, including matters about Ethics, Corporate Social Responsibility and Sustainability. In this way, the paper explores how Portuguese public higher education institutions (HEI) contribute to teaching about sustainable development (TSD).

The study focuses on Business Sciences degrees. The webpages of all public HEI with BSc and MSc degrees in those areas in Portugal were analyzed, to obtain curricular plans and syllabus. Content analysis was performed on each of these elements of Accounting and Taxation and Management and Business Administration courses.

There is already some concern about addressing SD in Business Sciences, inasmuch as SD-related topics are taught in Accounting and Taxation and in Management and Business Administration degrees and courses. However, the analysis shows that TSD was integrated into the academic curricula in only 95 degrees (48.5%). Additionally, in these, there are only 79 compulsory curricular units that address this theme. Given the fact that the subject of SD is increasingly relevant, the paper evidence still much room for improvement, indicating that TSD is yet a big challenge for HEI.

TSD is increasingly important because of the growing globalization that requires skilled professionals able to assess the complex and controversial issues related to the topic, to achieve and implement the SD goals in 2030. The literature evidence lack of studies addressing the integration of the SD theme in academic curricula. This paper makes here a contribution by showing what HEI is teaching in the area of business studies. It also brings good implications for society, while showing that sustainability content is becoming more apparent within certain HEI courses. This could be used to create follow up research on what type of sustainability content is being included within the courses and the learning that is happening in students in regard to this sustainability content.