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Climate change is a global threat to social, economic, and environmental sustainability. In an increasingly urbanized world, homeowners play an important role in climate adaptation and environmental sustainability through decisions to landscape and manage their residential properties.

In this chapter, we review the potential impacts of climate change on environmental sustainability in urban ecosystems and highlight the role of urban and suburban residents in conserving biodiversity. We focus extensively on the interactions of homeowners and residential landscapes in urban coastal and desert environments.

Understanding how human-environment interactions are linked with a changing climate is especially relevant for coastal and desert cities in the United States, which are already experiencing visible impacts of climate change. In fact, many homeowners are already making decisions in response to environmental change, and these decisions will ultimately shape the future structure, function and sustainability of these critically important ecosystems.

Considering the close relationship between biodiversity and the health and well-being of human societies, understanding how climate change and other social motivations affect the landscaping decisions of urban residents will be critical for predicting and enhancing sustainability in these social-ecological systems.

At the dawning of the twenty-first century, The Courage to Teach was a tipping point that shifted our conceptualization of faculty development to consider the heart of the teacher, ‘the place where intellect and emotion and spirit and will converge in the human self’ (Palmer, 1998, p. 11). So inspired, a study was designed to inquire into the lived reality of teachers to better understand how teachers experience and make meaning of the phenomenon of teaching (Natoli, 2000, 2006). The objective of the Self as Teacher Study was to interview and observe those who teach to capture how they come to know their subjects and their students with attention to the selfhood of the teacher. Analysis of narratives collected through autobiographical interviews with K-12 instructors and university professors from Boston to Barcelona to Brazil evidenced astounding epistemological patterns – distinctions between teacher ways of knowing and being – which provided insights into the construction of teacher identity and integrity (integritas or wholeness). Ultimately, human virtues are represented in the embodied mind as higher-order cognitions and emotions and manifested as actions through qualitatively different self-states, our better angels. Consequently, faculty development is about human development, expanding consciousness, enhancing capacities for relationship, shifting awareness to integrate new perceptions, and incorporating previously isolated mentalizations. The Model for In-depth Faculty Development is introduced as a grounded theory framework highlighting teacher characteristics and potentials for personal and professional growth through a shared community culture while the POISE® Curriculum offers a system for implementation.

Recalling my first experience of racism in the United States, through this autoethnographic performance text, I challenge a black-white binary and attempt to create a space in order for “yellows” to be heard since they are ignored in the binary epistemology, and, at the same time, they are always hierarchized and exploited in the racialized structure. Also, this autoethnographic project critically engages in history from a marginalized space and explores the intersection of my personal story, history, and popular discourse. Disrupting the binary epistemology from a liminal space, this autoethnographic performance project strives to cross the color line and seeks new, emancipatory possibilities.

The study aims at reviewing a synthesis of disclosure, transparency, and International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) implementation in an attempt to provide directions for future research. Prior research overwhelmingly supports that the IFRS adoption or effective implementation of IFRS will enhance high-quality financial reporting, transparency, enhance the country’s investment environment, and foreign direct investment (FDI) (Dayanandan, Donker, Ivanof, & Karahan, 2016; Gláserová, 2013; Muniandy & Ali, 2012). However, some researchers provide conflicting evidence that developing countries implementing IFRS are probably not going to encounter higher FDI inflows (Gheorghe, 2009; Lasmin, 2012). It has also been argued that the IFRS adoption decreases the management earnings in countries with high levels of financial disclosure. In general, the study indicates that the adoption of IFRS has improved the financial reporting quality. The common law countries have strong rules to protect investors, strict legal enforcement, and high levels of transparency of financial information. From the extensive structured review of literature using the Scopus database tool, the study reviewed 105 articles, and in particular, the topic-related 94 articles were analysed. All 94 articles were retrieved from a range of 59 journals. Most of the articles (77 of 94) were published 2010–2018. The top five journals based on the citations are Journal of Accounting Research (187 citations), Abacus (125 citations), European Accounting Review (107 citations), Journal of Accounting and Economics (78 citations), and Accounting and Business Research (66 citations). The most-cited authors are Daske, Hail, Leuz, and Verdi (2013); Daske and Gebhardt (2006); and Brüggemann, Hitz, and Sellhorn (2013). Surprisingly, 65 of 94 articles did not utilise the theory. In particular, four theories have been used frequently: agency theory (15), economic theory (5), signalling theory (2), and accounting theory (2). The study calls for future research on the theoretical implications and policy-related research on disclosure and transparency which may inform the local and international standard setters.

This chapter presents a theory for developing an adaptive high commitment, high performance system of organizing, managing, and leading. It is a synthesis of my 50 years of action and field research presented in my books and articles. It operationalized and makes actionable the ideas of Lewin and systems theorists. Its features are three organizational outcomes that must be achieved simultaneously, features of the system that must be targeted for change, six silent barriers to change, a governance system for continuous learning, change in large complex systems, and elements of a system that needed to immunize it against ultimate destruction.

Business schools have a moral responsibility to educate students who will behave both ethically and effectively in the workplace. Educating business students to address the complex challenges of the modern business world requires more than helping students understand content; it requires aiding them in developing the social and emotional competencies that they will need to apply regardless of the role or industry in which they work. Viewing the classroom as a complex adaptive system (CAS) can create opportunities to experiment with activities, exercises, and assignments that allow students (and the professor) to develop skills related to self-awareness, interpersonal relationships, and responsible decision-making. This chapter first explores the necessity of social–emotional learning (SEL) for today’s business leaders. Then it considers how a mental model of the classroom as a CAS facilitates a mindset of experimentation and activity development that contributes to student SEL. The chapter concludes with examples of activities that professors have used to facilitate SEL using a mental model of the classroom as a CAS and suggestions for experimentation in the classroom.

Tourism recovery after the pandemic has failed to take the path leading to sensitivity and humaneness at destination level. This chapter argues that to open this path, we need to confront the belief that tourists are self-centred, fun-driven and cheating individuals. This view on tourists and more generally human beings is central to the neoliberal understanding of consumers. It has moreover taken a strong grasp on the mind of economists, politicians, academics and the public at large.

To counteract this idea, I call upon Aristotle's discussion of friendship. In Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle distinguishes between three forms of friendship: of utility, of pleasure, and of goodwill. Utility implies a relationship where people befriend each other in virtue of some good or service that they get or expect to get from each other. Friendships of utility, therefore, imply reciprocation. Friendships of pleasure can also be understood as a form of reciprocal altruism. However, friendships of goodwill are different because they are felt for others for their own sake and not in expectation of a favour in return. Friendships of goodwill include therefore others who may not be able to reciprocate, such as tourists staying only a short time at a destination. Looking through the lens of friendships of goodwill, one could argue that all tourists, including short-stay visitors, will be friendly and caring towards their hosts.

This chapter explores the soundness of friendships of goodwill in the light of more recent research on human nature. It also discusses its implications for our understanding of human beings, the relationship between hosts and guests, and ultimately the opportunity to steer tourism along a more sensitive, human and sustainable path.