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Sociology of sport does not exist as a (sub)discipline or course of study in the Netherlands. Scholars who call themselves sport sociologists engage in a variety of research and related publication activities. Many of these might not strictly fit under some understandings of the title “sociology” since they focus on sport management, policy implementation, and change. In this chapter, I describe how sociology of sport research tends to be defined and how that research is used to defend government spending on sport participation. This instrumental approach means the results of Dutch research using critical perspectives are often heard only internationally. I explain how the structure of Dutch academia, which limits the number of associate professors and professors, relies primarily on external funding for research and makes such funding difficult to obtain if it does not fit within a specified perspective, and limits who is able to engage in research and the type of research that is produced. I show how this structure in combination with the emphasis on an instrumental function of sport has largely shaped much of the research and has limited the use of a variety of theoretical frameworks and the development of a robust and coherent body of knowledge about the sociology of sport in the Netherlands.

This paper seeks to provide an overview and context for the emerging field of public policies for scaling voluntary standards, or private regulations, on the social and environmental performance of business and finance, to promote sustainable development; in order to stimulate more innovation and research in this field.

The paper takes the approach of a literature review of texts from intergovernmental and non‐governmental organisations, to develop a synthesis of issues, before literature review from management studies, development studies and international relations, to revise the synthesis and identify policy relevant future research.

Governance at all levels but particularly the international level involves corporations and their stakeholders. Together they have created non‐statutory corporate social responsibility (CSR) standards which now influence significant amounts of international trade and investment, thereby presenting new benefits, risks and challenges for sustainable development. Governments around the world are now innovating public policies on these standards, which can be categorised to inform policy development: governments prepare, prefer, promote and prescribe CSR standards. Therefore, a new dimension to collaborative governance is emerging and would benefit from research and technical assistance. As concepts and practices of regulation and governance are moving beyond state versus non‐state, mandatory versus voluntary approaches, so issues about transparency, accountability and democratic participation remain important for any new manifestation of regulation or governance.

By contextualising public policy innovations on CSR standards within new theories of governance, including “private regulation” and “collaborative governance”, the paper helps to clarify a new agenda for policy making and related research.

The purpose of this chapter is to contribute to the theory building of transformative university by delivering two conceptual models for legitimizing entrepreneurial university with a transformative role in quadruple helix for sustainability governance structures as being nominated as “responsible facilitator.” This chapter draws many theoretical insights sourced from Entrepreneurial University (Etzkowitz, 1988), Institutional Theory (Scott, 1987), quadruple/quintuple helix (Carayannis & Campbell, 2009a, b) and Responsible Innovation (Owen, Macnaghten, & Stilgoe, 2012) in order to frame the resulting conceptual models of transformative university for sustainability and quadruple helix for sustainability governance. The conceptual models offer a new paradigm discussion for the changing role of universities in knowledge economy and opens up for further investigation of quadruple helix actors namely as transformative university, society, industry and government for strategic capital, social capital, economic capital and culture–human capital interventions in sustainability governance. The second model illustrates the key interventions of quadruple helix actors in four pillars of capital delivering concrete examples of activities. The originality of this chapter lies in its discourse articulating a multilayered approach for the institutionalization of entrepreneurial university embedded in a responsible innovation ecosystem based on individual, organizational and macro-level perspectives. Quadruple helix actors are nominated as “responsible facilitator,” “hybrid hub,” “agile regulator” and “pressure beneficiary” roles for their relevant place in sustainability governance structure.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the labor market position of environmental science graduates and the core competencies of these environmental professionals related to their working practice.

The authors carried out two surveys amongst alumni of the integrated environmental science program of Utrecht University and their employers. The surveys addressed alumni's working experiences and employers' assessment of the core competencies of environmental science graduates.

The surveys indicated that environmental science graduates have a fairly strong position on the labor market. They are employed in a diverse range of functions and working sectors, including consultancy agencies, research institutions, governmental organizations and NGOs. Graduates as well as employers consider a number of generic academic skills (e.g. intellectual qualities, communication skills) as well as discipline specific professional knowledge and practical skills as important competencies for the working practice of environmental scientists.

These insights can be used for the improvement of environmental science curricula in order to increase the employability of their graduates.

This paper presents data on the labor market position of graduates of “integrated” environmental science programs and provides insights into the core competencies of these graduates.

Global value chains (GVCs) have been challenged by several emerging macro-trends during the last years. Among them, sustainability of production and consumption patterns is becoming a central theme given the necessity to mitigate the degradation of the environment and the over-exploitation of scarce natural resources. In this respect, scholars and practitioners increasingly propose the circular economy (CE) approach as a systemic solution to overcome the conventional linear “take–make–use–dispose” model underlying the structure of contemporary global economy. However, the international business (IB) community has introduced the topic of CE only marginally in its debate. The aim of the present study is to fill this research gap identifying the opportunities for integrating IB and CE principles. Thus, the main objective is to investigate whether and how the adoption of the CE paradigm by multinational enterprises (MNEs) may affect activities, geographical configuration, and governance of their relevant GVCs.

The authors address the issue from a conceptual point of view, identifying direct and indirect impacts of CE adoption on GVC, relative enablers, and possible broader implications. Lastly, the authors propose some reflections for future investigations.

Benchmarking is the process of identifying, understanding, and adapting outstanding practices from within the organization or from other businesses to help improve performance. The importance of benchmarking as an enabler of business excellence has necessitated an in‐depth investigation into the current state of benchmarking in South Africa. This research project highlighted the fact that the respondents realized the importance of benchmarking, but that various problems exist regarding the effective implementation of benchmarking. Based on the research findings, recommendations for achieving success are suggested.

Green entrepreneurship is gaining more attention as the interest in sustainability is growing. This is mainly because consumer awareness is rising and thus many regulations have been implied and several research are proving positive relationship from the use of green entrepreneurship. Using enterprise data for the Republic of Albania (ALB), this study examines the effects of green entrepreneurship on firm performance. Our findings when we investigate the determinants of firm performance, the green entrepreneurship, certification, innovation activities, foreign ownership, and monitoring energy appear to have a positive impact on firm performance, while the effect of direct export is negative.