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This final chapter reviews the key themes of the previous chapters to paint a picture of what it is to be an impactful academic. The reader is prompted to build strategies into their workflow and lives to ensure that impact remains a priority considering the many competing requirements in their roles. The chapter provides strategies for keeping impact on track by engaging both internal and external networks. As government priorities change, higher education will continue to morph and evolve. The impactful academic builds skills throughout their career span, and these skills increase resiliency in the face of a rapidly changing higher education sector; skills that are increasingly critical to career success. The chapter takes stock of skill development related to academic identity and impact goals and encourages readers to continue their impact journey through reflective practice.

Through its effect on the cost of capital, impact investing has the potential to improve the pricing of externalities, reducing the current overproduction and consumption of goods with negative social and environmental impacts and stimulating production and consumption of goods with positive social and environmental impacts. For this potential to be realised, the design of impact investing needs to be better aligned with portfolio management in two respects: (1) it needs to be possible to assess the impact of both asset classes and individual assets and (2) the analysis of the characteristics of assets needs to be separated from the use of mandate-related screens.

As academics, quantitative and/or qualitative methods are at the heart of the research we conduct and the insights we seek to share with the world. However, this does not always translate into impactful engagement for the stakeholders and communities we engage with, despite the evidence that indicates the potential to do so. One of the critical ways that academics can generate impact is through community and stakeholder engagement – developing networks and external partnerships that work collaboratively to generate change. Research indicates that more participatory methods of engagement where stakeholders can co-create solutions have the greatest transformational potential for impact. The key to differentiating meaningful and impactful stakeholder engagement from distinct concepts such as communication or consultation is understanding the level of influence the stakeholder will have on the decision. This chapter provides a practical guide for academics to build their practice in impactful engagement throughout their career through eight simple steps. Using the International Association for Public Participation (IAP2) spectrum of public participation, an example of how engagement methods can be selected to build impactful engagement skills throughout the academic career is illustrated. Impactful engagement has the capacity to bring diverse voices and perspectives together to shape decisions and change, and in so doing, create greater impact.

Impact has generated much discussion in higher education in recent years, and it is not abating. This chapter lays the groundwork to build an understanding of what impact is, where it has come from and where it is likely to be going in higher education. The various roles of universities and academics and the value of knowledge generation and dissemination to communities outside of academia are explored. Understanding impact and how it is enacted, monitored, evaluated and reported is essential to position impact within one's academic practice. While various definitions of impact have been adopted in different contexts, the focus is on leveraging those definitions as an academic. The language of impact is important as it determines how some disciplines are privileged and others potentially are disadvantaged. The chapter encourages academics in the latter category of disciplines to be active in helping shape the conversation around impact in their contexts. The final section discusses where impact may be going within higher education, how to get the most out of the book as a researcher and what each chapter contributes to becoming an impactful researcher. There is no one right way to be an academic; the reader is encouraged to use each chapter to help hone and refine their academic trajectory given their own epistemological beliefs.

This paper aims to provide a discussion on the interface and interactions between data, analytical techniques and impactful research in humanitarian health supply chains. New techniques for data capturing, processing and analytics, such as big data, blockchain technology and artificial intelligence, are increasingly put forward as potential “game changers” in the humanitarian field. Yet while they have potential to improve data analytics in the future, larger data sets and quantification per se are no “silver bullet” for complex and wicked problems in humanitarian health settings. Humanitarian health supply chains provide health care and medical aid to the most vulnerable in development and disaster relief settings alike. Unlike commercial supply chains, they often lack resources and long-term collaborations to enable learning from the past and to improve further.

Based on a combination of the authors’ research experience, interactions with practitioners throughout projects and academic literature, the authors consider the interface between data and analytical techniques and highlight some of the challenges inherent to humanitarian health settings. The authors apply a systems approach to represent the multiple factors and interactions between data, analytical techniques and collaboration in impactful research.

Based on this representation, the authors discuss relevant debates and suggest directions for future research to increase the impact of data analytics and collaborations in fostering sustainable solutions.

This study distinguishes itself and contributes by bringing the interface and interactions between data, analytical techniques and impactful research together in a systems approach, emphasizing the interconnectedness.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how frequency of change (FC) in organizations and impact of change (IC) influence the employee behaviors, i.e. exit, voice, loyalty, and neglect (EVLN) through psychological contract fulfillment (PCF) as a mediator. The moderating role of successful past changes (SPC) is also assessed with direct and indirect relations of FC, and IC alongside employees’ behaviors.

Hypotheses were tested among a sample of 398 financial services-oriented non-managerial-level employees in Pakistan. Bootstrapped moderated mediation analyses (using PROCESS macro) were conducted to test the main and moderated mediation effects. The authors ran series of confirmatory factor analyses to validate the distinctiveness of variables and their items in this study.

The results largely supported the hypotheses. Findings showed that FC is negatively related to loyalty but positively related to exit, voice, and neglect behaviors via contract fulfillment. IC is also found to have negatively related to loyalty but positively related to exit, voice, and neglect via PCF. SPC was found to moderate the relation between FC, IC, and contract fulfillment, as well as the indirect relationship with exit, voice, and neglect through contract fulfillment and negatively between FC, IC, and loyalty through contract fulfillment. The authors found direct interaction effects of FC via SPC in relation to exit and loyalty and also found direct interaction effects of IC via SPC to exit, voice, and loyalty.

The use of cross-sectional research design does not allow conclusions with respect to causality. The most important implication of the study is that employee behaviors following organizational change can best be understood via a psychological contract framework. A future suggestion is to include more organizations based on longitudinal research design with focus on both employee and employer perspective.

This study highlights the importance of employees’ behavioral responses and their sensemaking of PCF in a post-organizational change period.

This study empirically investigated the effects of FC, and IC on fulfillment of psychological contract and behavioral responses of employees using a sample of non-managerial employees, and provides new insights into employee behaviors following organizational changes.

The purpose of this research is to identify the most impactful delay risks in Australian construction projects, including the associations amongst those risks as well as the project phases in which they are most likely present. The correlation between project and organisational characteristics with the impact of delay risks was also studied.

A questionnaire survey was used to collect data from 118 delayed construction projects in Australia. Data were analysed to rank the most impactful delay risks, their correlation to project and organisational characteristics and project phases where those risks are likely to emerge. Association rule learning was used to capture associations between the delay risks.

The top five most impactful delay risks in Australia were changes by the owner, slow decisions by the owner, preparation and approval of design drawings, underestimation of project complexity and unrealistic duration imposed to the project, respectively. There is a set of delay risks that are mutually associated with project complexity. In addition, while delay risks associated with resources most likely arise in the execution phase, stakeholder and process-related risks are more smoothly distributed along all the project phases.

This research for the first time investigated the impact of delay risks, associations amongst them and project phases in which they are likely to happen in the Australian context. Also, this research for the first time sheds light on the project phases for the individual project delay risks which aids the project managers to understand where to focus on during each phase of the project.

This article aims to focus on how to ensure that Future‐Oriented Technology Assessment (FTA) activities have an impact on decision‐making. On the basis of the extensive experience of the authors, this article seeks to offer suggestions regarding the factors that may help policy makers, academics, consultants, and others involved in FTA projects, to produce useful and meaningful contributions to decision‐making processes.

The methodology deployed for this article is empirical. It is based on the lessons extracted and evidence produced by the authors' hundreds of diverse global consulting engagements as well as their analytical work on the subject. Added together the authors of this paper have engaged in over 80 years of professional practice. The article summarizes the results of presentations given by the authors and the ensuing discussion that occurred at the conference: Futures Oriented Technology Analysis 2011, held at the Institute for Prospective Technological Studies (IPTS) in Seville on 13 May.

Impactful FTA starts with the selection of the appropriate methodologies and skills for the specific anticipatory task. Arguing on the basis of experience, the authors point out that the effective impact of FTA projects on decision‐making depends on a strong grasp of the principles of foresight and project design, an educated client with clear expectations and a strong commitment, well‐developed communication efforts throughout, and considerable managerial capacity both on the demand and supply sides of the process.

By bringing the evidence of experience to bear, this article adds value to existing academic and practitioner discussions of the effectiveness of FTA for decision‐making. The article provides an original vantage point on key questions being posed by both users and suppliers of forward‐looking activities.

This paper aims to enhance the impact of incorporated waqf institutions by blending their resources to promote responsible small businesses that are inclusive of human development, service to society and preservation of ecological environment and other species. This is expected to shift the paradigm of businesses from the current waste-oriented linear economy to ideally a zero-waste circular economy.

This is an analytical study building on the experience of European Venture Philanthropy Organizations (VPOs) that work with the primary objective of making impactful businesses successful, with capital protection and return on investment being of secondary concern. This paper suggests an incorporated institutional design that blends resources for promoting responsible businesses using a new hybrid financial mechanism, namely, equity-at-default (EaD) to replace collateral and foreclosure requirements with responsibility and compassion.

The research calls for changing the business paradigm from linear to circular, an incorporated institutional framework for venture waqf, purpose of the waqf to make impactful small businesses successful and designing a financial contract to loan in favor of responsible businesses that convert to equity stake for the waqf in case of default (EaD) replacing collateral and foreclosure requirements.

This is a theoretical study motivated by the success of VPOs but assigns a new role to waqf institutions. Furthermore, the incorporated nature of waqf is a new idea and EaD is a new mechanism. Being new, these ideas have the risk of not being implemented. However, the broader message that waqf shall promote businesses that are inclusive of ecological concerns is generally applicable.

The paper has a significant practical implication to transform the responsibility and consciousness of businesses. Waqf is fundamentally a compassionate institution, and it must enhance the responsibility of businesses to become more inclusive of the environment and other species. It should also become more compassionate toward businesses that are in distress and default. In this sense, the paper tries to internalize compassion in financial contracting that can potentially change the architecture of lending.

Altering businesses’ mindset from a waste-driven extractive linear economy to inclusive circular economy has a tremendous transformative role. This will have implications for enhancing business consciousness and responsibility. As poverty is a phenomenon of state of mind, changing the society’s state of thought in Muslim communities is expected to have basic positive implications. Entrepreneurs with a new mindset can have far-reaching positive impacts on the society.

The paper offers potentially innovative perspectives in four key areas and blends the different resources in an incorporated waqf that makes responsible entrepreneurs assume a partnership role in times of distress through EaD. Furthermore, the integration of compassion in financial contracting could have better implications for return on investment as well. The ideal state of an economy is where waste is turned into wealth and well-being is something that all policymakers must keep on the top of their agendas.

Knowledge mobilization (KMb) offers an approach to conducting impactful research. In this chapter, we describe ways to remove barriers to understanding and implementing a KMb approach. We do this by examining the broad scope of KMb, thinking about how it has evolved over time, and focusing on core intent rather than terminology debates. Our goal is to offer a pragmatic series of stepping stones that form a KMb pathway. These steps include: (1) asking good questions; (2) aligning your work with what has already been done; (3) acquiring new and diverse knowledge; (4) adapting knowledge to a specific context; (5) applying knowledge in the real world; and (6) assessing what works and what doesn't throughout your journey. We argue that this process will identify and support successful implementation of nuanced, novel, and meaningful solutions to real-world problems. Following the KMb pathway will guide you toward becoming an impactful academic who creates a lasting research legacy and a positive mark on the world.