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A recent empirical study of over 300 manufacturing organisations in the North East of England supports the findings of previous studies by Hanson et al. and has identified fewer “promising” and an even greater proportion of “vulnerable” companies. This paper reports on this new study and identifies significant statistical differences in a number of practices and performance areas. The paper attempts to answer a number of important questions such as, do vulnerable companies really get "something for nothing”? The findings are discussed along with future agendas for change in such organisations.

It is reasonable to assume that levels of business excellence will vary considerably amongst a group of organisations; two recent studies of organisations in north east England support this hypothesis. Draws on these benchmarking data. Relates to 28 business excellence practices and 19 operational performance measures covering strategy, human resources, service delivery and quality, service design and innovation, service value and measurement and business performance. Identifies the extent of any significant differences in overall practice and performance attainment levels between service leaders and their counterparts. Also considers combinations of attributes that best discriminate between levels of attainment. Derives a subset of measures that have the potential to provide an insight into a service organisation’s level of practice adoption and corresponding performance. Also considers additional characteristics to ascertain what association, if any, they have with the level of practice adoption and operational performance amongst the service organisations. All significant differences are highlighted at the 5 per cent significance level unless otherwise stated.

To date, higher education frameworks for teaching and learning are not designed to focus on interdisciplinary subject matters like sustainability. Consequently, based on an in-depth literature review, this chapter presents a theoretical framework for teaching and learning about sustainability. Within this framework, it is posited that opportunity to learn (OTL) about sustainability can directly influence promising practices of teaching and learning about sustainability (including both cognitively responsive teaching and teaching for sustainability) along with transformative sustainability learning outcomes. Additionally, it is posited that OTL can indirectly affect transformative sustainability learning outcomes by directly influencing promising practices of teaching and learning about sustainability. This in turn directly influences transformative sustainability learning outcomes. Implications from this framework offer a distinctive way to frame sustainability-specific subject matter and teaching practices. With respect to practice, this framework can provide critical information to instructors about how to teach sustainability. With regards to conceptual contributions, this framework can guide further research through this precise framing of discussions, as well as guiding data collection and analyses. Also, scholars can continue to examine the framework for facets that are most important, and continue to fine-tune it as it further develops and demonstrates its viability.

According to the U.S. Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics, in the fall of 2020, 72.8% of U.S. postsecondary students were enrolled in distance education courses—up from 36.3% in the fall of 2019. While this surge may be explained by a number of factors, one of the most significant factors is the COVID-19-induced pivot to online learning. The rapid and intense expansion in distance education due to COVID-19 offered learners some sense of continuity in their studies, but it also revealed stark inequities in learner resources and access—especially for students of Color and students from lower-income households. Further, as COVID-19 spread, the U.S. roiled in a “twin pandemic” of racial injustice that continued to metastasize—spawning more pain-points such as online environments where racism became unmasked when face-to-face norms were abandoned. These revelations about the shadow side of online learning are particularly concerning in the context of leadership education and its commitment to inclusion, collaboration, and holism. Given this new context for online leadership education, the purpose of this piece is to reflect on how the Journal of Leadership Education has shepherded the journey of online leadership education and what the future of this journey might look like for online leadership educators committed to change. Scaffolded by the Community of Inquiry model, we offer promising practices that address cognitive, social, teaching, and learner presence in the pursuit of culturally relevant/sustaining and equitable online leadership education.

The demand for evidence‐based health practices has created a cultural challenge for Indigenous people around the world. This paper reports on the history and evolution of evidence‐based care into its mainstream status within the behavioural health field. Through the leadership of an Alaska Native tribal organisation, an international forum was convened to address the challenges of evidence‐based practice for Indigenous people. Forum participants developed a model for gathering evidence that integrates rigorous research with Indigenous knowledge and values. The model facilitates development of practices and programmes that are culturally congruent for Indigenous people, accepted and validated by the research community, and deemed supportable by private and governmental sponsors.

Partnerships with business involvement became a key trend in development cooperation since the late 1980s. Partnerships emerged as promising governance mechanism; however, governing partnerships in practice remained challenging – promise and reality seem to diverge. This chapter scrutinizes the tension between the promises of partnerships as governance arrangements and their actual governance challenges. It disentangles the complexity of governing partnerships by developing a framework based on a continuum between efficiency- and participation-orientation. This chapter identifies partnering approaches and their governance orientations based on an extensive review of literature in diverse academic fields and grey literature on the emergence and evolution of partnerships in development cooperation since the 1980s. Examples from the Dutch development cooperation provide illustrations for each partnership approach. Efficiency- and participation-orientation highlight competing governance rationales, logics and partnership characteristics. Partnership approaches that aim to embrace both perspectives have to deal with the inherent governance paradox between control and collaboration. This chapter identifies three key implications for research and practice: exploring new governance approaches and practices, adapting development agencies towards partnering and coordinating partnership approaches at international level. Understanding the tension between the promises of partnerships as governance arrangements and their actual governance challenges does not only contribute to more nuanced conceptualizations of partnering approaches for development but has also implications on how to govern partnerships for development in practice.

Purpose: This chapter will examine and delineate the intersection of social, emotional, and cultural learning with literacy. Shared are promising practices, while encouragement is offered to educators for implementing the discussed practices with fidelity and consistency.

Design: Examined is research to explain the significance and benefits of social, emotional, and cultural learning in literacy. Additionally, promising practices are also identified through the review of existing literature.

Findings: The findings in this chapter indicate that students benefit from curriculum that intersects social, emotional, and cultural learning with literacy.

Practical Implications: Educators should learn how to effectively implement social, emotional, and cultural learning in their literacy classrooms daily. Teacher education preparation programs must examine their curriculum and if needed, revise to include social, emotional, and cultural learning in literacy.

The authors explore the impact of an emerging technology, blockchain technology, on diverse governance mechanisms and sustainable supply chain practices and how its relationships with the linkage of these elements.

The methodology incorporates a literature review and a qualitative empirical analysis of the Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool (EPEAT) standards. Expert opinions from various firms and organizations within the electronics sector are assessed. Through a thematic analysis, the relationships are identified and examined.

Data immutability, transparency and traceability capabilities of blockchain technology enhance the relationship between environmental standards and ecological supply chain sustainability practices. Although immature, the blockchain can influence the governance of supply chain sustainability practices. Immaturity of technology, lack of expertise, sharing information and trust have delayed adoption.

There is limited empirical evidence regarding blockchain's impact on governance mechanisms, specifically hybrid public-private mechanisms and sustainable supply chain practices. The study further evaluates how particular blockchain features may exert varying influences on these aspects and different sustainable supply chain traits. As an exploratory study, it proposes new areas for further research, including how blockchain's traceability function can improve sustainability standard adoption. Additionally, there is a call for integrating blockchain with technologies like IoT and sensors which may influence supply chain governance mechanisms, standards and sustainability practices.

The purpose of this paper is to consider organisational performance relating to “sustainability and inclusion” and to assess four related indicators across the manufacturing and service sectors both in absolute performance terms and by level of TQM implementation and organisational size.

The paper is based on two empirical studies (manufacturing and service) undertaken in North Eastern England, involving the application of a self‐assessed benchmarking tool. Data were collected from 128 manufacturers and 428 service organisations where performance measures relating to “sustainability and inclusion” were considered.

The findings presented in this paper indicate the level of performance in “sustainability and inclusion”, together with the impact of size, world‐class status and specific individual and aggregated TQM enablers for both sectors. Both manufacturing and service have some way to go in terms of their performance, whilst organisational size and world‐class appear to influence attainment, as do certain individual and aggregated measures of business practice and internal performance.

The paper shows that further research may involve revisiting the participating organisations to identify the extent of any improvement in their performance relating to “sustainability and inclusion”.

The results in this paper indicate the extent of the room for improvement within both manufacturing and service, but indicate how a greater level of TQM maturity and subsequent internal performance puts an individual organisation in a better position to a certain extent to do this.

The findings in the paper are based on benchmarking data, where the implementation of certain TQM practices and measures of internal business performance have been measured alongside a limited number of measures relating to CSR performance across manufacturing and service as part of a wider regional study. Providing these data together has allowed the exploration of the association between the two sets of measures.

Volumes 70 and 71 of Research in the Sociology of Organizations combine to comprise cutting edge theory and empirical scholarship at the interface of practice and institution in organization studies. As we highlight, this interface has spurred particularly generative conversations with many open questions, and much to explore. We provide a review of scholarly developments in practice theory and organizational institutionalism that have given rise to this interest in building a bridge between scholarly communities. As signaled by recent efforts to construct a practice-driven institutionalism, we highlight how connecting practice theory with the institutional logics perspective provides a particularly attractive focal point for scholarship at this interface due to a variety of shared ontological and epistemological commitments, including the constitution of actors and their behavior. Collectively, the papers assembled unlock exciting opportunities to connect distinct, but related scholarly communities on practice and institution, seeding scholarship that can advance our understanding of organizational and societal dynamics.