Search results

This chapter explores the gap between social expectations and actual sustainability performance in the business world and identifies the root causes of this discrepancy. The author reviews corporate social responsibility (CSR) and sustainability, and their relationship with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This chapter also compares the connections and differences between the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and the SDGs. The author analyzes possible solutions to bridge the gap, including renewing the social contract between businesses, society and institutions. This involves rethinking the role of businesses and institutions in promoting sustainability and creating new systems and structures that incentivize sustainable practices. This chapter concludes by discussing the pathway to a sustainable and inclusive world through systems innovation and change. When embracing a systems thinking approach, individuals and organizations can identify and address the root causes of unsustainability, and create more resilient and sustainable systems that benefit both people and the planet.

Open data are characterized by a number of economic, environmental, technological, innovative, and social benefits. They are seen as a significant contributor to the city’s transformation into smart city. This is all the more so when the society is on the border of Society 5.0, that is, shift from the information society to a super smart society or society of imagination takes place. However, the question constantly asked by open data experts is, what are the key factors to be met and satisfied in order to achieve promised benefits? The current trend of openness suggests that the principle of openness should be followed not only by data but also research, education, software, standard, hardware, etc., it should become a philosophy to be followed at different levels, in different domains. This should ensure greater transparency, eliminating inequalities, promoting, and achieving sustainable development goals (SDGs). Therefore, many agendas (sustainable development strategies, action plans) now have openness as a prerequisite. This chapter deals with concepts of open (government) data and Society 5.0 pointing to their common objectives, providing some success stories of open data use in smart cities or transformation of cities toward smart cities, mapping them to the features of the Society 5.0. We believe that this trend develops a new form of society, which we refer to as “open data-driven society.” It forms a bridge from Society 4.0 to Society 5.0. This chapter attempts to identify the role of openness in promoting human-centric smart society, smart city, and smart living.

The purpose of this study is to explore knowledge management (KM) initiatives for achieving sustainable development goal (SDG) 4.7 and to investigate enablers and barriers to insert KM to prepare higher education institutions (HEIs) ready to contribute to SDGs’ performance. At the end, this paper provides a practical perspective of KM initiatives for higher education for sustainable development (HESD).

This is an exploratory study. It applies a descriptive-interpretative-qualitative approach. The analysis is based on the opinions collected from 170 HEIs’ stakeholders. Discussions among participants have been organized through zoom meetings, telephone interviews and focus group discussions in three phases. In the first phase, a total of 113 informants took part in the discussion on various dates. In the second phase, 10 interviews were conducted with university officials using three open-ended questions; and in the third phase, three focus group discussions were organized to interact about the effectiveness of the Masters in Business Administration in Global Leadership and Management programme and curriculum with teachers, students and the programme initiators.

From the analysis of stakeholders’ views, it appears that Nepalese HEIs have yet to move forward with integrating KM activities into their aims, structure and functions to address the government’s policy guidelines applicable to maximizing SDG’ performance. A KM cultural framework that values intellectual capital is urgently needed to fill the knowledge-doing gap for the benefit of society. HEIs appear to require multidisciplinary teaching, learning and research methods to play a civic role in society. They have to improve their rules and regulation, develop a boundary-spanning structure from a conventional structure and apply KM initiatives to support achieving SDGs’ performance. Understanding and inculcating these initiatives in the academic programmes could provide a value-adding higher education in the country.

This paper is entirely based on the perspectives of stakeholders in higher education. So, understanding their points of view and perspectives may have resulted in vague explanations. Furthermore, because the setting of Nepal’s HEIs differs from that of developed countries, the results should only be interpreted in Nepalese contexts.

This paper acknowledges the gaps and complexities in Nepalese HEIs from the standpoints of HEIs’ leaders, teachers and students for the application of KM initiatives to reform HEIs, with HESD in consideration, and enhance SDGs’ performance.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, the paper is the first of its kind in the context of Nepal, exploring KM initiatives for SDGs. It provides a new perspective on KM and comprehends KM initiatives in the case of Nepalese HEIs transformation into HESD for achieving SDG 4.7.

This chapter aims to list the literature that document the role of hospitality industry achieving Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and to summarize those contributions, related to the literature. Extensive literature review was also conducted to explore a critical analysis of sustainable digitalization of the hospitality industry.

The article has undertaken a systematic literature review of all the significant research area of almost last two decades. Keyword searches were performed in Google Scholar search engine, where timeframe of “2001–2023” was used to filter the desired article. Total 141 research articles were primarily identified after the initial search. After screening the articles for relevance or duplicates, finally 107 articles were considered for this study.

This study figures out those environment-related SDGs which is considered essential for the hospitality industry. This study found the importance of adopting digitalization in hospitality sector to build inclusive environment and providing seamless experience to customers while focusing on both positive and negative aspects associated with digital transformation.

Hospitality industry of numerous countries around the world are now exploring by implementing SDGs and Digitalization in their business practices. This study will provide insight to policymakers as development and usage of digital technologies and implementing SDGs in their practices are crucial for the sustainable transformation of hospitality industry. Sustainable transformation of hospitality sector not only improves services and helps us to make wiser choices when planning for a trip but also positively impact both physical and psychological well-being.

This paper aims to investigate which network relationships foster the early development of a sustainable new venture (SNV) and how sustainability as the core characteristic of the new venture shapes those network relationships.

This paper relies on a qualitative approach. The primary data source is 25 interviews with 18 key informants of 15 Italian SNVs. The fashion industry is the empirical setting due to its negative environmental and social impacts and shifts toward sustainability during the past decade.

The paper identifies six types of network relationships that affect the development of fashion SNVs. It proposes sustainability-enhanced and sustainability-enabled network relationships and relates them to trust and legitimation in the network.

The study enriches the theoretical debate on networks, new ventures and sustainability by dealing with the case of SNVs in a traditional sector. This paper presents managerial implications for entrepreneurs and policymakers.

This paper contributes to the debate on society’s sustainable development by emphasizing how networks can affect the growth of SNVs.

This paper fills a research gap in a novel manner. The paper contributes to the recent debate on new ventures and sustainability from the market as network approach. It identifies relevant networks, their contribution and the role of sustainability. The study refers to SNVs in traditional nontechnological industries.

This paper aims to emphasize integrating training for organizational sustainability with the United Nation’s (UN’s) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). It shows how SDGs can be included in the training, development programs and incentives to promote sustainable practices. It guides organizations to set long-term sustainability objectives to stay competitive and adapt to changing conditions.

The paper conducts a review of the literature on the topic of integrating training for organizational sustainability with the SDGs. The research includes investigating the 17 SDGs and their specific areas of improvement, the benefits and challenges of integrating training for organizational sustainability with the SDGs and the best practices of organizations that have successfully integrated training for organizational sustainability with the SDGs.

The findings of this study were obtained through a systematic review of literature on the topics of human resource development, corporate social responsibility, organizational sustainability and the integration of training to promote sustainable and ethical behavior. A total of 36 articles were selected from a pool of 120 articles identified through a comprehensive search of electronic databases such as Scopus, Web of Science and Google Scholar. The selected articles were analyzed in detail, and information from the UN was also incorporated into the analysis. The review focused on examining the impact of integrating sustainability training with the SDGs on organizational sustainability. The results of this analysis suggest that integrating sustainability training with SDGs has a positive impact on organizations. This impact includes promoting sustainable practices, improving employee satisfaction and productivity, reducing environmental impact and enhancing the organization’s reputation. The study found that regular progress reviews and long-term objectives are essential for organizations to remain competitive and adapt to changes.

This paper offers a comprehensive analysis of the 17 SDGs and how they can be integrated with training for organizational sustainability. It provides practical guidance for organizations on effectively incorporating the SDGs into their training and development programs, performance evaluations and incentives. The paper also includes case studies and best practices of organizations that have successfully integrated training for organizational sustainability with the SDGs, making it an original and valuable resource for organizations looking to promote sustainable practices within their operations.

Introduction: One of the main goals of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development is to represent gender equality due to its essential role in sustainable progress. At the same time, the balance between women and men in management is explicitly mentioned as a desideratum, given that more women in leadership roles positively impact business performance and sustainability.

Purpose: The study investigates the dynamic relationship between gender inequalities in management positions and sustainable competitiveness. Our contribution is twofold: we examine this interrelationship and its causality.

Methodology: We used panel data of 350 observations for 2012–2021, and we employ a Vector Auto-Regression model and Granger causality method to examine the relationship between the gender gap in management and sustainable competitiveness. The panel VAR for analysing the impulse response function was enriched using Monte Carlo simulations with 5% and 95%.

Findings: The results highlighted that a bidirectional causality between the gender gap in management and sustainable competitiveness is manifested in the European countries. Our results are similar to other studies found in the literature, with gender equality and sustainability positively associated. As an element of originality, our study demonstrates that gender equality in management contributes to sustainable performance, and, on the other hand, a more competitive and sustainable environment contributes to eliminating the gap between men and women in management.

The purpose of this study is to explore the concept of long-term thinking in a non-business context to gain deeper insights into bridging the gap between the theory of long-term thinking and its application as a management strategy.

To explore the concept of long-thinking further in a non-business setting, a grounded theory study was conducted with preschool leaders in a municipality in Sweden to examine how the leaders describe, define and apply the concept of long-term thinking in their schools. Interviews with school leaders, both written and oral, were used for data collection.

This study illustrates that the concept of long-term thinking can be twofold. First, the description can be as an anchor that reflects a mission. Second, the description can be a steering mechanism that guides decision-making. The findings also reinforce the importance of organisations developing an organisational culture that connect their vision and goals with the values and needs of their customers.

This study was carried out in a single organisation and shows a snapshot of the organisation's status at the time the data were collected. Therefore, the findings are not generalisable to all organisational settings; rather the findings may be transferable to other settings.

The results can be used to help identify areas where preschools in a municipal context can engage with sustainable quality development in order to build systems that support work with quality in a more structured way.

Long-term thinking is seen, within both theory and organisations, as necessary to achieve success in terms of sustainable development and quality, and this study contributes with knowledge about the current gap between theories of long-term thinking and practice in organisations.

This paper aims to enhance understanding of how sustainable entrepreneurship (SE) contributes to sustainable development in the tourism sector. To do so, specific factors that act as enablers or inhibitors of SE are identified according to a co-evolutionary lens.

A co-evolutionary explanation of the firm? Environment relationship is adopted to undertake a qualitative empirical study of the Castelli Romani tourism destination (Italy), via 23 semi-structured interviews according to a narrative approach.

The paper demonstrates that entrepreneurs play a crucial role in sustainable development but cannot act in isolation. In fact, according to the co-evolutionary approach, they influence and are influenced by 20 factors. Accordingly, SE can be conceptualised as resulting from effective co-evolutionary interactions between micro (i.e. entrepreneurs and their firm), meso (i.e. the destination where tourism firms are based) and macro (i.e. the wider socio-economic and natural system) levels.

Several actions are suggested to entrepreneurs and policymakers to help achieve specific sustainable development goals. These actions focus on: (1) training courses, (2) investments in technologies, (3) creation of innovative business models, (4) exploitation of cultural and natural resources, (5) community involvement and (6) multi-level partnerships.

This is the first study that adopts a co-evolutionary lens to investigate the influencing factors of SE in tourism, shedding light on the effects of their dynamic interdependence. Thus, it provides a more nuanced SE conceptualisation that takes a holistic and dynamic view of sustainability.

Digitalization can drive the sustainable development of society and industry. However, a lot of the opportunities are tightly related to the risks. This chapter investigates how academic performance in terms of scientific publications at the intersection of digitization, sustainable development, and industry brings added value to the research field. The analysis focuses on the academic papers that research the relationship between digitalization, sustainable development, and industry, analyzing comparatively two primary academic databases, Scopus and Web of Science (WoS). To do that, two samples of scientific publications were investigated. The first sample comprised 703 documents indexed in WoS, while the second was formed by 566 documents indexed in Scopus. The analyzed period for WoS is 1996–2022, while for Scopus is 2000–2022. The empirical results indicated that the research field's primary issues include digitalization, digital transformation, the construction industry, sustainability, COVID-19, and innovation for both WoS and Scopus. The most relevant authors on this cross-cutting subject in the WoS database are Beier G., Aigbavboa C., and Kumar M. In contrast, in the Scopus database, we found Beier G., Ghobakhloo M., and Iranmanesh M. At the same time, the most typical journals are the International Journal of Production Research, Sustainability, and Computers in Industry for WoS and Sustainability, Journal of Cleaner Production, and Procedia CIRP for Scopus.