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This paper aims to examine how Hong Kong universities have responded to a newly included assessment element of socio-economic impact in a government-implemented research evaluation system – Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) 2020 – within the context of tightening audits and forceful knowledge economy objectives.

This paper reports an institutional case study of the institutional-level response to the RAE 2020 impact requirement at a top-ranked comprehensive university in Hong Kong. A qualitative inquiry approach was adopted. The data sources mainly include university documents related to the RAE 2020 socio-economic impact policy, interview data with nine RAE-eligible academics at the case university, documents on the RAE exercises issued by the University Grants Committee (UGC) and field notes taken during the RAE information sessions.

The institutionalisation process of the RAE socio-economic impact agenda could be considered as establishing an indicator-oriented reward and recognition regime for knowledge transfer and knowledge exchange (KT/KE). Overall, two major institutional strategies were identified in operating the RAE 2020 impact agenda at the case university: (1) launching various policy initiatives: driven by the RAE-defined socio-economic impact; (2) incorporating socio-economic impact into faculty evaluation: premised upon the 16 KT performance indicators laid down by the UGC.

This article adds to the theoretical debate on the local reproduction of the global in studies of neoliberalism in higher education by describing a Hong Kong case study, supported by empirical data, of an actual university's responses to the newly included impact requirement in RAE 2020. More specifically, this study reveals that (1) the policy for socio-economic impact might be designed in a neutral or even benevolent manner, but has taken on a neoliberal and managerial dimension in its actual implementation; and (2) the neoliberal discourse underpinning the university's operation can be accounted for and explicated by the local factors embedded in the specific academic environment.

Bioenergy from agriculture is considered to be a way to reduce GHG emissions and thus global warming and climate change. Bioenergy also presents other environmental externalities as impacts on air, soil and water quality, biodiversity, etc. In addition, bioenergy presents socio‐economic externalities as impacts on human health, social wellbeing, local prosperity, etc. These externalities must be assessed in order to enhance responsible politics' choice of the best bioenergy routes to support through incentives as subsidies or quotas. The aim of this research project is to enhance the political choice of bioenergy routes to support through incentives as subsidies or quotas.

From the literature review and assessment of certification initiatives, the paper has derived a list of environmental externalities, i.e. environmental sustainability criteria, and a list of socio‐economic externalities, i.e. socio‐economic sustainability criteria, to be taken into account in bioenergy routes evaluation. Environmental and socio‐economic externalities selected are interlinked and cannot be assessed in isolation. They are thus articulated into a qualitative model, which defines links between externalities and characterizes them into positive or negative correlations, and indeterminate relations.

From this model, it appears that many interactions between environmental externalities or between socio‐economic externalities from bioenergy are not straightforward. Many of them are time or space‐dependent. Agricultural practices vary from one region to another; indirect effects are far from being understood and assessed correctly, long‐term effects of climate change are still unknown, etc. Moreover, environmental externalities should be articulated together with socio‐economic externalities.

On the basis of the consolidated qualitative model, a quantitative model will be built. It will enable the monetization of externalities and their introduction in a political decision‐making tool. This tool will help politics to compare different bioenergy routes and choose the best according to their sustainability.

The quantitative model should allow the monetization of externalities and their introduction in a political decision‐making tool. This instrument will help politics to take into account sustainability in their comparison of different bioenergy routes when they want to promote: employment, GHG emissions reduction, biodiversity conservation, etc.

The purpose of this paper is to identify cross-country differences in socio-economic sustainability, which are operationalized as relative efficiency of economic and social impacts of hyperconnectivity (usage intensity of information and communication technologies (ICT) devices). The authors have a particular interest in the emerging economies because they enjoy outstanding growth rates and prospects for market expansion, and have undertaken significant economic reforms and, thus, should be expected to lead other two groups in the efficiency of transforming hyperconnectivity into sustainable growth.

The authors use canonical correlation analysis (CCA) to confirm the existence of a strong and significant relationship between hyperconnectivity drivers and socio-economic outcomes on a country level. The authors test the difference in efficiency of transforming hyperconnectivity into socio-economic sustainability among three groups of countries: advanced, emerging and developing nations using data envelopment analysis (DEA).

The findings indicate that indeed emerging economies were the most effective ones to use infrastructure and digital content followed by developing and advanced countries, respectively. However, relatively better affordability of technologies in the emerging countries did not produce as much socio-economic impact as compared with developing nations. Favorable legislative conditions and high individual ICT usage in advanced economies did not contribute much to socio-economic sustainability either.

One of the limitations of this study stems from the classification of the countries. World Economy Forum and International Monetary Fund resources are utilized for the economy categories, but their basis for classification of counties is rather subjective. Lack of existing comparative efficiency studies on a country level prevents effective benchmarking of the results.

Since the key vehicles of transforming technology into socio-economic impact are organizations, they should design and implement an appropriate organizational architecture which would facilitate this transformation in the emerging markets more effectively.

In a climate of increasing public accountability, governments have been increasingly urged to introduce good administrative practices and performance standards to enable efficient utilization of their resources and enhance social implications within and across countries.

Although the impact of ICT on macro-economic development has been previously studied, the efficiency of this impact was not. Using CCA as a complementary tool for DEA approach in this study constitutes a methodological contribution to existing DEA research, mostly done in the area of operations management. Using DEA on a country level is a novel approach which contributes to the realm of application of this methodology.

The resistance of the energy sector in recent time has been tried by COVID-19 as the occurrence has added to the dampening down demand for crude oil which has resulted in volatility in prices and dwindling production of crude oil at the global crude oil market. Dwindling demand and price decline can also be perceived as a trend in the electricity sector, the electricity price (ELECTP) and consumption. The consequences of individual policy response by countries in relation to the socio-economic impact of COVID-19 is yet to be known, and recent studies conducted in the continent are yet to document the impact of the pandemic on the oil-producing African countries. It is in the light of this that this study determined the effect of socio-economic shocks activated through the COVID-19 pandemic on the energy sector performance and economic development of Africa. Monthly data were sourced from the United States Energy Information Administration, COVID-19 geographic distribution worldwide, World Development Indicator and Trading Economics from 2019 (m12) to 2020 (m10). Seventeen oil-producing African countries were selected across the region based on data availability. The structural panel vector auto regression (SPVAR) analytical technique was used in estimating COVID-19 pandemic and socio-economic shocks on the energy sector performance proxied by oil production (OILP), ELECTP and economic development proxied by gross domestic product per capita (GDPPC) of the countries. Findings revealed that the COVID-19 pandemic transmits a negative shock to OILP and GDPPC while a positive shock is transmitted to ELECTP. The socio-economic variables also transmitted both the positive and negative shocks to OILP, ELECTP and GDPPC. Therefore, the study recommended that policies should be directed towards putting in place a shock-absorbing mechanism so as to cushion the effect of the identified shocks on the performance of the energy sector and the economic development of the countries.

The world's economies are on their knees following the negative impact of the coronavirus pandemic over the past 8 months. Growing number of researches has been conducted on the impact of COVID-19 pandemic on developed countries with little attention on developing countries, who are still grappling with the negative impact of the coronavirus. The rationale for this study is to assess the socio-economic impact of COVID-19 on Ghana's economy and government response to the pandemic as well as policy options to revive the ailing economy.

This study explored the socio-economic impact of the coronavirus on Ghana's economy using a discourse analysis with data from various secondary sources to analyze the impact of the pandemic from the Ghanaian perspective.

The findings from the discourse analysis revealed that the coronavirus pandemic has negatively impacted on the socio-economic situation of the citizens of Ghana. Whiles an estimated 42,000 people lost their jobs in the first two months of the pandemic in Ghana, tourist attraction sector of the country alone lost $171 million dollars in the past three months due to the partial lockdown and closure of tourism and hospitality centers in the country. The study revealed that Ghana's healthcare system has been overwhelmed by the number of increasing cases in the country to extent of making use of temporary structures as isolation and treatment centers of the pandemic. The study revealed that Ghana may convert these challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic into prospects and opportunities by investing massively in the health sector and creating support for the SMEs which creates massive employment for many Ghanaians.

This study focuses on the impact of the COVID-19 on Ghana's economy and how the pandemic has negatively affected the country. The study is an exploratory study that makes use of secondary data. However, conducting a study with primary data sources from specific communities or regions in the country may not produce the same results. The results from the primary level or community level may be different from the general results obtained from the study. In future it is expected that the study focuses specifically on the extent of the coronavirus pandemic on Ghana's fiscal deficit which seems to have ballooned in recent times.

The study is the first of its kind to extensively explore the socio-economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the Ghanaian economy. The novelty of this paper is that it recognizes governments response to the pandemic and proposes three practical measures adopted to put the country's economy back on its feet through survive, revive and ensuring growth in all sectors of the economy.

Purpose – To review the performance and growth of mining industry in India against current global vision and trend of the industrial growth internationally. Also, to evolve the strategic policy for evaluating Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) programme initiatives taken by the Indian mining industry at large as well as the impacts thereof, with special reference to affected and most vulnerable mining belts in India.Design/methodology/approach – An attempt has been made in the chapter to have a holistic sectoral review of the overall performance of the mining industry in India for the past one decade, as well as its claimed impact on improvement of ecological quality and socio-economic growth in the mining belts. The chapter reviews the state of the impact of ‘CSR’ initiatives and programmes on environment as well as the mining community in terms of stakeholders’ involvement and protection of rights in developing socio-economic business equity. The chapter also critically analyses the policy dimensions – including mining industry's operational framework, which can attribute towards developing future strategy for sustainable development of the mining industry at large, through evolving a series of reform processes, adequately backed up by innovative CSR policy and programme initiatives, together with well-defined implementation, monitoring, evaluation strategies and standards.Findings – The mining industries in India have a huge potential for growth to support the other industries for which bulk of the raw materials are derived from this industrial segment. Several research and developmental studies conducted by different organisations spread across the globe have convincingly been able to link the prospect of industrial growth and long-term sustainability with the stakeholders’ participatory and proactive roles along with those of the industry for holistic and integrated socio-economic development of the mining areas. This has been possible through careful designing of the CSR programmes and initiatives by several mining companies in India (with varying degree of success and failures) with close monitoring and performance evaluation of the impact of the programmes in ecological, economical and sustainability terms against certain pre-designed standards. Such standards – as they are constantly evolving – should inter alia include ethical and transparency dimensions to ensure total involvement of the local community in the mining-affected areas. Proper compensation mechanisms and socio-economic growth of the mining community will not only improve productivity, but will also take care of ecological and economic safeguard of the mined coal blocks that are highly vulnerable to ecological degradation and economic exploitation. As for future strategy for sustainable industrial growth of the mining industry in India, there should be constant monitoring and evaluation of the various provisions of the various Acts related to mining, minerals, metals, energy, power, environment, etc. that are constantly under review and reforms processes with a view to guiding the future strategy. International co-operation in the mining sector will go a long way for sustainable growth and development of the mining industry in India for boosting the economic growth of the country.Research limitations/implications – Future research on the theme should focus on identification of replicable and sustainable model of CSR practices in the mining industry by developing illustrative business models on the basis of global experiences. Sustainability reporting and identification of better qualitative as well as quantitative parameters, tools and techniques to study the impact of CSR practices on the socio-economic growth of the affected mining community should be the focus of future research.Social implications – The findings (serving as messages) of this piece of research will certainly have an impact on society. This in turn, will, hopefully influence public attitudes, and by implications, it will also influence (corporate) social responsibility or environmental issues.Originality/value of the chapter – The chapter is innovative and, among other things, addresses some of recently reported burning issues affecting the interests of the mining industry on one hand, and the national economy of the affected countries on the other.

This study aims to examine how Chinese rural-urban migrant workers' socio-economic status was associated with their decent work.

Grounded in the psychology of working theory (PWT), this study tested the path from rural-urban migrant workers' socio-economic status to decent work via work volition, with this path moderated by environmental uncertainty and trade union support. 470 rural-urban migrant workers from four manufacturing enterprises were investigated.

Results indicated that rural-urban migrant workers' socio-economic status was positively associated with rural-urban migrant workers' decent work through work volition. In addition, environmental uncertainty weakened the impact of socio-economic status on work volition while trade union support strengthened the relationship between socio-economic status and work volition.

The study contributes to the growing research on the PWT by testing its utility among rural-urban migrant workers in the Chinese context. The study also identifies the crucial effects of environmental uncertainty and trade union support, which are distinctive characters of contemporary China, in the formation process of rural-urban migrant workers' decent work. A detailed explanation of the results and implications is discussed in the end.

Several studies have examined the relationship between service quality and willingness to pay in many industries. However, this relationship has not been explored through the lens of customer perceived value and their willingness to pay for improving and sustaining water service. This study aims to examine the impact of technical and functional service quality dimensions on customer perceived value and assess the influence of customer perceived value and socio-economic factors on customers' willingness to pay for improving and sustaining the water service.

Technical service quality includes core water service such as water delivery and maintenance, while functional service quality refers to the appearance of facilities, employees’ dress, and communication. SERVQUAL questionnaire responses were collected from 333 Palestinian household customers. Cronbach’s alpha was conducted to measure internal consistency and convergent validity. Path analysis was utilized to evaluate a causal diagram by examining the relationships among the constructs.

The results showed that technical and functional service quality and relative price explain 52% of the customer perceived value variation. Additionally, the results revealed that customer perceived value, technical service quality, and relative price significantly impact the customer’s willingness to pay for improving and sustaining service. In contrast, the functional service quality and socio-economic factors have insignificant effects. These predictors explain 60% of the customer’s willingness to pay for improving and sustaining service.

The study suggests that water providers should prioritize improving and sustaining technical service quality to increase customer willingness to pay. Furthermore, they should be aware that other factors, such as employee appearance and politeness, are less influential in driving customers’ willingness to pay.

The study presents a water service improvement model that utilizes data from a developing country to assess the influence of perceived customer value, along with its dimensions, on the willingness to pay for improving and sustaining water service quality.

The paper is to propose a tool for holistic impact assessment of commercially reused immovable cultural heritage resources on local, sustainable development along with the possibility to ensure the cultural sustainability of these assets themselves. The paper contains a case study using the proposed tool. The case study concerns a historic object in the form of a Polish manor house located in rural areas in Poland adapted for commercial purposes – restaurant, painting gallery and renovation of antique furniture.

The author proposes a holistic approach based on aspects, to impact assessment of given heritage resources on the economic, social, cultural and environmental pillars of sustainable development and the sustainable use of heritage assets themselves. Above that, the approach proposes to use the assumptions of EMAS or ISO 14001 systems for assessment of environmental aspects in case of reused cultural heritage assets.

The test study showed that the proposed tool allows determining whether, how and to what extent the contemporary commercial function of a given element of immovable cultural heritage contributes to local sustainable development and whether and to what extent the cultural sustainability of a given cultural heritage is ensured.

In the proposed approach, very detailed quantitative data cannot be included because of the need to simplify the research.

The proposed tool can be used by owners of reused historic buildings, local authorities, services responsible for the protection of cultural heritage and financing institutions to determine whether a given contemporary commercial function of cultural heritage resources contributes to local sustainable development in holistic approach and whether this function ensures the preservation of its cultural sustainability.

The use of the proposed tool will give the opportunity to take appropriate actions to increase the impact of historic objects on local sustainable development including social aspects. Moreover, it will be possible to increase the cultural sustainability of these objects.

There are not many studies and tools that provide a possibility to assess a holistic impact of reused cultural heritage on local sustainable development. Research usually concerns one or two pillars: social and economic. Above that, the study of the cultural appreciation in two different groups: direct users and the local community is a novelty in the perception of contribution to cultural development. It may contribute to the different way of measurement of appreciation of cultural heritage and its contribution to social and cultural development. In addition, to study the environmental pillar, the author proposes an approach used in environmental management (ISO 1400 and EMAS), i.e. the application of activities related to eliminating the potentially harmful impact of a new function of the historic resource on the natural environment.