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Considering the critical role of higher education institutions in the advancement of the 2030 Agenda, this paper aims to analyse the incorporation of the gender perspective (Sustainable Development Goal 5) in the University Cooperation for International Development.

Following a qualitative methodological strategy, this paper identifies the potentialities and challenges of this perspective from the point of view of the technical staff of the cooperation units of seven Spanish universities.

Results show a strong intention to incorporate gender principles, in accordance with the SDGs framework. However, the findings also point to certain divergences in the forms of understanding and implementing gender equality in practice. Finally, this paper uncovers a variety of strategies to navigate the resistances, still existing in the university community.

Spain is orienting the legal framework of its cooperation and international relations towards the ambitious horizon of a feminist foreign policy. Universities are key actors in international development cooperation and the implementation of the SDGs. This is an issue that has received little research attention, particularly from a gender perspective.

Senior Indigenous leadership positions across the Australian higher education sector has increased over the past decade. Despite this advancement, there is limited understanding in terms of how to best integrate Indigenous leadership into existing governance structures of Australian universities. In 2018 the Walan Mayiny: Indigenous Leadership in Higher Education project commenced, aimed at establishing a model of best practice for the inclusivity of Indigenous leadership in higher education governance structures. This article presents key findings from the project, namely, a model of senior Indigenous leadership within the Australian universities based on the perceptions of a group of Indigenous academics.

Through qualitative semi-structured interviews with Indigenous academic staff, the perceived value, characteristics and challenges of senior Indigenous leadership were examined. The varying opinions held by Indigenous academics in relation to the qualifications and experience required to fulfil a senior Indigenous leadership position were also highlighted. In doing so, a model of senior Indigenous leadership within the Australian higher education system is presented. The model of best practice presented in this article is underpinned by Indigenous Institutional Theory (Coates et al., 2022), a theoretical framework developed from the Walan Mayiny study.

The research findings highlight the diverse opinions of Indigenous academics in relation to the qualifications and experience required to fulfil a senior Indigenous leadership position. The six essential components are built upon the core characteristics, values and behaviours that senior Indigenous leaders need to have according to Indigenous academics, in order to advance Indigenous success within the academy.

Given Australian universities are being called upon to ensure that senior Indigenous leaders are in the best position possible to forge institutional change, senior Indigenous leaders within the academy may find the contextual Indigenous leadership model beneficial. The model allows one to uphold cultural integrity and fulfil the responsibilities and obligations of their higher education institution, while being able to serve their Indigenous colleagues and communities, leading to the advancement of Indigenous higher education outcomes. Importantly, the model can be adapted to suit all First Nations Peoples globally, who also find themselves working within the shackles of Western institutions.

By aligning the “Small is beautiful” and “Bleak house” theories, this study aims to examine how robotic working patterns affect employees’ working life and job satisfaction (JS) in Bangladeshi-owned ethnic minority businesses.

The study uses information from 40 face-to-face interviews of employees from 20 Bangladeshi restaurants in Greater London.

The findings suggest that workers are treated as “robots”, consistent with the “Bleak house” view of small businesses in this segment of the restaurant and hospitality industry. Owners expect employees to perform multiple tasks, to assume many responsibilities, to work long shifts, without any holiday allowances. Consistent with the “Small is beautiful model”, the findings underscore the lack of written employment contracts and the emergence of acute staff shortages.

The findings can inform owner-managers’ decisions to refine their HR strategies and improve the work conditions of employees in ethnic minority-owned restaurants. The “Small is beautiful” model highlights five key interventions for improving ethnic minority business work quality: recruit employees with first preferences for restaurant jobs, introduce flexible work arrangements, formalise work, improve market research and tackle acute staff shortages.

The study contributes novel insights into the small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and job quality literature by offering new qualitative-based findings on the negative impact of robotic work patterns on work quality and JS in ethnic minority SMEs.

Universities in the United Kingdom, like their counterparts globally, are confronting difficulties associated with the well-being of students. The origins of these challenges are complex, exacerbated by various global events. In response, universities are trying to address these growing concerns and the escalating need for student support. Faculty members are often recruited to assist students in navigating academic and personal challenges. The aim of this study was to investigate how the process of student mentoring, by faculty members, could be made more operationally robust to better support student demand, thus yielding greater value for both students and staff.

A qualitative approach was adopted with 19 academic faculty working as mentors within a UK business school who participated in 90-minute semi-structured interviews. Interviews were analysed using an operational (transformation) management framework, with findings categorised under three key headings – inputs, transformations and outputs – to discover how the operational process of mentoring students could be enhanced.

Participants discussed the inputs required to deliver mentoring, the process of transformation and their desired outputs. Findings suggest coordinated and relevant inputs that is, information, environments and technology, coupled with good mentor selection and recruitment improves operational robustness, adding greater value to the student experience by creating more purposeful outputs, thereby benefiting themselves and their students.

The application of an operational (transformation) process framework to analyse faculty mentoring of students is unique, thereby offering new insights into the construction and management of these types of academic support initiatives.

The aim of this study is to investigate how educational researchers work together with practitioners in practical research projects.

Mixed-method.

Our findings suggest that researchers recognize their own limitations as well as those of practitioners and policy makers and learn from collaboration, but that they lack ideas on what activities they can undertake to overcome limitations. Furthermore, educational researchers emphasize the importance of continuous and systematic organized exchange with educational practitioners. We discuss the needs and challenges of educational researchers interacting with educational practitioners during their research.

We believe that sustainable research and practice partnerships (RPPs) provide a more effective platform for collaboration between researchers and practitioners. This is because long-term engagement in cross-boundary work within these partnerships promotes the development of new knowledge, routines and methods, thereby improving educational practice. Unfortunately, there are few RPPs in Germany (the context of the researchers interviewed). Consequently, it is critical that funding policies, particularly outside the United States, provide greater support for RPPs and the necessary resources for these partnerships. Even if funding for RPPs is not always possible, our research suggests that short-term collaborative agreements in research-practice projects are preferable to relying on informal transfer channels.

This paper aims to explore how a new type of workplace training program can be created that truly enables participants to move from words to action. Recognizing the need to understand trainee–work environment dynamics the authors criticize training efforts that center on targeted learning events, instead highlighting the role of preparation and following up. In doing so, the authors tackle the lack of guidance practitioners experience when designing and implementing workplace training programs.

The authors present action research on a pilot workplace training program focused on wellbeing in an academic work setting. The data collection draws from the case study tradition. The authors collect data through interviews (21), field notes of participant observation (3 occasions), participant-produced written materials and a feedback survey.

The authors find that restorative practices, workplace mediation and reteaming enhance the participants’ perceptions of self-efficacy and agency. Throughout the training program, facilitators observe the dynamics of the situation and take part in discussions to encourage exploration and reflection. Thus, facilitators likely need a coaching mindset.

The theoretical contribution stems from an in-depth exploration of trainee–work environment dynamics and novel insights brought to workplace training from adjacent fields of research. The authors introduce a framework for planning participatory workplace training and organizational development programs, which answers a call from practitioners.

The study sought to investigate how servant leadership affects employees' organisational citizenship and innovative behaviour by emphasising the mediation role of psychological empowerment. Relying on social exchange and self-determination theories, the present research examined the associations between these key elements in organisational dynamics.

Two waves of data were obtained from 325 supervisor-subordinate dyads working for 15 nonprofit organisations.

The results uncovered a significant and positive connection between leaders with a strong servant mindset and employees' organisational citizenship and innovative behaviour. Psychological empowerment was found to serve as a mediator in the anticipated correlations. Cultivating leaders with an enduring servant attitude was found to significantly boost employees' organisational citizenship and innovation, supported by improved psychological empowerment.

This study is distinctive as it fills a gap in research on the relationships between servant leadership, psychological empowerment and work outcomes in the global nonprofit sector, particularly in the Eastern context. This disposition, when given the opportunity, will contribute to strengthening working productivity.

This study analyses the effects of firm efficiency on firm performance and how controlling shareholders moderate the link between the two variables.

This study employs data envelopment analysis to estimate firm efficiency and the panel regression method to assess the hypothesised relationships among 1,295 firm-year observations of publicly listed firms in Malaysia from 2015 to 2019.

The results indicate that firm efficiency (technical efficiency, pure technical efficiency and scale efficiency) has mixed relationships with firm performance (return on assets, market-to-book ratio and operating cash flows), all of which are being moderated by controlling shareholdings.

This study highlights the importance of assessing firm efficiency as the key success factor for improving firm performance. Industrial managers should manage efficiently their resources or operating costs in achieving their corporate financial goals. Moreover, this study notes the presence of controlling shareholders, who can be either self-interested or company goal aligned.

This study suggests becoming efficient in transforming inputs into outputs is a prerequisite before investigating accrual-based and cash-based firm performance measures, and the presence of controlling shareholders matters in these regards.

The authors revisit the notion of co-production, highlight more critical and re-politicized forms of co-production and introduce three principles for its operationalization. The paper’s viewpoint aims to find entry points for enabling more equitable disaster research and actions via co-production.

The authors draw insights from the authors’ reflections as climate and disaster researchers and literature on knowledge politics in the context of disaster and climate change, especially within critical disaster studies and feminist political ecology.

Disaster studies can better contribute to disaster risk reduction via political co-production and situating local and Indigenous knowledge at the center through three principles, i.e. ensuring knowledge plurality, surfacing norms and assumptions in knowledge production and driving actions that tackle existing knowledge (and broader sociopolitical) structures.

The authors draw out three principles to enable the political function of co-production based on firsthand experiences of working with local and Indigenous peoples and insights from a diverse set of co-production, feminist political ecology and critical disaster studies literature. Future research can observe how it can utilize these principles in its respective contexts.