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Purpose – This chapter discusses the application of the Gradual Release of Responsibility (GRR) to school change and the learning of groups of leaders, teachers, and students. Specifically, the authors describe the Seven Levels to Success, a model for school change that supports teachers in building their school’s own staircase (coherent) curriculum in literacy. The authors discuss the effectiveness of this model for capacity building – giving schools a “deep bench” of leaders and teachers who can sustain improved student achievement over a period of years.

Design/Methodology/Approach – The theoretical underpinning of this research is provided by the Vygotsky Space, a construct that shows how learning may be understood in terms of the intersections of collective and individual actions, and public and private settings. This construct allows us to understand what drives a school’s advancement through the Seven Levels and how that advancement can be restarted after it has been slowed or interrupted. The authors report findings about school change from 20 years of work in 264 elementary and secondary schools, reflecting a wide range of students and communities across the United States.

Findings – While schools’ typical advancement in the Seven-Level model is neither steady nor linear, it adheres to an overall pattern: Leaders must take ownership first, followed by teachers and then students. To build their school’s staircase curriculum, teachers must see themselves as creators rather than consumers of curriculum. Teachers who see themselves as creators take ownership of their curriculum. Their deep understanding of the curriculum promotes continuous improvements and related success in improving their students’ literacy learning. Four case examples illustrate change in a variety of school settings, providing existence proofs of how the Seven-Level model functions to improve students’ literacy learning.

Research Limitations/Implications – The authors highlight the importance of the school as the unit of analysis in change efforts, and of understanding a school’s progress over time. The authors emphasize considering the role of multiple constituencies, beginning with school leaders and encompassing teachers, students, and families. One implication of this study is that more attention should be paid to the role of school leaders – administrators, curriculum coordinators, and teacher leaders – in setting the stage for sustainable improvement.

Practical Implications – The authors provide guidance to practitioners working on school change within the framework of the Seven Levels to Success and other social constructivist models. Specifically, the authors give examples of relevant actions external consultants and school leaders take at critical junctures in a school’s progress.

Originality/Value of Paper – This chapter breaks new ground in applying the GRR model and the Vygotsky Space to the area of school change in literacy. Summarizing 20 years of work with the Seven-Level model demonstrates potential of teacher-developed curricula for the sustainable improvement of students’ literacy learning.

We view emerging-market multinational corporations (EMNCs) as agents for global isomorphism. EMNCs seek to enter developed markets not only to expand their business operations but also to acquire advanced knowledge to enhance their core competencies. In entering these markets, EMNCs are subject to coercive, normative and cognitive pressures as they seek legitimacy. Once these firms gain legitimacy in advanced markets through the adoption of local business practices, they transfer these approaches to their headquarters in developing markets, establishing best practices in their home markets. Further, EMNCs may engage in efforts aimed at changing the institutional environment in the developing market to facilitate the transfer of learned practices from the developed market. Thus, we propose that these best practices lead to global isomorphism, but also note instances where symbolic adoption of developed market practices may slow the isomorphic process.

A full and adequate Systematic Quantitative Literature Research Analysis of the academic literature and research on creating shared value (CSV) is long overdue. This chapter commences this process by introducing some of the academic literature currently on CSV and examining the strengths and weaknesses of this literature, while identifying gaps for future research. The chapter builds on current academic literature to include writing and research from the business community in an attempt to make this chapter both topical and accessible to anyone interested in CSV, including practitioners interested in implementing these types of projects as direct CSV projects or as part of already existing CSR strategy. It is expected that the inclusion of this type of business literature will add value to academic research going forward. The Appendix brings the chapter together by presenting examples of a variety of CSV case studies to provide ideas for future project implementation and opportunities for future research in both implementation and measurement.

The transition from large to small working age cohorts and perpetually increasing longevity presents major challenges to pension systems around the world. In this context, the Danish system has been highlighted as particularly adequate and sustainable, although often developed more as element in macro-economic and fiscal policies than pension visions and certainly enabled and bolstered through other policies, such as fixed exchange rates, debt reduction, wage restraint, employment maximation and tax reform. The combined effect of six distinctive pension policy features places Danish pensions in the super-league of national systems: (1) a generous minimum pension providing all residents with basic old age security; (2) progressive redistribution resulting from the integration of public and private pension benefits; (3) high occupational pension coverage, with sizable contributions offering immediate membership, vesting and full portability of rights; (4) the tax regime, where investment return taxation substantially reduces the fiscal pressure from tax-exempting gross income in the build-up period and deferral of income tax until benefits are paid out, secures a revenue windfall at the height of ageing; (5) the linking of pensionable ages to life expectancy, which aims to lower pension costs, increases labour supply, growth and tax revenue and (6) the regime for third pillar schemes preventing their use in tax planning. Although the Danish pension experience has its obvious peculiarities, lessons for other governments can be found in the public‒private benefit integration, the tax regime, the life expectancy indexing of pensionable ages and the use of pensions in economic policies.

With the increasing understanding of stakeholders on sustainability aspects for the business, companies are nowadays paying more attention to environmental and social issues. This study aims to examine the relationship between Environmental, Social, Governance (ESG) Index and firms’ value. Moreover, this study also examines how the controversy score influences the company’s value. The authors employ a dataset of 1.356 companies from 22 countries in Asia which representing the Asian market from 2014 to 2018. This study shows that ESG index score and controversy score are statistically significant, affecting the firms’ value, measured by Tobin’s Q. From the individual tests, the findings of this study indicate that ESG-environmental, ESG-social, and ESG-governance, individually affect the firms’ value. This study suggests that providing disclosure on ESG aspects is essential, not only to increase company value but also to show the company resilience and sustainability. On the other hand, ESG controversy score surprisingly indicates a positive relationship with the company value. The result implies that controversies provide a positive signal to the investor because controversies could provide a signal to the public of companies’ willingness to have transparency and accountability.

While the trade sector has long been the backbone of growth followed by real estate development in Dubai, the impact of reduced oil revenues in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) has affected Dubai. GCC countries have identified innovation and transitioning to a knowledge-based economy as critical components of sustainable growth in the post-oil world. The purpose of this chapter is twofold: (1) to examine UAE’s competitiveness relative to four economies for which we can draw meaningful conclusions (Qatar, Singapore, Norway, and Switzerland) and (2) to integrate macro- and micro-level findings in an actionable framework. Using the composite Knowledge Economy Index (KEI) developed by the World Bank (2008, 2012), we conclude that UAE should prioritize three key areas to ­transition to a knowledge-based economy: the regulatory regime, innovation, and human capital. These findings are consistent with a recent study by the UAE Department of Economic Development/INSEAD, which highlights two areas that need addressing: “Creation” (knowledge creation) and “Anchoring” (institutional environment for innovation). We integrate these macro-level findings with research at the innovation ecosystem level (and particularly survey-based research completed by Wamda Research Lab) to propose a comprehensive action framework across all ecosystem stakeholders (i.e., government, entrepreneurs, academia, support ecosystem, and corporates). The action matrix allows individual stakeholders to drive corresponding actions and prioritize across short- and long-term initiatives.

This chapter offers an experience-based report about the development of the first Scandinavian PhD program in tourism studies at Mid-Sweden University. This process is documented through a framework which, rather than having the coherence of a single clearly bounded discipline, focuses on tourism as a study area encompassing multiple disciplines. Tourism knowledge is derived through a synthesis of fact-oriented positivist methodologies and critical theory. The theoretical framework employed to develop the graduate program in tourism studies is presented by critically discussing its multidisciplinary base and briefly outlining future veins of further development.

This chapter is concerned with three main integrated issues. It looks forward towards enhancing ‘sustainable development’, using ‘innovation’, enabled by ‘higher education’ institutions. Therefore, sustainable development is the ‘target’; innovation is the ‘mean’; and higher education (HE) is the ‘enabler’ of the mean for achieving the target. The chapter starts by addressing the ‘target’ through explaining the ‘long time scale’ and the ‘wide scope of issues’ of sustainable development, in addition to elaborating on the past efforts, and considering the current directions expressed by the ‘sustainable development goals’. It then moves on to the ‘mean’ that is the innovation that drives sustainable development, considering its various types and its correlated components given by the ‘global innovation index’. HE, as an important enabler of innovation, is then addressed by considering its impact, its missions and their contribution to innovation, in addition to its challenges and the future development. The chapter finally emphasises views on the future role of ‘HE’ in promoting ‘innovation’ towards enhancing ‘sustainable development’.

The following article looks at the biological weapons problem from different perspectives to evaluate the international threat of biological weapons from both a legal perspective and a regulatory perspective. Biological weapons fall into a category all their own with unique characteristics as weapons of mass destruction in which suggestions for new directions should be explored with respect to historical failures. Biological weapons regulation is currently predicated on a certain legal framework, and through that a presentation is shown by a synthesized approach to biological weapons control.

This simple case study tells the story of three young men who started an online business-to-business trading portal for fun, and to help fund them through university. They seized the opportunity of a major assignment to ask a new lecturer, the narrator, to guide them into profitability. Reluctantly, the young men were coerced into a literature survey, which proved surprisingly helpful to them. A simple research project followed, using mixed methods (survey, expert opinion, key account interviews). Based on the survey results and some simple frameworks from the literature, the young men not only completed their exercise, but also went on to turn their hobby into a sustainable business. The business still exists today, based on the simple study conducted some 12 years ago.