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This paper aims to investigate the relationship between academia and society focusing on how technical universities perform Third Mission (TM) to promote knowledge outside the academic environment producing multiple benefits.

This investigation is performed through the conceptual approach. The theoretical background of the TM is explored through scientific literature review. It analyses a selected pool of experiences focused on Environmental and Sustainable Education (ESE). The study identifies significant aspects of two specific case studies, designed and implemented by the authors.

Outcomes show opportunities and limitations in the application of ESE on behalf of technical academia. The study suggests solutions, precautions and systemic changes to promote ESE for childhood as TM activity in technical engineering academia. These recommendations can be useful for policymakers to set academic goals and plan the strategic management of teaching, research and TM.

The paper focuses on the role of technical engineering universities and criticalities faced by academics to foster and perform ESE. Future perspectives aim to create new opportunities to strengthen the social impact of scientific and technical research by building bridges with childhood education.

With this special edition, “Women and Gulf Cities”, we collect scholarly contributions to the ongoing discourse on the impact of women on architectural and urban developments in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC).

The discussions offered in this issue highlight the various implications, ranging from gender-inclusive urban planning, educational and professional development, sustainability and heritage to global frameworks of innovative and practical solutions for achieving inclusive and integrated urban practices that promote the full and equal participation of women in architecture and city-making.

The increasing involvement of women in these sectors play a pivotal part in their development and success. It can also be recognised as essential for promoting individual and family well-being, fostering social cohesion and driving economic development. Women play essential roles in sustainable solutions, evolving green economy and sustainable development. Moreover, collaborations initiated by women in the Arab region are instrumental in advancing sustainable development to pave the way towards a sustainable future.

This special edition offers a comprehensive exploration of various facets, ranging from gender-sensitive urban design (GSUD) to the educational and professional development of women in architecture and design, particularly in the Gulf region. The originality of this research lies in its focus on the multifaceted and integral role of women in shaping the architectural and urban landscape of the Gulf region, providing valuable insights into the challenges and opportunities for GSUD and the potential for creating more inclusive, equitable and sustainable built environments in the Gulf.

Business process training is a crucial activity in the business process management lifecycle, performed whenever an organization needs to train workers about how to carry out their activities according to defined processes, after significant process changes, or whenever new workers come on board. Due to their motivational character, serious games have been understood as an unconventional alternative to support training in organizational processes. Still, methodologies to design serious digital games specifically for business process training are missing in the literature. This research paper presents a method – Play Your Process for Training (PYP4Training) – for designing digital games for business process training.

The research is guided by design science research methodologies and comprises the adaptation of Play Your Process (PYP), a method for designing business process-based digital games (BPBDG). PYP activities and supporting tools were shaped to cope with the specific requirements of BPBDG design for process training purposes, bringing to light a new method: PYP4Training.

PYP4Training was evaluated by designing a BPBDG for training a heavy equipment maintenance process in a multinational mining company. The game was evaluated by process owners and actors who reported a positive perception of the game as an option for process training. However, there is still space for improving trainees' engagement.

The research proposes an innovative way for business process training using digital games. Nevertheless, literature shows a lack of systematic procedures to build such games and results about their use.

This study aims to explore the ethical challenges of managing the weight of psychiatric patients in the least restrictive manner in secure mental health settings and whether these could be considered as a source of moral distress for health practitioners, which may be linked to staff burnout and ultimately lead to suboptimal patient care.

A qualitative semi-structured interview study design was used to explore the understanding, views and experiences of six staff members working on two medium-secure wards in a UK mental health hospital using an opportunity sampling technique and Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis.

Analysis of semi-structured interviews revealed a multitude of moral events that evoked feelings of frustration, powerlessness and anxiety related to the management of obesity in the least restrictive way, which is indicative of moral distress.

Due to the small sample size and the qualitative nature of the research, the findings of this study are of explorative in nature. Further quantitative research would be required to establish a causative link between the ethical challenges associated with obesity management and staff’s moral distress.

Addressing the health-care professionals’ knowledge deficit on how to achieve the right balance in their duty of care through inclusion of bioethics into professional discussions and training could improve staff’s well-being and the organisation’s ethical climate.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first qualitative work exploring the role of least restrictive practice in the challenges associated with health promotion within secure psychiatric settings, and the effect these challenges have on mental health staff.

This research aims to explore and theorize the role of embodied practices – orchestrated by service providers – in the social production of servicescapes. It is claimed that the social character of the servicescape is shaped not only by narratives and materialities but also through the body. Bodily physical behaviors like physical movements in space, gestures, facial expressions, postures and tactile engagements with the surrounding materiality constitute a body language that conveys information and expresses meanings. In this kinetic capacity, the body becomes a building agent in the social constitution of the servicescape. As the author empirically demonstrates in the context of city tourism with diverse experiential opportunities, it is due to the body’s discriminatory orientation, walking, looking, pointing and acting in selective ways that the city emerges as a servicescape of particular kind.

Market-oriented ethnography was conducted in Saint Petersburg, Russia, where the author observed the guiding practices of tour guides leading international tourists during two-day city excursions.

This research identifies and unpacks three clusters of embodied practices deployed by service providers as they guide customers at the servicescape: spatializing, emplacing and regulating. The role of the body and its association with narratives and materialities is identified in each cluster.

A number of embodied practices are provided for use by contact employees as they guide customers in the servicescape. Specific guidelines are also offered to service providers for the strategic employment of body language, their training is navigational skills and the coordination of body, narratives and materialities.

This study extends current materialistic and communicative approaches on the construction of servicescapes by claiming that the servicescape in not only a physical and narrative construction but something that is also configured through the body; provides three clusters of embodied practices deployed by service providers; theorizes the intertwined nature of narratives, materiality and the body; defines servicescapes as dynamic socio-spatial entities emerging from the constant {narrative-material-body} arrangements orchestrated by service providers; and sheds light on the mediating role of the body in the social production of servicescapes.

This study explores the dynamics of patient transfers within the Polish healthcare system during the COVID-19 pandemic, focusing on the roles of negotiation, boundary work and systemic flexibility. Despite extensive literature on patient transfers, gaps remain in understanding the general mechanisms that complicate these processes, especially under crisis conditions.

By interviewing 18 specialists across various medical fields, our research provides empirical evidence from Poland, highlighting the experiences of medical practitioners who navigated the complex landscape of patient transfers during the pandemic.

By integrating negotiation and boundary work theories, we reveal how healthcare professionals manage patient flows and the challenges they face. Our findings show that during the unique situation caused by the uncertainties and lack of preparedness for the pandemic, while standardization and rationalization tools have limited effectiveness, proactive involvement and strategic negotiation are crucial for successful patient management.

The study's primary limitation is its focus solely on the Polish healthcare system during the COVID-19 pandemic, which may not fully represent other contexts or healthcare systems.

The study underscores the importance of communication and interpersonal skills in facilitating patient transfers. We also argue that the previous experiences with negotiating orders, dealing with limited resources and making constant compromises had, in a way, built resilience in Polish medical experts and prepared them for the uncertainties encountered while treating COVID-19 patients. These insights contribute to academic theories and offer practical recommendations for enhancing healthcare system resilience and adaptability in future crises. Ultimately, the study emphasizes that flexibility and strategic negotiation are key to managing patient transfers in a fragmented and complex healthcare environment.

Knowledge sharing within organizations has significant benefits for group and organizational performance. This study aims to identify the combinations of individual and relational factors that influence high- and low-intensity knowledge sharing among workers using the ability-motivation-opportunities (AMO) framework.

This research adopts a qualitative, set-theoretic approach, using fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) to analyse data collected from knowledge workers in an international corporation.

Our findings show that knowledge sharing is fundamentally relational, meaning that the quality and history of interaction with co-workers affect the intensity of knowledge-sharing behaviour. All AMO dimensions prove important for sharing, although some of them can substitute one another. However, if there is a lack of ability and opportunity, employees will not share knowledge even if they are motivated by reciprocity.

The results offer human resources and project management practice alternative combinations of individual and relational factors that can be used to streamline knowledge sharing, emphasizing the need to invest in building relationships among co-workers.

This study contributes to the literature by identifying configurations of core and peripheral conditions pertaining to abilities, motivation and opportunities that can facilitate or constrain knowledge-giving.

As subjects irrationally perceive probability changes as more impactful when shifting an event from impossible to possible or from possible to certain, compared to increasing the likelihood of an already possible event, this study examines how workers process success probabilities and whether their resource allocation decisions are distorted by bounded subadditivity.

We conduct an online randomized experiment with 3,980 employees.

We detect a certainty effect (upper subadditivity), whereby professionals are willing to devote a disproportionate number of hours to a project when their contribution transforms the success of the initiative from possible to certain rather than increasing the likelihood of success by the same percentage points. We find no evidence of the possibility effect (lower subadditivity), whereby workers would devote a disproportionate effort when their contribution turns a sure failure into a possible success rather than simply increasing the likelihood of success by the same percentage points. We observe a rational tendency to try harder for a greater increase in the probability of success, but only far from the limits of the probability spectrum and not close to the limits.

Attempts to understand bounded subadditivity in management decisions have been incomplete. We disentangle two real-world variables and offer a more refined operationalization.

The study aims to examine the relationship between telework conditions and employees' job satisfaction (JS) within knowledge-intensive public organizations (KIPOs). Additionally, it aims to unfold the mediating role played by both organizational and job characteristics, namely supervisory support (SS) and job autonomy (JA).

The analysis adopts a simultaneous qualitative-quantitative design, starting with a preliminary inductive analysis of qualitative data, followed by a deductive quantitative analysis using structural equation modeling (SEM). The data were retrieved from a survey completed by some 700 employees of a regional environmental protection agency in Italy.

Findings show that the positive association between conditions for telework (CT) and JS is partially mediated by both SS and JA. Moreover, the results of the study suggest a sequential nature of such mediational patterns.

This research provides an empirical contribution to a relatively under-investigated area: the role of job characteristics in explaining the nexus between telework and JS. Furthermore, the study takes place within the context of a KIPO, adding particular significance to the emerging insights due to the distinct nature of the work conducted in such settings.