Yona Sipos, Bryce Battisti and Kurt Grimm
The current UN Decade of Education for Sustainable Development echoes many scholars' calls to re‐envision education for sustainability. Short of a complete overhaul of education…
Abstract
Purpose
The current UN Decade of Education for Sustainable Development echoes many scholars' calls to re‐envision education for sustainability. Short of a complete overhaul of education, the paper seeks to propose learning objectives that can be integrated across existing curricula. These learning objectives are organized by head, hands and heart – balancing cognitive, psychomotor and affective domains. University programs and courses meeting these learning objectives exhibit an emergent property here termed transformative sustainability learning (TSL).
Design/methodology/approach
Theoretically, TSL grew from traditions of sustainability education and transformative education. Practically, TSL emerged from experimental learning collaborations sponsored by the University of British Columbia in 2003 and 2004 in an effort to enable explicit transitions to sustainability‐oriented higher education. Primarily through action research, these community‐based, applied learning experiences constituted cyclical processes of innovation, implementation and reflection.
Findings
The paper finds: advancement of head, hands and heart as an organizing principle by which to integrate transdisciplinary study (head); practical skill sharing and development (hands); and translation of passion and values into behaviour (heart); development of a cognitive landscape for understanding TSL as a unifying framework amongst related sustainability and transformative pedagogies that are inter/transdisciplinary, practical and/or place‐based; creation of learning objectives, organized to evaluate a course or program's embodiment of TSL.
Originality/value
By enabling change within existing structures of higher education, the paper complements and contributes to more radical departures from the institution. The work to date demonstrates potential in applying this learning framework to courses and programs in higher education.
Details
Keywords
Yuxi Zhao, Elaine Arici, Kostas Galanakis and Piers Thompson
Studies have suggested that entrepreneurship is a key mechanism for rejuvenating and facilitating economic growth in deprived areas. To provide further understanding of the…
Abstract
Studies have suggested that entrepreneurship is a key mechanism for rejuvenating and facilitating economic growth in deprived areas. To provide further understanding of the persistently low entrepreneurial intentions found in deprived areas this chapter identifies key mechanisms and theoretical frameworks that link the formation of appropriate human capital to the prevailing environment, and that influences may flow in both directions. This contributes to the existing literature to provide a fuller understanding of interest to policy-makers of why past interventions have struggled to boost entrepreneurial intentions and where new interventions may be most effective in generating more positive entrepreneurial intentions in deprived areas.
Details
Keywords
The business environment is increasingly volatile, complex, uncertain and ambiguous. Today, COVID-19 represents a super-disruption situation. This paper aims to explore small and…
Abstract
Purpose
The business environment is increasingly volatile, complex, uncertain and ambiguous. Today, COVID-19 represents a super-disruption situation. This paper aims to explore small and medium-sized enterprises’ (SMEs’) resilience from continuous improvement lenses. It explores the role of continuous improvement in building organizational resilience across SMEs.
Design/methodology/approach
A Delphi methodology has been adopted to capture evidence and opinions from 38 experts from several Jordan-based SMEs through three-online rounds.
Findings
The study finds that continuous improvement enhances SMEs’ resilience in the short term and long term. It can translate the concept of resilience into tangible working constructs for SMEs in visualizing and making decisions about their risks, adapting, absorbing changes and prevailing over time. The role of continuous improvement in building organizational resilience is fourfold; continuous improvement is a cyclical process; it has a vital cultural aspect and can be considered a business philosophy. It also emphasizes a holistic change approach based on small but constant changes. However, SMEs’ leaders must consider several issues for effective continuous improvement, including a continuous improvement culture and a results-focused approach.
Originality/value
Organizational resilience has been studied across various contexts; however, there are still unanswered questions for SMEs’ resilience. This study contributes to theory and practice by examining the role of continuous improvement in SMEs’ resilience.
Details
Keywords
Mirela Schramm Tonetto, Carlos Torres Formoso, Tarcisio Abreu Saurin, Fabiana Bonesi De Luca, Fernanda Pavan Lora and Elvira Lantelme
The COVID-19 pandemic offered a unique glimpse into the resilience of construction projects, shedding light on several learning opportunities. The purpose of this paper is to…
Abstract
Purpose
The COVID-19 pandemic offered a unique glimpse into the resilience of construction projects, shedding light on several learning opportunities. The purpose of this paper is to develop propositions for the improvement of resilient performance in construction in the post-pandemic era.
Design/methodology/approach
The propositions were developed based on an empirical study in Brazil. Data collection involved the analysis of regulations, interviews with health experts, managers, and workers, in addition to non-participant observations of the use of 37 control practices in 39 construction sites comparing the work-as-imagined and the work-as-done. The practices were classified in a hierarchy of controls.
Findings
Seven propositions for the improvement of resilient performance were developed, addressing collaboration between construction companies, slack resources, new health and safety practices, production planning and control, digital technologies, visual management, and organizational culture. These propositions emphasize organizational support for resilience. This is in contrast to the nature of most observed practices (57%) that relied on administrative controls and personal protective equipment, which are measures dependent on behaviors that resemble resilience at the individual level.
Originality/value
Although much has been studied on COVID-19 implications for construction projects, previous empirical studies have not adopted the organizational resilience perspective as the main theoretical background.
Details
Keywords
Eugénia Pedro, João Leitão and Helena Alves
For better mapping the path of intellectual capital (IC) research, the purpose of this paper is to selectively review empirical studies of IC published, and identify theories…
Abstract
Purpose
For better mapping the path of intellectual capital (IC) research, the purpose of this paper is to selectively review empirical studies of IC published, and identify theories, components and three dimensions of analysis: national IC (NIC), regional IC (RIC) and organizational IC (OIC).
Design/methodology/approach
The systematic literature review (SLR) subject to analysis is based on empirical studies made between 1960 and 2016, and focuses on three dimensions of analysis: NIC, RIC and OIC. Four research questions were designed, using the following databases, namely, Web of Science, Scopus and Google Scholar, for data collection purposes.
Findings
The SLR unveils a multidimensional taxonomy for measuring and classifying the type of IC applicable to the different levels of analysis and provides some recommendations for future studies of NIC, RIC and OIC, by outlining the need for clear definitions of components and measures of IC and identifying strengths, limitations and future research avenues.
Originality/value
In order to fill the gap found in the literature and the non-existence of a study clarifying the multiple dimensions of analysis of IC, this SLR makes a twofold, original contribution to the literature on management: providing an SLR of the main empirical studies dealing with different units of analysis; and identifying a multidimensional taxonomy for measuring and classifying the type of IC applicable to the different levels of analysis.