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In contrast to the reflective approach of service quality measurement, this paper aims to propose and validate a parsimonious multidimensional second-order formatively measured model of service quality for primary health-care services provided by hospital outpatient departments. The index’s empirical validity is examined by investigating the strength of its relationship with certain behavioral responses such as patient satisfaction and behavioral intentions.

Data were collected through a stratified random sampling from eight hospital outpatient departments in Greece. Covariance-based structural equation modeling techniques were used to validate the proposed service quality index and further investigate its effect on patient satisfaction and behavioral intention.

The data analysis indicated that the proposed formative index is fully functional with medical care being the factor and mostly contributes to service quality perception, followed by administrative service and staff performance, and facilities condition and nursing care. It, further, confirmed the partial mediating role of satisfaction, as it enhances the high impact of service quality on behavioral intentions.

The relationships among hospital outpatient departments service quality, patient satisfaction and behavioral intentions were validated with data from one country and a health-care system which is state driven and funded.

An understanding of hospital primary health-care service quality formation is important to health-care decision makers because it offers them the opportunity to consider patients’ needs and wants, and takes the appropriate actions for improving the relevant underling procedures in a more efficient manner to achieve favorable behavioral responses.

The paper manages to propose and empirically evaluate a formatively measured approach of service quality and investigate the effects of the proposed index on patient satisfaction and behavioral intention, especially in the hospital outpatient services context in Greece.

This study aims to deal with the paucity of studies in the stages of the development of loyalty behaviour of customers in the healthcare context by incorporating three crucial service quality dimensions (physical environment, personnel quality and technical quality) and also investigating trust and commitment as mediating factors.

Survey data were obtained from 420 respondents admitted to government hospitals in Kerala employing a convenience sampling method. The formulated hypotheses were tested using partial least square structural equation modelling.

Results indicate that patient satisfaction, trust and commitment can create favourable behavioural intentions amongst patients. When patients reveal higher trust, they are more inclined to value healthcare services and willing to commit to a long-term relationship, resulting in increased patient loyalty.

Organisational efforts should improve trust and commitment and build a good relationship between service providers and patients. Efforts should be taken to raise the standard of technical and personnel aspects, and a focus on physical infrastructure should also be considered to build a favourable behavioural intention to revisit and positive referrals.

This is the first empirical study to analyse technical quality, personnel quality and physical environment along with the mediating effect of trust, and commitment in a four-stage loyalty development model in the healthcare context of Kerala, India.

The UN proclamation of 2005–2014 as the decade of education for sustainable development has been instrumental in creating awareness and driving higher education institutions (HEIs) in integrating sustainability into their system. The purpose of this paper is to explore and encapsulate practices adopted by universities and colleges across the globe in integrating sustainability in education (here refers to curriculum and pedagogy), research, campus operations and outreach programs.

The review analyzed 229 peer-reviewed research studies in the time period 2005–2018 selected from 44 journals. The literature review was done in phases. The first phase was the selection of the database, the second phase was refining the database by eliminating irrelevant studies and the last phase was distributing selected studies on the basis of the journal, year and country of publication, research paradigm, sustainability integration in higher education, teaching techniques adopted by HEIs and research focus in publications.

This study contributes to the literature review of sustainability in higher education. From the literature review, it is evident that sustainability has made inroads into HEIs, but only a few universities have been successful in implementing it holistically, integrating all the triple bottom line dimensions in balance.

The study has practical implications for HEIs planning to integrate sustainability into teaching and learning and other aspects of educational practices. The findings and the examples of successful implementation of sustainable education by institutions around the world would help universities and colleges in formulating policies, strategies and practices that would promote sustainability on campuses.

The literature reviews on sustainability in higher education so far have focused either on curricula, pedagogical approaches, assessment and reporting or barriers and solutions. This study attempts to offer a comprehensive view of the initiatives adopted by the institutions in incorporating sustainability in education, research, campus operations and outreach programs.

Although several researchers have statistically analyzed references associated with education for sustainable development based on the co-citation frequency, evolutionary analysis based on high-citation references omits literature with low citation frequency, which has a significant impact on the evolution of a discipline. The purpose of this study is to understand and explore the historical processes and roots of the field of education for sustainable development and to understand the theoretical grounding of the field.

Based on education for sustainable development publications in the science citation index expanded and social sciences citation index databases from 1992 to August 2020, a new bibliometric method, reference publication year spectroscopy, was adopted to conduct a bibliometric analysis of the 58,588 cited references in 1,778 publications.

The earliest reference in the field of education for sustainable development traces back to 1732. There were 21 peaks in this field between 1732 and August 2020. Dewey’s “new three-center theory”; Bloom’s “taxonomy”; Freire’s “conscientization theory”; the “theory of planned behavior”; Kolb’s “experiential learning theory”; Wittgenstein’s theoretical concepts of “language-games,” “forms of life” and “rule-following” and Leopold’s “land ethics” laid an early theoretical grounding of educational philosophy and environmental ethics for research into education for sustainable development. The new environmental paradigm and the new ecological paradigm have become the most widely used methodological tools for understanding the values and attitudes of people toward the natural environment. Among the 50 most cited references, Lozano and Wals have published the most publications, contributing to promoting the development of research into education for sustainable development. The Journal of Cleaner Production, International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education and Environmental Education Research have published the most publications related to the field of education for sustainable development.

The findings of this study are helpful for scholars and practitioners to understand the academic ideological roots, theoretical grounding and important influential literature in the field of education for sustainable development.

Invasive species are under the spotlight because of their detrimental effects on biodiversity. However, management of invasions presents multiple dimensions frequently difficult to disentangle. This complex topic has been tackled through a service-learning project on an invasive insect (Vespa velutina), a bee-eating species invading Europe. Specifically, this paper aims to assess the educational needs and motivations detected in a local population for the control of V. velutina, and evaluate the educational achievements of students participating in the project.

The paper illustrates how students prepared the service activity, which consisted in a quiz and interviews to public in a honey festival located in an area that has invested heavily in the control of the hornet. They informed visitors on its biology and impacts, and collected information on visitors’ knowledge and attitudes towards the hornet. This information was taken back to the class and discussed in an open debate.

The service activity uncovered important knowledge gaps of the local population and revealed the attachment to controversial control methods. Students acknowledged that the project met a real community need and valued the contact with the public, and the presentation of the project in the Faculty favored a debate on invasions management and biodiversity protection under the framework of campus sustainability.

While students are familiar with actions on campus sustainability, they are seldom confronted with the evaluation of management decisions on complex topics involving multiple dimensions. This service-learning project showed a good potential for fostering in-depth debates and promoting student engagement in campus sustainable initiatives.

This paper aims to explore whether formal, non-formal, and informal learning experiences contribute to developing sustainable development competencies (SDCs) among students in a Principles of Responsible Management Education (PRME) signatory business school.

An online survey based on the students’ learning experiences and a questionnaire on sustainability competencies already validated in the literature were given to a sample of 274 bachelor students at a PRME signatory business school. Nominal variables representing students’ categories were created to test a set of hypotheses developed according to the literature. Because the data was not normally distributed, non-parametric independent-samples Mann–Whitney U test was conducted, and descriptive statistics was used to help the analysis.

The results suggest that a hybrid format with a combination of formal, non-formal and informal learning experiences is essential to maximising the development of SDCs and raising students’ sustainability literacy.

This study is one of the first attempts to understand the importance of a hybrid approach in developing sustainable competencies (SDCs). Future studies could adopt longitudinal analysis to check the development of these competencies over time, assess students from different PRME signatory schools or comparing students to those in non-signatory business schools.

This study provides insight into how business schools could address challenges in developing sustainable competencies through redirecting their educational systems by balancing formal, informal and non-formal learning approaches to educate future responsible leaders.

This research provides evidence on how a hybrid learning approach could maximise the development of sustainable development competencies and, therefore, generating insights for educational policies.

This study aims to examine service quality in Nigerian general hospitals and determines possible differences in service quality perceptions between employees and patients.

Using the Servqual scale, data was collected from 328 employees and patients of two government hospitals in Abuja and Delta states. Analysis was carried out using SPSS 26 package for constructs reliability frequency, mean, standard deviation and t-statistics.

The study found significant differences in the perception of service quality between employees and patients of the Nigerian general hospitals. While employees gave a high rating to empathy, patients rated it low. Also, the patients’ poor perception of tangible did not match the employees’ high perception. Other specific findings are patients’ unfavourable assessment of the physical facilities and judged the staff to lack professional dressing. Patients felt the hospitals could not provide necessary equipment for their procedures and thus considered their services unreliable.

Reliability was perceived as a significant problem in this study; therefore, the hospitals management should ensure correct diagnoses and treatment results of the highest quality and timely services. Also, the management should invoke strong relationships between the employees and patients to earn patients’ trust. Employees should ensure to listen to patients’ complaints and find solutions promptly. Patients need health-care workers’ support and rely on their abilities; Therefore, health-care workers should be highly dependable and show empathic behaviour in discharging their duties. Health-care managers must access employees‘ and patients’ particular perceptual gaps and reconcile the difference before further quality improvement initiatives.

The findings in this study strengthen the clamour for assessing service quality from both employees and patients’ views in public hospitals. Hospital service quality is complex and primarily judged from the patients’ perspective. This study showed that health-care quality means different things to all stakeholders.