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This paper aims to find the incidence of university sustainability, as sustainability practices, in university performance at private universities.

Quantitative research using structural equation modelling. Data collection and analysis followed sustainability and performance scales from previous research. The scales were validated by surveying students, teachers and administrative staff of five private universities in Medellin, Colombia. The responses (i.e. 5,344 useful answers) were collected between April 2019 and December 2020 and analysed using the Smart partial least square (PLS) software and the PLS calculation methodology.

The results confirmed the reliability and validity of the sustainability and performance university measurement models and validated the dimensions proposed to determine sustainability and performance holistically in private universities. The results confirmed that universities implementing sustainability holistically in their system positively impact their performance as higher education institutions. The university sustainability is forecasting the University Performance in about 60% of the universities analysed, with a considerable contribution from sustainability in outreach and strategic management.

This study was cross-sectional and empirically validated the model of sustainability and performance at five private universities in a single period and territory. A broader validation from longitudinal studies considering other universities in Colombia and Latin America is suggested to understand local and regional trends better.

Results provided a model for better understanding the incidence of sustainability in performance holistically at private universities in developing countries such as Colombia. In addition, the proposed dimensions and model could help regional decision-making on higher education.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this paper is one of the first attempts relating a structural equation model and inter-university research on the incidence of sustainability in private university performance. This work contributes to a local consensus on sustainability and performance models at private universities. Furthermore, from this research emerged a joint policy framework for incorporating sustainability holistically and regionally as an effective strategy for universities and their commitment to sustainable development.

This paper aims to know how university’s strategic managers, from botacademic and administrative systems, perceive the relationship between sustainability and accreditation as sustainability incorporation and the quality of their processes are amongst the actual challenges of universities.

This paper opted for an inductive, exploratory study using the case study approach, including 19 in-depth interviews to administrative and academic managers in a private, high-quality certified university in Colombia. The data were assessed using the content analysis methodology. The Colombian accreditation guidelines were the base to analyse the data as accreditation is part of the quality assurance system.

This paper provides empirical insights into how the implementation of sustainability in universities relates to the Colombian accreditation factors. The main links found were in the areas of the university’s social impact and organisational responsibility, which are highly relevant to graduates, external stakeholders and sustainability skills. Sustainable campus operation was associated with environmental management and improvement of the quality of the physical plant, with social and economic benefits in the long-term. Additionally, this research found a need for administrative and academic managers to understand and increase their commitment to sustainability.

Because it was a case study, results are not generalisable. Consequently, further research on similar lines is required to universalise the mentioned observation and results.

The accreditation factors related to sustainability, inductively defined and exposed in this paper, provide an idea of how sustainability implementation could contribute to higher education quality assurance.

This paper contributes to filling the knowledge gap about embedding sustainability in Latin-American universities. This paper postulates a starting point considering accreditation standards and the link of the strategic manager’s perceptions of sustainability.

The purpose of this paper aims to propose and validate a measurement scale for integrating performance in universities with a global and local Latin-American perspective.

This research followed a sequential, mixed-method design which uses quantitative and qualitative approaches. The data collection and analysis used two stages. The first stage was a systematic literature review analysing the data through a bibliometric analysis followed by thematic analysis. From this stage emerged the global universities' performance thematic map, a flow diagram for universities' performance system and a measurement scale. The second stage validated this scale applying a survey to the academic and administrative staff members of two Colombian private universities. A total of 705 useable responses were collected and analysed using exploratory factor analysis and the SPSS software.

The results validated five dimensions (research, resources, internationalisation, extension and academics) and 15 indicators proposed to determine the performance in universities. This study concluded that the instrument developed for measuring performance is a consistent starting point for the study of universities in Latin-American countries such as Colombia.

This study empirically validated the instrument for measuring performance from a systemic perspective at universities; however, a broader validation of the measurement scale is needed in the context of developing countries in Latin America to generalise the results.

Results provide a starting point considering the Latin-American context. They could help in future studies to improve the understanding of performance management in higher education.

Performance in universities has created multiple parameters and indicators, generating a lack of global consensus for their measurement. Thereof, this paper contributes to filling this gap in Latin-American universities. This work postulates a starting point considering the local context from global reported findings. It integrated the relations visually for sub-dimension and performance indicators into the university performance system. From this research emerged a novel theoretical hierarchical model for measuring university performance.

This study aims to address the challenge of sustainability in Catholic schools quantitatively, even more so knowing that there are few systematized and quantitatively elaborated approaches that help to determine their sustainability dimensions. Therefore, this study aims to estimate the structural relationships of organizational sustainability in primary and secondary religious schools in Latin America based on the substantive functions of the school, such as care, upbringing and education from an organizational approach.

Deductive reasoning was used. In the preliminary phase, data were extracted from 420 educational leaders of primary and secondary schools in Latin America from the Lasallian Network, leading a school population of 200,500 students and impacting 166 schools; these previous results were again contrasted with the forthcoming literature with research from the Ramon Llull University, Barcelona, Spain, to achieve the sustainability framework, which has an endogenous variable called the school organizational sustainability framework.

The results reveal four dimensions of the first-order structural model: management, association, communication, well-being and curriculum, And eight second-order dimensions: governance, communication, resources, secular association, secular partnership, health, social commitment, and campus operation. The investigation results show that secular association and well-being are two dimensions that are constituted as the main elements of a sustainability framework for this type of organization.

The Catholic school has specific dimensions that need to be cared for with special attention, such as association, which comes from the laity and comes from the experience of the religious. In addition to this vital dimension, well-being, constituted as care for the people of the community, as care for all, is connatural to the religious school. Still, it is constituted by an edge that completes it, and that is the concern for the well-being of those outside regarding social justice. A limitation in the pretension of totality is that the study is conducted in a small portion of Catholic schools in Latin America.

A practical impact in the schools investigated is to present this sustainability framework as a reference to incorporate these dimensions as a strategy to bet on sustainability. Although the realities and contexts of the Latin American school are very different, some factors can impact low-income schools and schools with more significant financial resources if they are strengthened and worked on with dedication. In addition, this framework can lead to roads and the construction of indicators within the school, which can measure the sustainable commitment of the whole school. Finally, a clear finding of the framework is the need for good governance processes related to leadership and leaders' commitment to school-wide sustainability.

The present study impacts the depth that the proposal of the global educational pact can reach in the reality of Catholic schools in Latin America. The seriousness with which its leaders take the issue of sustainability from this perspective can contribute to the sustainability of life itself.

The originality of this research is that it constitutes the first Sustainability framework in Latin America in Catholic schools from an organizational approach.