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Organisations have been working towards becoming more sustainable; where their efforts have been mainly on a steady state focussing on internal proactive changes. The purpose of this paper is to analyse how external events, e.g. COVID-19, affect organisations and their sustainability efforts.

A survey was sent to a database of 11,657 contacts, with a response rate of 5.60% obtained. The results were analysed using descriptive statistics, ranking and a ratio analysis comparing different types of organisations (corporations, higher education institutions, civil society and public sector organisations).

COVID-19 changed the organisation drivers for and barriers to sustainability perspective towards external stimuli, rather than internal factors. COVID-19 also affected the system elements negatively, with the exception of organisational systems. The results also show that the system elements are affected by an external event or crisis and are dependent on the type of organisation.

This paper proposes the “Organisational sustainability transition forced by exogenous events” framework to help organisations better understand and be prepared for unexpected external events. Organisations should learn from the experiences in dealing with COVID-19 and adopt a more humanistic approach to their sustainability efforts, rather than traditional approaches based on solipsism and techno-managerial centrism.

Government-owned companies (GOCs), such as ports, have engaged in efforts to become more sustainable. Most of such efforts have been technological and policy ones and mainly focusing on the environment, with limited research on organisational change management. This paper aims to provide insights into how ports have been addressing sustainability change forces and pressures.

Twelve semi-structured interviews were conducted with top-level directors and sustainability managers, representing ports across Europe’s maritime regions and a range of port types and sizes. The interviews were analysed using grounded theory’s constant comparative analysis.

The findings highlighted that the ports’ success in their process to become more sustainable depends on how they take advantage of the thrust forces and reduce the drag ones. The findings serve to develop the “ports’ sustainability change management framework”, with five stages: reactive, proactive, transactive, interactive, and sustainable port.

Ports, and other GOCs, should capitalise on their private–public nature in their contribution to making societies more sustainable by adopting a holistic perspective and interactive changes.

This paper provides a dynamic perspective on corporate sustainability efforts, particularly on GOCs, through organisational change management complementing technocentric and managerial approaches.

The 2030 Agenda represents a unique and historic opportunity to achieve sustainable development by establishing high-priority issues to be addressed, such as the eradication of extreme poverty, the reduction of inequalities, and inclusive economic growth with decent work for all. This study aims to analyze the commitment of the world’s leading companies to the sustainable development goals (SDGs) set out in this roadmap.

To provide a dynamic and global view of corporate commitment to the 2030 Agenda, the authors identified the 3,910 companies that have reported on various initiatives related to the SDGs over the period 2019–2022 (15,640 observations), based on the Refinitiv database. The companies that make up the sample are located in 71 countries across eight geographic regions.

The results show a positive evolution in the actions and initiatives that companies are developing to contribute to the protection of people, the planet, prosperity, universal peace, and access to justice. However, there are differences between regions and countries and between the 17 objectives.

The authors’ approach allows for a detailed understanding of business preferences, how these sustainable business practices contribute to achieving the SDGs in different regions and what contextual factors influence this contribution. In this sense, the analysis of the regional distribution of corporate commitments to the SDGs provides valuable information on the priority areas of focus in different regions of the world.

This study aims to address how a higher education pedagogical course in sustainable development (SD) for university educators affects their teaching efforts in providing sustainability matters for students.

With the aim of improving that course, a case study approach was used to understand how the educators made use of the course in their teaching practice. Data were collected as written and oral feedback reflections and as semi-structured interviews at course completion.

Educators clearly express that they understand the concept “about” SD, but there are only vague expressions of a developed teaching repertoire to address education “for” SD in their teaching practice.

When it comes to the purposes of developing sustainability literacy among students, implications from the study furthermore address the needs for further clarifications on both structure and intent on the course presented in this contribution.

The educators as well as their students will be exposed to, and trained in concepts, to prepare them to act in alignment with SD. This, in turn, meets requirements from higher education authorities concerning SD at higher education institutions.

A core aim of the covered approach is to support student readiness in SD, and for those to become future agents of positive change.

This study has a focus on presenting how educators change the structures of courses and learning elements to approach SD in their teachings.

This study aims to explore an interdisciplinary pedagogical approach for advancing knowledge and understanding of the sustainable development goals (SDGs) at higher education institutions (HEIs).

This qualitative study conducted an explorative experiment to elaborate on forms to advance a pedagogical approach that embeds sustainability. The design of the pedagogical project was explorative and interdisciplinary, using a predefined framework on key competencies for sustainability.

The findings showed that an interdisciplinary approach can create a learning setting that stimulates students’ problem-solving competencies for sustainability-related issues. Students were trained in the five key sustainable competencies addressed by Wiek et al. (2011). Moreover, although it is not always possible to arrange an interdisciplinary pedagogical setting, this might be a key condition for the development of students’ key competencies regarding their understanding of the SDGs. Addressing the SDGs from an interdisciplinary perspective paved the way for the development of students’ strategic competencies, including systems thinking and anticipatory competencies.

The pedagogical project, as an interdisciplinary explorative experiment, was shown to be a potentially suitable method to counteract “cherry-picking” approaches to teaching the SDGs at HEI.

The pedagogical approach advanced in this paper, extends active learning and interdisciplinarity in higher education. The authors argue that this approach encourages students to take ownership of and responsibility for their learning process and indicates a changed mindset and behavior.

This study aims to systematize and critically analyse existing indices and frameworks on digital capabilities with the focus on consumers’ digital capabilities, identify opportunities for their further development and suggest agenda for future research.

A sample of 18 frameworks and indices of consumers’ digital capabilities were compared based on their purposes, stakeholders, scope and application areas.

The study concludes with propositions that generalise current views on conceptualisation, measurement and management of consumers’ digital capabilities. Each proposition is further investigated in terms of possible implications for research and practice.

The study indicates opportunities for businesses not only to consider consumers as recipients and adopters of digital technologies but also to aim to understand how to proactively involve consumers in value co-creation, help them be better educated and have a comprehensive understanding of potential outcomes of their participation in the digital economy.

Highlighting individual consumer perspective in existing indices and frameworks will help consider the interests of society and provide win-win opportunities for everyone involved in the digital marketplace through bottom-up engagement in addition to top-down regulation and monitoring.

This study contributes to the extant literature threefold: firstly, existing digital capability frameworks and indices are systematized and critically investigated using criteria of stakeholders, purpose and aims; secondly, consumers are identified as principal stakeholder group whose interests are insufficiently presented in existing indices; thirdly, an integrative approach is suggested for a crucial comparison of existing indices, frameworks and their methodology with the focus on consumers’ interests.

This systematic review of the current gender inequality issues in operations and supply chain management (OSCM) seeks to illuminate the multifaceted aspects of this issue and their various implications for the field.

Employing systematic literature review and Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Literature Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) methodologies, this research delves into an analysis of 238 journal articles spanning a 47-year period. The objective is to discern existing voids and put forth actionable suggestions that align with the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goal Number 5 (SDG5) in the context of men and women, which pertains to realizing gender equality and empowering girls and women.

The results show a significant increase in published articles over the period. However, only five literature review articles were found that specifically address gender inequality in OSCM. The five common themes impacting gender inequality in this field are gender issues, mindset, transportation disparities, human resources and gender roles in OSCM, alongside sustainability, mobility and government policy intersections. The paper emphasizes the need for further research on these themes. It also suggests implications for educators, researchers, companies, OSCM departments and policymakers to achieve SDG5.

This study offers valuable insights by comprehensively reviewing and systematically analyzing the prevailing gender inequality issues within OSCM. It accentuates the significance of gender equality in OSCM, augmenting the burgeoning discourse and catalyzing concerted endeavors for gender equality.