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Value chain analysis (VCA) can expose strategic and operational misalignments within chains, and the consequential misallocation of resources, and hence opportunities for improvements which create value and economic sustainability. This paper's purpose is to argue why and how VCA needs to integrate the social and environmental aspects of sustainability in pursuit of sustainable competitive advantage.

Based on a review of existing methods and case studies, the paper proposes three dimensions of VCA, which illustrate the flaws in narrow tools, and the need to broaden the boundaries of VCA, the interpretation of “value” and relationships along the chain in order to highlight opportunities for creating sustainable value chains.

To date VCA has largely focused on economic sustainability and paid inadequate attention to social and environment consequences of firm behaviour and the (re) allocation of resources within and between firms in the chain. This risks producing recommendations which either ignore the competitive advantage offered from improving environmental management and social welfare, or have such detrimental external consequences as to render any proposals unsustainable when exposed to government or broader (public) scrutiny.

VCA variants need to be developed which incorporate all three pillars of sustainability. Some initial experiences are presented and ideas for future research and applications proposed.

The development of sustainable VCA tools should identify business opportunities consistent with Porter and Kramer's imperative for value chains to create shared value between business and society.

Adopting the broader dimensions identified will allow VCA to become more widely applicable, and more relevant in business scenarios where there is a growing imperative to include social and environmental impacts into “mainstream” business strategies.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse which are the active learning methodologies, which had better contribute to acquiring competences for sustainable development (SD) in higher education.

Cluster analysis is used to define 252 students’ skills patterns and their perception of the different active learning methodologies conducted in class to promote SD.

The results show how different learning methodologies enhance SD, the quality assessment perception of students regarding the methodologies used in class and present real-world experiences, problem-based learning and case studies as the active learning methodologies that had better promote SD.

The limitations of the study are that the results obtained are particular for one university and are not generalizable to other institutions and could vary depending on the degree and year of study of the group of student participants.

The research proposes to introduce active learning methodologies in general and real-world experiences, problem-based learning and case studies in particular, in education for sustainable development.

These research findings could be used for those interested in applying active learning methodologies to foster the acquisition of SD competences to promote the 2030 Agenda for sustainable development goals.

This research study aims to shed light on the nascent stage of the relationship between pedagogical approaches used in higher education to develop sustainability competences.

The increase in population in the world has brought an overpopulation in various parts of the world, with those cities where their countries are developing being most affected, mainly because these usually have corrupt governments that make urban planning difficult in an optimal way. The increase in the construction of urban areas generates problems in the environment due to the increase in carbon emissions, greenhouse gases, and the extraction of natural resources. Therefore, governments must promote urban innovation based on compliance with sustainable development that allows for preserving the ecosystem and the population's quality of life. Urban innovation must incorporate technologies that allow sustainable activities to be carried out efficiently and monitor the progress of environmental regulations.

This paper scrutinizes the nexus between firms’ board characteristics; environmental, social and governance (ESG) performance and industry sensitivity, with the aim of examining how the impact of board diversity on ESG performance would vary among sensitive versus non-sensitive industries and identify which board characteristics are more influential on ESG performance in these industries.

A large sample of 31,255 firm-year observations in 5,471 companies listed in the G-7 countries from 2010 to 2022 is examined using a Heckman two-stage least squares (2SLS) approach to address the potential endogeneity concerns within our proposed relationships.

The findings show that the positive influence of diverse boards on a firm’s ESG performance is particularly amplified in sensitive industries and may be attributed to the greater need of these industries to address stakeholder concerns (as posited by the stakeholder and resource-dependence theories) and mitigate agency conflicts (supporting agency theory). Interestingly, the impact of diversity in board gender and education qualifications appears to be particularly influential and remains robust across a series of regression analyses.

This study has important implications for policymakers and legislators as it provides guidelines pertaining to the composition of boards operating in sensitive industries. For practitioners and firms, the results allow for better understanding of firms’ tendency towards sustainability practices, particularly in the context of sensitive industries.

This study has important implications for policymakers and legislators as it provides guidelines pertaining to the composition of boards operating in sensitive industries.

This study contributes to the increasingly growing literature that investigates the nexus between industry sensitivity, board characteristics and ESG performance.

This study aims to investigate the impact of corporate social responsibility disclosure (CSRD) on firm performance and the moderating role of corporate governance on the CSRD–firm performance relationship of listed companies in Nigeria.

The paper uses a panel data set comprising 841 firm-year observations for the period covering 2007-2016. Fixed effect regression analysis was used to examine the relationship between CSRD and firm performance, and the moderating role of corporate governance in the CSRD–firm performance relationship.

The results of the study show that there are positive performance implications for firms that engage in CSRD. Although this study finds no effect of board size on the CSRD–firm performance relationship, it provides a strong evidence of a positive effect of board independence on the CSR–firm performance relationship.

The study contributes to the understanding of CSRD–firm performance relationship by providing evidence of the moderating role of corporate governance. It is, therefore, recommended that a stronger regulation be put in place for CSR engagement and the disclosure of same in Nigeria as well as robust measures for the enforcement of corporate governance mechanisms because there are economic benefits to be derived.

The findings contribute to the literature by providing up-to-date and original insights on the CSRD–firm performance relationship within a developing country context. It also uses an uncommon method of measuring CSRD, taking into account the institutional biases that may arise from other methods used in studies on developed countries.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate corporate financial disclosure via Twitter among the top listed 350 companies in the UK as well as identify the determinants of the extent of social media usage to disclose financial information.

This study applies an unsupervised machine learning technique, namely, Latent Dirichlet Allocation topic modeling to identify financial disclosure tweets. Panel, Logistic and Generalized Linear Model Regressions are also run to identify the determinants of financial disclosure on Twitter focusing mainly on board characteristics.

Topic modeling results reveal that companies mainly tweet about 12 topics, including financial disclosure, which has a probability of occurrence of about 7 percent. Several board characteristics are found to be associated with the extent of Twitter usage as a financial disclosure platform, among which are board independence, gender diversity and board tenure.

The extensive literature examines disclosure via traditional media and its determinants, yet this paper extends the literature by investigating the relatively new disclosure channel of social media. This study is among the first to utilize machine learning, instead of manual coding techniques, to automatically unveil the tweets’ topics and reveal financial disclosure tweets. It is also among the first to investigate the relationships between several board characteristics and financial disclosure on Twitter; providing a distinction between the roles of executive vs non-executive directors relating to disclosure decisions.

The purpose of this research is to analyse how to adapt teaching and learning methodologies to new generations of digital natives to promote their commitment to sustainable development. The research explores the existence of a relationship between digital natives’ characteristics, individual dynamic capabilities and their commitment to innovation and therefore to sustainability.

A structural equation model is used to test the proposed hypothesis by a survey conducted with 532 digital-native higher education students.

The results show the existence of a significant relationship between digital natives’ competences, individual dynamic capabilities and a better approach to managing situations with regard to relationships with key stakeholders and the fostering of innovation and commitment to the social and environmental issues demanded by society.

The limitations of this study are that it is based on a sample from a specific Spanish university that cannot be representative of all digital natives from all universities and different cultural contexts. The variables measuring the characteristics of digital natives have only recently been used in the academic literature.

The research proposes including individual dynamic capabilities and innovation courses in sustainable development education to accelerate the implementation of sustainable development goals. These research findings can be used as insights into the development of university programmes and courses.

This research is one of the first attempts at understanding how to promote education for sustainable development among digital natives and at identifying them as future change makers for sustainable development.

The purpose of this research is to analyse the relationship between entrepreneurial skills and innovation commitment and entrepreneurial skills and environmental commitment as drivers of awareness on sustainable development of higher education students.

A sample of 1,318 business and management students out of the 3,535 students of Tecnocampus Pompeu Fabra University in Spain during the 2017-2018 academic year was selected to conduct a survey regarding their entrepreneurial skills and sustainability commitment, resulting in a total number of responses of 515. A structural equation model is proposed to contrast the hypothesis.

The statistical analysis showed the existence of a positive relation between the entrepreneurial skill of self-consciousness, innovation and environmental commitment to foster sustainability and sustainable development. It is one of the few studies related to the self-conciousness competence of the entrepreneurial skills which found, as a novelty, that the entrepreneurial skill of self-consciousness is the skill with the greater impact on innovation and environmental commitment.

The limitations of the study are that it is based on a sample of students taking entrepreneurship courses at a specific Spanish University that is not representative of all entrepreneurs in all universities.

The research proposes including entrepreneurial skills programmes in higher education and research programmes as a way to assure commitment to innovation and environmental sustainability.

Promoting entrepreneurial skills among higher education students could act as drivers for sustainable development.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the characteristics of consumers of organic food, based on their motivations.

A questionnaire based on the Food Choice Questionnaire was applied to a 656 consumers. A multivariate factor analysis and cluster analysis was performed to the data.

Seven factors were identified: ecological concern; nutritional content; availability of natural products; sensory aspects; certifications, health and confidence; and economic aspects. Resulting clusters were named as: conscious and interested in certification; conscious with no interest in certification; opportunist in transition; unconscious opportunist. There are signs of different consumers. The consumers of these products are characterised by an interaction between hedonic and ethical motivations, where the most important motivation is environmental concern and the least important are the economic aspects.

The reduced number of alternative markets in Mexico limits the amplitude of the research.

The work herein reported is pioneer and contributes to reduce the lack of studies on the motivations and characteristics of consumers of organic foods in Mexico. Findings may set a path for new research in other cultural contexts; as well as for more specific work in Mexico as of consumers of industrialised organic products.

Characterising consumers of organic foods will enable the development of these markets.

Social studies of eating habits have taken place in European countries; and several works have been developed in other areas of the world to determine the way in which consumers build their preferences and food choice patterns. In Mexico, specifically in organic foods, studies have focussed in agrarian economics, but the analysis of motivations for choice has not been addressed. Therefore, it is important to research this issue given the relevance for consumers.