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Curricula is developing from a pure knowledge-based outcome to a more skill-based outcome, with the objective of creating and advancing competencies that meet employer expectations. While the new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) demand organisations to change practices and adapt to sustainable goals, there is a lack of understanding in how competencies can enhance these goals. The purpose of this paper is twofold: Study 1 explores competencies related to sustainability required in a work force and examines employer perceptions on the existing literature for competencies. Study 2 empirically tests the influence of sustainability scholarship on non-technical competencies in the work force.

A mixed method approach was undertaken. A sample of managers from 39 large Australian organisations participated in the scoping study. This was followed by further interviewing executives from 12 multinational corporations in China to assess the validity of competencies and provide deeper understanding of the issues at hand. The quantitative study analysed a sample of executive responses from 229 multinationals in China using factor and regression analysis to test for the effects of mediation.

The research highlights that the underlying competencies regarding sustainability influences the bigger picture within firms for attaining sustainability. The affective and cognitive growth of sustainability scholarship is governed mainly by a firm’s sustainable values. Core organisational values facilitate the development of non-technical competencies. These relationships and their cumulative effect on competencies provide a theoretical framework for acquiring sustainability within organisations. Employees need sustainability scholarship for enhancing sustainability. Sustainability scholarship reflects high-level learning obtained through universities or training. The research found that non-technical competencies such as professional ethical responsibility mediate between core business competencies and sustainability scholarship.

By exploring employer’s perception of competencies, the study first makes an important contribution in addressing the need to support SDGs by bridging organisational-level competencies and sustainability literacy, which hold significant benefits for practitioners, academia and organisations at large. Second, the theoretical findings strengthen the need for embedding competencies in the curriculum. It conveys the need for sustainability literacy/scholarship to align with organisational training and learning pedagogies, in order to effectively meet industry needs. Third, it provides useful insights on employers’ estimation about workplace competencies and broadens our understanding on the contribution that competencies within organisations make to this end.

The post-pandemic recognises changes are required; universities need to rethink their e-servicescapes strategies by offering different approaches to enhance students’ learning. This study aims to draw on learning self-efficacy trajectories and propose a conceptual model for exploring the predictive validity of satisfaction. In addition, it explores the mediating role of e-servicescapes and the moderating relationship effect of mature and younger students.

Learning self-efficacies is incorporated into the design of the model in an attempt to understand student cognition. The influences of e-servicescape on adopting online preferences and satisfaction are also examined. The model was empirically validated by surveying 266 respondents. Structural equation modelling and multi-group analysis were used to analyse the data.

The results of this study show learning self-efficacies has no significant influence on satisfaction. Yet, they showed a significant influence on e-servicescapes. E-servicescapes positively influenced satisfaction and preference for adopting online learning. E-servicescapes also had a mediating effect between self-efficacy to complete a course and satisfaction, as well as self-efficacy to interact with instructors and satisfaction. It had a negative suppressed effect on social interaction.

The research makes the following contributions. Firstly, the conceptualised model identifies an association between learning self-efficacies and e-servicescapes, suggesting universities as service providers can maximise the value offerings of their customer assets. Secondly, e-servicescapes demonstrate a full mediating effect between self-efficacies and satisfaction, indicating that if universities are to compete successfully in dynamic markets, they should co-create value in their e-servicescapes domain to increase satisfaction. Thirdly, the study recognises the need for a hybrid system of both face-to-face and online delivery because the multi-group analysis shows mature age preference for online learning is required to make this transformation successful.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the cultural differences in female consumers’ motivation to purchase appearance-enhancing products, particularly anti-aging creams.

This study uses a qualitative research design to collect the data. Focus group discussions were used. The participants were selected from Thai and Australian females, 25-45 years old in Melbourne representing the most frequent users of anti-aging products.

The results indicated variations among participants in their motivation to seek a better appearance. The motivation ranged from a combination of striving to achieve an ideal self and a high level of social acceptability through maintaining youthful appearance and improving on the perceived declining youthful appearance. Using anti-aging products turned out to be a means for taking care of oneself, achieving better social acceptability and improving self-image. These key motivations are inspired by the individual’s social condition and from the reactions they receive from others. These motivations are shared by all participants, but within different cultural perspectives.

The main limitation is in relation to the true expression of attitudes by respondents, particularly in regard to the discussion of privately held beliefs about self-image, social acceptability and personal appearance. Additionally, the variations between cultural perceptions are only indicative of real differences between collectivist and individualistic cultures.

Managers can adopt a cultural framework for understanding their consumers’ motivations to enhance their appearance, formulate more accurately their marketing strategy and activate and satisfy their consumers’ demand and better inform their new product developments.

The analysis explains and compares the differences and similarities in female consumers’ motivations for anti-aging product consumption of two fundamentally different cultural value systems.

The aims of this article is to analyse whether there are differences in green advertisement attitudes between high involved and low involved consumers, to compare high and low involvement consumer’s cognitive responses and affective responses towards advertisements and examine the extent of the importance on certain themes that both high involvement and low involvement consumers consider. Themes such as company image, environmental labels, and product recycling symbols. A random sample of 207 consumers was taken from Victoria (Australia). The study shows that there are differences between the two groups in terms of their attitude towards green advertising with respect to all the dimensions and the low involved customers appear to have a stronger disregard for the green advertising across all the perceptive measures towards green advertising. The findings provide useful insights to practitioners as to the type of themes preferred for green advertising.

Despite research studies indicating strong support for labelling information, uncertainty remains with respect to how labels influence consumers. This paper attempts to empirically investigate how consumers who differ in terms of environmentalism respond to labels.

The data were collected on an Australian sample using a structured questionnaire administered on the phone using quantum research (CATI) data collection services. A total of 155 questionnaires were completed and used for data analysis. The data were analysed using both descriptive measures and correlations between variables.

There appears to be a proportion of consumers that find product labels hard to understand. The research found that there are consumers who will buy green products even if they are lower in quality in comparison to alternative products, but would look for environmental information on labels. With respect to price sensitive green consumers, there appears to be a relationship between price sensitivity and “always” reading labels as well as indicating that there is “sufficient” information on product labels to make informed purchase decisions.

It was beyond the scope of the research to account for some of the utilitarian approaches to interpretation or in‐depth comprehension of label information. The sample size of 155, although selected using a probability method, may, to some extent, limit the overall accuracy of the results.

The research offers some important information on different green consumer segments that would alert managers on how best to position environmental labels. Findings such as “Satisfied with labels” correlates with “Labels are accurate”, which suggests that businesses need to provide a clear, accurate and easily legible label design to encourage satisfaction with the accuracy of content and the communication aspects of a label.

The paper contributes to better understanding of green customers purchase intentions and the usefulness of ecological product labels. It offers some insights and assistance to businesses in planning their green product/labelling strategies.

The purpose of the study is to examine the influence of multiple factors on the green purchase intention of customers in Australia.

A conceptual model is proposed and was subjected to empirical verification with the use of a survey of metropolitan and regional households in Victoria, Australia. The data were analyzed using both descriptive measures and exploratory factor analysis to identify and validate the items contributing to each component in the model. AMOS structural modeling was used to estimate the measure of respondents' overall perception of green products and their intention to purchase.

The results indicate that customers' corporate perception with respect to companies placing higher priority on profitability than on reducing pollution and regulatory protection were the significant predictors of customers' negative overall perception toward green products. The only positive contribution to customers' perception was their past experience with the product. Other factors including the perception of green products, product labels, packaging, and product ingredients did not appear to influence customers' perception. The results also indicate that customers are not tolerant of lower quality and higher prices of green products.

The knowledge of the overall perception formation about green products and its predictors provides management with the facility to identify and implement strategies that may better influence the change of attitude by customers. Corporations can also benefit from the identification of the types of information required to enable management to influence this process of perception formation.

The present findings contributes to an understanding of the antecedents of green purchasing and highlight that green customers rely more on personal experience with the product than the information provided by the marketer.

This paper aims to investigate business managers’ assessment of stakeholders’ influence on corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives. The key stakeholders included “employees” and “unions” as internal and “public”, the “media” and the “government” as external stakeholders. The purpose was to estimate the influence of stakeholders that managers perceive as important. Moreover, the study sought to identify association between the CSR construct and corporate reputation and in turn whether this influences business performance.

This study uses a mail survey with a random sampling of senior managers sourced from Dun & Bradstreet’s Australian business database, focusing on large organizations (i.e. minimum $10 million p.a. reported sales and minimum 100 employees) as the selection criteria. A conceptual model was developed and tested using structural equation modeling.

The results identified that “employees” and the “public” are perceived to be the influential stakeholder groups in CSR decision-making. There was evidence of a positive relationship between the CSR construct and reputation, which in turn influenced market share, but not profitability.

This study examined a cross-section of organizations using Dun & Bradstreet’s database of Australian businesses and may not fully represent the Australian business mix. The effective response rate of 7.2 per cent appears to be low, even though it is comparable with other research in the CSR area. There may have been some self-selection by the respondents, although there were no statistically significant differences identified in the corporate characteristics of those invited to participate and those responding with usable questionnaires.

Managers can adopt a stakeholder-influenced CSR strategy to generate strong corporate reputation to improve business performance. It is important to ensure that the interests of “employees” and “public” stakeholders are addressed within organizational strategy. Respondents were less concerned about government stakeholders and thus government involvement in organizational CSR may need to be revisited.

The major concern that emerges from these findings is the absence of the perceived importance of regulatory stakeholders on firms’ CSR activities. Regulatory controls of CSR messages could reduce or eliminate inaccurate and misleading information to the public.

The analysis explains the perceived relative influence of stakeholders on CSR decisions. It also provides an understanding of the link between organizational CSR reputation and organization’s performance.

The purpose of this paper is to present an overview of the research which has been done during the past three decades on the topic of green advertising and identify gaps for future research.

The methodology that has been adopted for analysis is two-pronged – the first being a literature review with tabulation of data using excel sheets and bar graphs and the second being a bibliometric review using the software VOSviewer. Both approaches analyze the number of citations, keywords, authors, journals and countries. A database of 113 articles from 1990 to 2020 is generated from Web of Science.

Major contributors to the topic of green advertising research have been identified. Thematic classification is created to understand the subtopics of green advertising. Under this classification, nine subtopics have been identified. Six core research gaps have been identified for future research in the area of green advertising.

The study helps identify where green advertising research is being conducted, its growth potential and future prospects. This research work will enable the industry to gain new insights into this emerging field of green advertising for incorporating the same in their advertising campaigns in view of growing consumer concerns on environment.

The paper provides a comprehensive overview of the current status of research in green advertising. The paper is unique as it is the only review on the topic of green advertising. Given the increasing trend of going green among consumers, the paper adds tremendous value to the field of green advertising.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of three green strategies on key consumer metrics. More specifically, it aims to measure consumers' purchase intentions of new green, recycled/refurbished products, green company processes and a non‐green product/process.

Between subjects 2×2×4 experimental design with two levels of price (high and low), two levels of brand name (known and unknown) and four levels of green strategies.

Purchase intentions for green product and process strategies are significantly higher than non‐green approaches. However, post‐hoc analysis shows no significant advantage of one green strategy over another. Price and brand name do not have significant interactive effects with green strategies.

Although it is essential that companies develop green strategies for the eco consumer it is not important what specific strategy is selected i.e. going green is the key. Also, despite the continued growth in the demand for green products, price is still the most important driver for consumer purchase – even for the eco consumer. Lastly, despite continued improvements in functional performance, green products do not have a significant advantage in perceived quality. Companies cannot focus completely on the green nature of their products or processes.

Consumers believe that purchasing green products or products from green companies may be a way they can help the environmental problems society faces today. This project provides guidance to companies pursuing this market by evaluating different product and process approaches to this growing social trend.

This project is one of the first to focus on the consumer impact of different corporate approaches to the green market.