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The mapping of university research onto the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is important, as it demonstrates the crucial contributions that research makes to the SDGs while also showing researchers how the SDGs can inform research and enhance research impact. This paper aims to detail a novel and comprehensive research mapping approach implemented by University College Cork (UCC) and helps to guide other higher education institutions (HEIs) who are beginning their own mapping exercises.

This paper adopts a mixed-method approach, involving the quantitative mapping of publications, qualitative impact case studies, and the collation of researchers’ self-assessment data at innovative SDGs workshops.

The workshops generated a high level of engagement from the research community, resulting in 119 impact case studies and 497 researchers mapping their own research to the goals/targets. The results provide a clear picture of the main goals/targets that are the focus of UCC research, at the institutional level, in schools/research centres, and at the researcher level.

This study was resource intensive. Its reach may be challenging for other universities to replicate, as success was supported by UCC’s longstanding institutional commitment to sustainability, the mature structures in place and the practical investment in this project.

The authors are unaware of other universities using this comprehensive approach. While other studies focus on the 17 overarching goals only, UCC research, as far as possible, was mapped at a deeper level to each of the associated SDGs targets.

The purpose of this study is to present a mini-integrated review on upcycling as a marketing strategy used by brands in promoting sustainability. Upcycling has emerged as a promising strategy for sustainability in the fashion industry. Activities within the industry have resulted in the release of toxic chemicals, carbon emissions and unsustainable products with significant environmental impacts. This has influenced manufacturers and researchers to adopt alternative but sustainable approaches.

In this mini-integrated review, relevant documents and information were sourced from appropriate databases and websites to provide a brief insight into upcycling as a marketing tool.

This mini-integrated review further provides insight into how effective upcycling can be integrated into a brand’s marketing strategy as a tool to communicate its commitment to sustainability and the production of high-value products for consumer satisfaction. It concludes that the fashion industry has a significant impact on the environment, and the practice of upcycling has surfaced as a potential solution to address issues of sustainability paving the way for further studies.

Brands use upcycling to differentiate themselves from competitors and appeal to consumers who prioritize sustainability. By emphasizing the environmental benefits of upcycling, brands can position themselves as leaders in the domain of sustainable fashion practices.

Through the review of several journal articles on the adoption of information and communication technologies (ICTs) and how it impacts students’ motivation to continue with their studies or to drop out of their academic program, this study aims to review the literature on the impact of ICTs on student motivation at a university.

This paper is based on a systematic literature review steered by the PRISMA guidelines. This paper uses both Durban University of Technology subscription-based and publicly available papers. The research articles examined were published between 2018 and 2023 in Scopus, Web of Science and ScienceDirect.

Reviewed literature bespeaks that ICTs can increase student motivation by enhancing interactive, engaging and individualized learning. Digital technologies that engage students and offer a more engaging learning environment include instructional apps, online simulations and multimedia content. Using ICTs may be useful in lowering university dropout rates.

The systematic review yielded valuable insights for both academic research and real-world applications in education regarding the Durban University of Technology. The study offers a comprehensive analysis of the nexus between ICTs and student motivation.

Environmental emissions are increasing in the urban areas. Much of the emissions arise from public procurement activities given that public sector firms are major customers to many supplying firms. Given the tremendous contribution, this study aims to examine the adoption of environmentally friendly urban freight logistics practices among public sector firms through assessing the impact of urban environmental governance, government environmental communication and organizational environmental governance.

Data for the study were collected in a single time period from central procuring and disposing entities (public sector firms) in the urban areas. A sample of 105 public sector firms in were used. One procurement officer and one member of the contracts committee were the key informants in the study. AMOS SPSS version 26 was used to obtain the results for the structural model and measurement model, respectively.

The findings indicate that the adoption of environmentally friendly urban freight logistics practices among public sector firms is significantly influenced by government environmental communication, organizational environmental governance and urban environmental governance. Urban environmental governance significantly influences organizational environmental governance. Urban environmental governance fully mediates the relationship between government environmental communication and public sector firms’ adoption of environmentally friendly urban freight logistics practices. Also, urban environmental governance and organizational environmental governance mediate the relationship between government environmental communication and adoption of environmentally friendly urban freight logistics practices.

This study examined the adoption of environmentally friendly urban freight logistics practices among public sector firms. However, the study was conducted in a public procurement setting rather than a private sector procurement setting. Also, the study examined the impact of government environmental communication on public sector firms’ adoption of environmentally friendly urban freight logistics practices ignoring the impact of internal communications made within the public sector firms on environmental issues.

This study examined the adoption of environmentally friendly urban freight logistics practices among public sector firms. Freight logistics in public sector procurement has not been given significant attention in earlier research. Emphasis is placed on sustainable public sector procurement ignoring other aspects that would help curb environmental emissions that may arise during and after the delivery of public procurement requirements.

The well-being of employees in distributed work has never been of more importance. This study aims to investigate the factors that empower or undermine the connectivity agency of teleworkers. Connectivity agency is an important form of autonomy for managing work–home boundaries, recuperation from work and psychological detachment. With this in mind it becomes vital to understand how connectivity agency is shaped by various contextual factors.

This qualitative study draws upon data collected from 27 teleworkers representing a variety of industries and roles. We employed a semi-structured interview protocol and analysed the data using Tracy’s (2013) iterative coding technique.

Factors that influence one’s likelihood or capacity to exercise connectivity agency exist at the individual, group or organisational level. Our data elucidate factors such as the provision of home and technological resources, the state of team norms and shared expectations and the level of organisational (dis)trust as having significant influence on whether a teleworker exercises connectivity agency, or whether attempts to do so fail altogether.

Whilst we have a comprehensive understanding of types of connectivity agency behaviours, it is unclear how one’s agency may be influenced by contextual factors. The originality and key contribution of our study is in enriching our understanding of connectivity agency to appreciate it as a dynamic phenomenon that is shaped by various contextual factors. This presents a variety of important insights for professionals leading, implementing or partaking in distributed work.

Data quality assurance (DQA) is essential for enabling the sharing and reuse of research data, especially given the increasing focus on data transparency, reproducibility, credibility and validity in research. Although the literature on research data curation is vast, there remains a lack of theory-guided exploration of DQA modeling in research data repositories (RDRs).

This study addresses this gap by examining 12 distinct cases of DQA-related knowledge organization tools, including four metadata vocabularies, three metadata schemas, one ontology and four standards used to guide DQA work in RDRs.

The study analyzed the cases utilizing a theoretical framework based on activity theory and data quality literature and synthesized a model and a knowledge artifact, a DQA ontology (DQAO, Lee et al., 2024), that encodes a DQA theory for RDRs. The ontology includes 127 classes, 44 object properties, 7 data properties and 18 instances. The article also uses problem scenarios to illustrate how the DQAO can be integrated into the FAIR ecosystem.

The study provides valuable insights into DQA theory and practice in RDRs and offers a DQA ontology for designing, evaluating and integrating DQA workflows within RDRs.

This study presents a systematic literature review (SLR) of the interdisciplinary literature on drones in last-mile delivery (LMD) to extrapolate pertinent insights from and into the logistics management field.

Rooting their analytical categories in the LMD literature, the authors performed a deductive, theory refinement SLR on 307 interdisciplinary journal articles published during 2015–2022 to integrate this emergent phenomenon into the field.

The authors derived the potentials, challenges and solutions of drone deliveries in relation to 12 LMD criteria dispersed across four stakeholder groups: senders, receivers, regulators and societies. Relationships between these criteria were also identified.

This review contributes to logistics management by offering a current, nuanced and multifaceted discussion of drones' potential to improve the LMD process together with the challenges and solutions involved.

The authors provide logistics managers with a holistic roadmap to help them make informed decisions about adopting drones in their delivery systems. Regulators and society members also gain insights into the prospects, requirements and repercussions of drone deliveries.

This is one of the first SLRs on drone applications in LMD from a logistics management perspective.

This study examines the efficiency dynamics of public health service providers in Colombia between 2010 and 2021. In order to achieve this objective, a data panel is utilized to assess the effectiveness of 841 institutions across three levels of complexity (1, 2 and 3) in providing patient care, taking into account user satisfaction from 2010 to 2021.

By employing growth mixture analysis (GMA) and other statistical techniques, we may identify unique efficiency profiles among hospitals with different levels of complexity.

The results demonstrate varied efficiency patterns, with certain profiles generally retaining or improving efficiency over time, while others observe fluctuations or reductions. Efficiency outcomes are significantly impacted by factors such as capital investment, operational costs and workforce mix. Efficiency levels can be improved by making strategic investments in capital infrastructure and implementing effective operational cost management.

Changes in the healthcare market conditions in recent years in Colombia have compelled healthcare providers (IPS) to transform themselves into sustainable organizations.

This study aims to explore how service delivery can be enhanced through digital transformation in the public sector in South Africa.

This case study used a qualitative research approach to obtain data through semi-structured interviews. The units of analysis were made up of individual professionals limited to purposive sampling to select chief information officers, investigators and administrative officers from national government departments and state-owned enterprises. The collected data from 12 participants was thematically analysed. The findings revealed that the government lacks legislation and strategy for digital transformation, leading to inconsistent implementation of digital transformation that enhances service delivery in the public sector of South Africa.

The findings revealed that the government lacks legislation and strategy for digital transformation, leading to inconsistent implementation of digital transformation that enhances service delivery in the public sector of South Africa.

The study was limited to the public sector of South Africa; however, its recommendations are applicable to all organisations that need to provide their services using digital transformation.

Practically, the implications of this study will serve as a resourceful benchmark for the public sector and other organisations.

Socially, the implications of this study ensure proper implementation of its recommendations to enhance service delivery in the public sector and other organisations.

Regarding the value that this study brings, it proposes an amendment of the current legislative framework in favour of one that covers digital transformation, which has become dominant in today’s enhanced provision of service delivery.

The objective of the study was to explore which COVID-19 teaching and learning methods, that enhanced accounting students' learning experience, should be applied at a residential university after the pandemic.

A qualitative exploratory approach within an interpretive paradigm was applied. A total of 15 semi-structured interviews were conducted with accounting students and the data were analysed using thematic analysis.

This study shows how pre-COVID-19 accounting education can be adapted by learning from the teaching and learning experiences gained during the pandemic and that there are various teaching and learning methods that can be applied in the post-COVID-19 period to enhance students' learning experience. These blended active teaching and learning methods include: the flipped classroom, discussion forum, electronic platform (to ask questions during class), key-concept videos and summary videos. Introducing these teaching and learning methods comes with challenges and the study provides recommendations on how to overcome foreseen obstacles. The contribution of the research is that it informs accounting lecturers' decision-making regarding which teaching and learning methods to apply in the aftermath of COVID-19 to enhance students' learning experience.

It is uncertain which teaching and learning methods employed during the COVID-19 pandemic should be applied at a residential university to enhance the teaching and learning experience after the pandemic. Accounting lecturers might return to their pre-COVID-19 modus operandi, and the valuable experience gained during the pandemic will have served no purpose.