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The purpose of this paper is to review and update Devens eco-industrial park sustainability indicators and benchmark progress made since 2000 in the seven key areas of its sustainability vision.

The authors examined publicly available data for Devens, Massachusetts, and obtained additional data from Devens Enterprise Commission and a survey of 29 local organizations.

Of the 43 indicators adopted by Devens eco-industrial park in 2012, 29 demonstrate progress, seven show lack of progress, six point to a potential progress, and for one no information was available in 2000 to evaluate progress. Most progress has been made in the areas of transportation, business and economic sustainability, governance and natural resources.

For some proposed indicators no data were available to evaluate progress (e.g. waste generation, recycling, compositing, and landfill diversion) yet these are among the key measures for an eco-industrial park.

Proposed framework, indicators and lessons learned are of value for researchers and practitioners at other eco-industrial parks (EIPs) interested in benchmarking progress toward sustainable local development.

The case provides insights on integrating sustainability in local economic development.

The study is paving the way toward development of a standardized set of sustainability indicators for EIPs in the USA.

This paper aims to address the importance of a framework for developing employees' sustainability knowledge, skills, and behaviors.

The paper draws on in‐depth interviews with executives from five Fortune 1000 companies that are viewed as market leaders in addressing sustainability.

This paper provides a series of initiatives to equip their employees' talent – from top executives to employees throughout the organization – with the much needed, but often sorely lacking knowledge, skills and attitudes to spearhead efforts to attend to sustainability both today and tomorrow.

The usefulness of demonstrating a company's suite of ongoing initiatives to address sustainability to potential employees during the recruiting process is highlighted by each company.

The framework covered by this paper can help companies enhance their talent management skills.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a reaction to the paper of Nijhof and Jeurissen in IJSSP on limitations of business case approaches to CSR by nuancing some of their critique as well as extending it by addressing a more fundamental flaw in such approaches. In addition, the paper aims to also provide a case of a company that integrates various approaches to CSR into its business model that goes beyond the CSR business case.

The paper both has a conceptual approach through drawing on critical studies and theoretical arguments on CSR as well as an empirical approach through examining the integrative sustainability business model developed by the company Patagonia, a recognized and innovative CSR leader.

The paper argues that the “cherry-picking argument” by Nijhof and Jeurissen on the limitations of the business case approach to CSR does not reflect the idiosyncrasy of the CSR concept. Also, their glass ceiling metaphor may not be well-chosen. Second, stage models of CSR maturity that detach ethics from CSR development should be revised to include these, also from a credibility perspective. Third, the theory of the firm perspective on CSR may be adjusted to capture the reality of new market relations that companies pioneering with sustainability business models are developing.

The paper formulates a new critique on business case approaches to CSR, adding to the stream of critical studies on CSR and provides an example of a company that pioneers an integrative approach to CSR.

Developed countries agreed at COP15 to pay US$100bn annually for adaptation and mitigation in developing countries. This paper aims to evaluate how prepared are donors and recipients to spend this money well by analyzing institutional and organizational capabilities for climate change adaptation in least developed country (LDC) administrations using the case of Nepal, a country which can be considered to be an archetypal LDC.

The authors conducted over 100 in-depth structured qualitative interviews with government officials from across the organizational chain in the ministries concerned with climate change, ranging from the lowest-ranked employee to just under the ministerial ranks. This was supplemented with detailed surveys of three representative communities from different ecological zones in Nepal. Data were analyzed using Ostrom’s IAD framework.

Local administrations are more motivated and capable than are given credit for by donors but nevertheless face critical barriers in being able to function autonomously and confront climate change challenges. These barriers create three interrelated challenges: An organizational challenge to create intrinsic incentives which empower and grant autonomy to front line agents, an institutional challenge to go beyond accountability-focused process validation and a policy-choice challenge which avoids the temptation to write aspirational policies without clear and feasible strategies to obtain the resources necessary for their implementation.

The findings point to ways climate assistance can be restructured for more reach and effectiveness.

This paper fills a gap in the literature because community structures and institutions have been extensively analyzed in the context of adaptation, but despite being criticized, administrative structures have rarely been directly studied.

Temporary labour mobility programmes (TLMPs) are initiated by high-income nations to fill their labour demands by offering temporary work opportunities to migrants from low-income nations. TLMPs also seek to contribute to economic development in workers' home countries. This paper aims to assess the accountability of New Zealand's Recognised Seasonal Employer (RSE) Scheme and Australia's Seasonal Worker Programme (SWP) in reaching their economic development objectives in one sending nation, Samoa.

A qualitative study with RSE and SWP workers and key informants (collectively stakeholders) in Samoa was undertaken to assess the contributions of these schemes to economic development. An interdisciplinary research approach was taken using the Pacific methodology of talanoa. Talanoa was used to “operationalise engagement” and empower local stakeholder accounts.

Talanoa supported the elicitation of accounts that contributed nuanced insights into the accountability of TLMPs. Specifically, stakeholder accounts revealed limitations in the ability of the RSE Scheme and SWP to meet their economic development objectives for Samoan communities and workers. Adjustments are necessary to meet Pacific nations' economic development objectives.

This study responds to calls for on-the-ground accounts of stakeholders involved in TLMPs. It provides insights that may contribute to the development of more effective TLMPs, particularly regarding economic development in workers' home countries.

Drawing on dialogic accounting literature, which calls for engagement with the marginalised, a talanoa approach has been engaged to assess TLMPs via on-the-ground participant accounts in a specific context. This paper introduces talanoa to the critical and social accounting literature, to move beyond a typical accounting qualitative interview process and encourage greater engagement and collaboration with Pacific scholars and partners.

This paper aims to review and synthesize notable literature on high-performance organization (HPO), from which future research directions can be recommended.

This narrative literature review analyzes major HPO literature in popular books and peer-reviewed articles published in English in the period between 1982 and 2019.

The review revealed that HPO literature has evolved multiple times, illustrating the complex and multifaceted nature of this phenomenon. In particular, literature on HPO has evolved in four phases: (1) definitions and conceptual development of HPO; (2) exploration of approaches to achieve HPO; (3) empirical validation of HPO framework; and (4) complicated research models and designs on HPO. Several research gaps were identified, which definitely hold varying research value and can be seen as potential opportunities for future research.

The focus of this review is on HPO literature published in English rather than cover all existing literature.

It is among the first studies to review the HPO literature and its evolution. This review also recommends constructive areas for future research on HPO to focus on.

The purpose of this action research is to begin to assess to what extent organizations have in practice begun to make the shift towards triple bottom line (TBL) sustainability.

A definition of TBL sustainability is provided, and key elements of TBL sustainability considered necessary to success are identified based on current literature and public commentary. An assessment is made via published surveys and an action research study of how these components are being addressed now and for the future. The action research study involved the design and launching of a Zoomerang survey that was posted both in the USA and on international websites and blogs.

The synthesis from the research reveals a lack of a clear definition of sustainability which sets in motion a whole systemic dynamic. The data from the action research exemplify this dynamic. First, there is a pattern of adopting a short‐term focus and expediency in decision making. Second, problem solving favors the “quick fix” over thoughtful consideration and development of the key components for sustainability. The research may also lead to questioning the urgency of implementing the very complex systemic TBL sustainability at this time in view of widespread climate concerns, versus concentrating on the more straightforward carbon footprint reduction.

A major implication is the pressing need to clearly define sustainability and its organizational implications. Organizations must then make the shift from a short‐term perspective to more of a long‐term perspective, such that the clearly defined sustainability concerns will be addressed. Research conclusions are based on limited published data and a single survey; further research is required to substantiate the conclusions.

Sustainability is making some inroads in organizations but far too many organizations are only “going through the motions” with predictable results for overall need for improvement. A cohesive, clear linkage among the defining characteristics of sustainability, and guidelines for implementation, are proposed in this paper.

This action research presents data on how sustainability is actually viewed and implemented in organizations, and suggests from a systemic point of view which critical components of sustainability are yet to be seriously addressed.

This paper aims to synthesize existing knowledge on high performance organization (HPO) in terms of definitions, contemporary trends and findings from empirical studies; from which areas for future research can be proposed.

This systematic literature review applies the matrix method to analyze major HPO literature in peer-reviewed English articles. A total of 73 articles have been found in 59 journals.

There are three key findings that emerged from this study. First, the research on HPO has been burgeoned in the past decades, generating several compelling studies in different contexts. The trend of HPO research is now shifting from theory development to theory validation. Second, HPO has been defined in various ways in the extant literature. However, they all address the importance of aligning the firms’ resources with the market demand and integrating various types of performance to measure HPO relative to competitors for a prolonged period. Third, an assessment of empirical HPO studies revealed gaps in terms of the research context, research design and the HPO’s nomological network.

The literature search in this review targeted at only articles published in the English language; therefore, publications in other languages were not included.

The strength of this study is that it provided an updated systematic review of HPO literature, is therefore, valuable in providing an overall picture of the current state of HPO research and providing potential directions for future studies.

This study aims to assess the determinants of corporate direction in sustainable development through time in a B2B setting.

This study has been conducted in one industry, and overcoming contextual bias as a judgmental sampling was used to select the organizations studied in a Business to Business (B2B) setting.

The determinants of sustainable development in this study indicate the existence of different corporate directions in a B2B setting taken through time in the healthcare organizations studied. The determinants found are change in organizational leadership, financial assets of the organization, religious orientation of the organization, organizational connection to the healthcare system, internal values of the organization and top-staff orientation in the organization.

The empirical findings reported in a B2B setting have disclosed key determinants of corporate direction in sustainable development.

The determinants provide managerial guidance to assess the corporate direction in a B2B setting taken in the continuing development of sustainable practices in these organizations.

This study contributes to a multidimensional framework of determinants in a B2B setting to assess the corporate direction taken in sustainable development through time in a B2B setting. The organizational gap between past and present sustainable development provides guidance to assess the corporate direction in B2B taken by an organization into the future.

This study aims to identify the content in introductory business sustainability courses in the USA to determine the most frequently assigned reading material and its sustainability orientation.

In total, 81 introductory sustainable business course syllabi reading lists were analyzed from 51 US colleges and universities. The study utilized frequency counts for authors and readings and R analysis of key words to classify readings along the sustainability spectrum.

The study reveals the most frequently assigned authors and readings in US sustainable business courses (by program type) and places them along the sustainability spectrum from weak to strong. In total, 55 per cent of the top readings assigned in the sample advocate a weak sustainability paradigm, and 29 per cent of the top readings advocate a strong sustainability paradigm.

This study focused on reading lists of introductory courses in the USA; cases, videos and supplemental materials were excluded, and the study does not analyze non-US courses.

The findings of this study can inform instructors of the most commonly assigned authors and readings and identify readings that align with weak sustainability and strong sustainability. Instructors are now able to select sustainable business readings consistent with peers and which advance a weak or strong sustainability orientation.

This is the first research to identify the most commonly assigned authors and readings to aid in course planning. This is also the first research to guide instructors in identifying which readings represent weak versus strong sustainability.