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The aim of this paper is to outline the collaborative approach used to craft national learning standards for tertiary programs in the field of environment and sustainability in Australia. The field of environment and sustainability is broad and constituted by diverse stakeholders. As such, articulating a common set of learning standards presents challenges.

The authors developed and used a staged collaborative curriculum design methodology to engage more than 250 stakeholders in tertiary environmental education, including discipline scholars, students, professional associations and employers and other environmental educators. The approach was adaptive, to ensure underrepresented stakeholders’ perspectives were welcomed and recognised. The project was commissioned by the Australian Council of Environmental Deans and Directors (ACEDD) and funded by the Federal Government’s Office for Learning and Teaching.

The collaborative approach developed and used for this work facilitated an inclusive process that valued diversity of perspectives, rather than marginalise diversity in favour of a perspective representing a minimum level of agreement. This is reflected in the standards themselves, and is evidenced by participant feedback, piloting of the standards and their subsequent application at multiple universities. Achieving this required careful planning and facilitation, to ensure a democratisation of the stakeholder consultation process, and to build consensus in support of the standards. Endorsement by ACEDD formalised the standards’ status.

Collaborative curriculum design offered the opportunity to foster a shared sense of common purpose amongst diverse environmental education stakeholders. This approach to curriculum design is intensive and generative but uncommon and may be usefully adapted and applied in other contexts. The authors note one subsequent instance where the approach has been further developed and applied in transforming a generalist science program, suggesting the methodology used in this case may be applied across other contexts, albeit with appropriate adjustments: the authors offer it here in the spirit of supporting others in their own complex curriculum design challenges.

This study aims to take a strategic approach to analyze how the US technical textile companies manage their business operations and to determine whether there are differences on competitive priorities between high‐ and low‐performing companies.

A competitive priority model consisting of four latent constructs – low cost, quality, delivery performance, and flexibility – was utilized to construct the analysis. Primary data were collected through a survey of senior executives in the US technical textile companies. Using 202 eligible survey returns, exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis within structural equation modeling were carried out to assess adequacy of the measurements and validity of the model.

The competitive priority model is proven valid and the four constructs account for the most variance in corporate competitive strategies. High‐performing companies placed greater emphasis on quality and delivery performance strategies than low cost strategy in order to build capabilities for product or service differentiation; in contrast, low‐performing companies gave equal weight to all four competitive capabilities. The lack of clear emphasis on strategies could be one of the reasons for a relatively low business performance.

The study provides a springboard for future studies of corporate competitive strategies and its relationships with other key decisions and outcomes.

The deployment of appropriate strategies is imperative to achieve superior business performance and, perhaps, just to survive.

The paper represents the first empirical investigation into corporate strategy issues in the US technical textile sector. The methodology may be transferred to other industrial sectors.

This study examines the impact of Corporate Social Responsibility Disclosure (hereafter CSRD) on the Corporate Economic Performance (hereafter CEP) of a group of public shareholding companies in Jordan.

This study uses different proxies to examine the impact of CSRD on companies’ financial and economic value. The data were collected from a sample of 94 companies listed on the Amman Stock Exchange from 2010 to 2016. Based on a checklist of 41 indicators, this study employed the manual content analysis technique to collect and analyse CSRD data. A statistical analysis technique was also used to examine the hypothesized relationships between collected data on CSRD and profitability.

The findings indicate that CSRD is value-relevant. It is positively and statistically associated with firm value proxied by Tobin’s Q. In addition, it is positively and statistically associated with firm financial performance proxied by ROE and ROA.

This study contributes to the research debate on the relationship between CSRD and CEP, particularly in developing nations. The study draws attention to the need for information on different dimensions of CSR, including human resource, environmental, product responsibility, and community participation, as disclosure on such dimensions is positively associated with profitability.

The findings provide important implications for Jordanian corporate managers to maintain CSRD in their best interest. With more emphasis on disclosing stand-alone CSR reports, corporate managers can present more information on different dimensions of CSR, attracting the attention of stakeholders such as investors, the government, media, and humanitarian activists and enhancing overall corporate goodwill.

CSRD activities reflect a positive impact on CEP. Due to the dearth of relevant research conducted in developing countries, this study provides empirical evidence on the positive relationship between CSRD and CEP in an emerging economy, with more emphasis on specific dimensions of CSR, including human resources, environmental, product responsibility, and community participation. Since multiple proxies exist to measure profitability, this study uses multi-approaches for profitability examination proxied by Tobin’s Q, ROE, and ROA. Moreover, the issue of CSR is original and interesting to be examined in the Jordanian context, where the listed firms have reported a homogeneous perception of CSR.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a critical review of the performance management literature in the hospitality and tourism (H/T) industry.

The study is conducted through a critical literature review based on three dimensions: progress on ontological and epistemological issues, on the purpose of performance measurement (PM) and on the emerging contexts.

The progress on the three topics, namely, ontological and epistemological, purpose and emerging context, is addressed. Based on these three issues, the performance management literature in the H/T industry has not had any concrete structure. Few studies have been conducted reviewing the progress on performance criteria in the hotel industry. A research agenda is recommended to build a concrete structure in the field.

This study focused on only leading H/T journals to analyze the progress on the performance management literature in the H/T industry. The findings can help researchers (re)design research agendas to contribute to both mainstream performance management literature and literature related to the H/T industry.

This is one of the first studies highlighting the progress on the performance management literature in hospitality and tourism by considering ontological and epistemological issues, the purpose of PM and the emerging contexts.

This study aims to examine the phenomenon of the risk–return paradox from the resources side of the firm. The authors emphasize the moderating role of risk-taking capabilities in investigating the relationship between risk-taking and performance.

Building on the disciplines of the resource-based view, the moderating effects of risk-taking capabilities on performance were tested by using Taiwan listed companies' data from information technology and electronics industries. Based on the data from 216 firms for periods from 2003 to 2007, this study runs a hierarchical moderated regression analysis to test the hypotheses in the context of diversification.

The results of this study emphasize that risk-taking and its relationship with performance are context-specific. Significantly, it is contingent on the firm's risk-taking capabilities endowment. The findings also indicate that some aspects of risk-taking capabilities moderate the relationship between risk-taking and performance.

This paper emphasizes that risk-taking capability is an essential factor in investigating the risk–return paradox. It constructs the dimensions of risk-taking capability in terms of absorptive capacity, network resources and organizational slack. Firms equipped with a high level of risk-taking capabilities benefit from risk-taking activities and should, therefore, embrace risk.

The purpose of this paper is to identify several measures that reflect the diffusion of the mobile internet.

The measurements are implemented with a newly developed handset‐based mobile service research platform that provides a novel way to accurately identify trends taking place in mobile service usage. These measures are demonstrated in a case example comparing Finnish early‐adopter smartphone users between 2005 and 2006 (500 and 695 users).

The results indicate that the mobile internet has not yet emerged on a large scale in Finland. On the contrary operators have slightly increased their power, potentially because handset bundling with mobile subscriptions is now allowed in Finland.

The measurement framework can be further utilized in both cross‐sectional and longitudinal study settings in evaluating the emergence of the mobile internet. No other empirical research method provides the accuracy and scope of usage measurements done with the handset‐based research platform. However, the shortcomings of the new method should be realized.

The paper suggests that the mobile internet has not emerged widely, even in early‐adopter user segments.

This paper contributes to the measurement of mobile internet service usage. Mobile internet services are currently emerging in early‐adopter user segments. These services might shake the dynamics of the mobile services industry by introducing different kinds of technical innovation and business logic.

The aim of this study is to investigate the potential effects of corporate governance and financial characteristics on the extent of corporate social responsibility (CSR) disclosure focusing on the US companies.

The sample consists of 366 companies from the Fortune 500 list for 2011. The environmental, social and governance disclosure score calculated by Bloomberg is used as a proxy for the extent of CSR disclosure. Multiple regression analysis was developed to identify factors that affect the extent of CSR disclosure.

Results show that company and board size is significantly and positively related to the extent of CSR disclosure, and companies with Chief Executive Officer (CEO) duality characteristics publish less information on their CSR disclosure, while there are significant differences between different industries and the extent of CSR disclosure.

The research is based only on the presence or the absence of CSR disclosure without receiving the quality aspect of the CSR disclosure which could lead to misinterpretation. The results should not be generalized as the sample was based on large-size US companies for 2011.

This study extends the scope of previous studies by introducing new independent and dependent variables. It contributes to the understanding of determinants of CSR disclosure to improve the implementation of disclosure guidelines.

The purpose of this article is to explore and classify the pattern of themes and challenges in developing socially sustainable supply chains.

The methodology is based on a systematic review of the peer-reviewed literature to explore what major themes and challenges have been discussed and the significant gaps where opportunities for further research can be found.

In total, four categories of themes were identified, namely, human-centric, focal organization-centric, supply chain-centric and governance-centric. Challenges were classified into seven categories, namely, inadequate and asymmetric knowledge, difficulties of operationalization, shifting the values, subjectivity in evaluation, governance complexity, difficulties of small- and medium-sized enterprises and sustainability fade.

The focus of the article is on the social pillar of sustainable development in the context of supply chains. A more holistic systematic investigation of synergy of all the three pillars/bottom lines of sustainable development (economic, environmental and social) can be an opportunity for further research.

Taking a more holistic view of the pattern of currently discussed themes and challenges may be beneficial in increasing the absorptive capacity of industrial and business practitioners, by accumulating and assimilating external knowledge, when they design and operationalize innovative strategies in developing sustainable supply chains.

This article may increase awareness about the social responsibilities of supply chains actors and stakeholders in different scales. It may also guide managers, decision makers and practitioners to better understand the difficulties, obstacles or dilemmas that can hinder the sustainable development of supply chains. The results section presents a framework driven from the emerged themes, and the discussion section provides propositions for tackling the challenges and opportunities for further research.