Sustainability Scholars Research Articles

Ideas behind transformative innovation policy: Economists confronting missions and sustainability transition in Finland

The ideas that experts share and draw on shape policies across various spatial and temporal contexts. In this study, we use document analysis and expert interviews to examine the views and beliefs of one important group of experts, economists, on mission-oriented innovation policy and sustainability transition in Finland. As a result, we outline the epistemic landscape that for its part conditions the progress of transformative innovation policy in Finland. While sustainability scholars have been intrigued by the promises of mission-oriented thinking, our findings suggest that they should acknowledge the epistemic limits of communities of economists regarding missions and transformative innovation policy as political vehicles to advance sustainability transition.

The Study of Catholic Church History in Zambia’s Past 50 Years

This article explores the trends that have characterised the study of Zambian Church history with specific reference to the history of the Roman Catholic Church in Zambia to commemorate the 50 years of existence of Studia Historiae Ecclesiasticae, a journal dedicated to themes of Church History and the history of Christianity within the African and South African context. Drawing on a qualitative case study research design that utilises document analysis, the article focuses on the scholars and major themes that have dominated the study of the history of the Roman Catholic Church in Zambia. It shows that the study of Roman Catholic Church history has been dominated by male Zambian scholars, with a few notable female scholars. The article further shows that the major themes that have preoccupied the scholarly focus on the history of the Roman Catholic Church range from its growth, Pentecostalism's influence, and Zambia’s declaration as a nation, enduring Catholic church engagement with the state to the church’s contribution to national development. The article argues that the scholars and the themes in Catholic Church history in Zambia point to the growth of church history as a field of study that requires sustained scholarly engagement.

Bridging AI and Human Expertise for Sustainable Scholarly Communication: Enhancing Integrity and Efficiency

Bridging AI and Human Expertise for Sustainable Scholarly Communication: Enhancing Integrity and Efficiency

Intentions to Create Green Start-Ups for Collection of Unwanted Drugs: An Empirical Study

Drug waste poses a real threat to human health and the environment. Therefore, recycling and sustainability scholars have recently sought practical solutions to the drug waste problem. Furthermore, several governments have made significant efforts to reduce the negative effects of waste, such as establishing programs to take back unwanted drugs (expired and unused) for recycling (i.e., drug reuse or drug redispersing). However, many of these programs have failed to achieve their goals. In this context, it is expected that creating green start-ups to collect unwanted drugs will contribute to solving this problem. Accordingly, this study aims to investigate the antecedents of intentions to create green start-ups for collecting unwanted drugs. To this end, the authors integrate start-up self-efficacy and drug waste collection-related knowledge constructs into the theory of planned behavior (TPB). Using a self-administered paper questionnaire and relying on a convenience sample, data were collected from 328 students in six Algerian universities. A hierarchical multiple regression was conducted to test the proposed study model. Theresults revealed that perceived behavioral control (PBC) (β = 0.187, p < 0.001), attitudes (β = 0.182, p = 0.002), start-up self-efficacy (β = 0.169, p = 0.001), drug waste collection-related knowledge (β = 0.161, p < 0.001), and subjective norms (β = 0.088, p < 0.05) have a positive significant effect on the intention to create a start-up to collect unwanted drugs. In conclusion, this paper contributes to reducing drug waste by investigating the drivers of intention to create green start-ups for collecting unwanted drugs. Therefore, our study is expected to provide valuable insights for hospitals, pharmacies, pharmaceutical manufacturers, environmental protection associations, and stakeholders interested in reverse logistics.

In Pursuit of Impact: How Psychological Contract Research Can Make the Work-World a Better Place

This paper is the result of the collective work undertaken by a group of Psychological Contract (PC) and Sustainability scholars from around the world, following the 2023 Bi-Annual PC Small Group Conference (Kedge Business School, Bordeaux, France). As part of the conference, scholars engaged in a workshop designed to generate expert guidance on how to aid the PC field to be better aligned with the needs of practice, and thus, impact the creation and maintenance of high-quality and sustainable exchange processes at work. In accordance with accreditation bodies for higher education, research impact is not limited to academic papers alone but also includes practitioners, policymakers, and students in its scope. This paper therefore incorporates elements from an impact measurement tool for higher education in management so as to explore how PC scholars can bolster the beneficial influence of PC knowledge on employment relationships through different stakeholders and means. Accordingly, our proposals for the pursuit of PC impact are organized in three parts: (1) research, (2) practice and society, and (3) students. Further, this paper contributes to the emerging debate on sustainable PCs by developing a construct definition and integrating PCs with an ‘ethics of care’ perspective.

Operationalising employee capabilities post pandemic crisis: a sustainable HR approach

Sustainability scholars argue that sustainable human resource management (HRM) promotes positive financial, social, and human capital outcomes. Sustainability linked with people management creates an enduring business. However, many challenges exist for firms implementing and maintaining a sustainable HRM program. Evidence suggests that these challenges could intensify in economic uncertainty, and firms' sustainable HRM endeavours will likely be abruptly terminated in an uncertain environment. This article explores the adverse outcomes of economic uncertainty and the potential value of a sustainable HRM approach. A model drawing on the Resource-Based View and utilizing Dynamic Capabilities and Absorptive Capacity highlights how the practitioner can operationalize a sustainable approach to HRM in times of uncertainty.

Experiences of inequality in international collaborative research – Perspectives from environmental and sustainability scholars from Ghana, West Africa

Global north and south research partnerships are essential for building research capacity in the global south and for generating new knowledge to address complex socio-environmental problems. However, insights from various disciplines, particularly global health research, suggest that north-south research collaborations often reproduce unequal power relations and outcomes. To mitigate these, some international funding organizations have produced guidelines that promote ethical practice in collaborative research. Despite these measures, significant gaps exist in understanding how the experiences and perspectives of Global South scholars, particularly those in the field of environmental sciences, shapes discourses on unequal north-south research partnerships and the ethical guidelines developed to address disparities. To bridge this gap, we conducted explorative qualitative research focused on understanding the experiences of environmental science and sustainability researchers from Ghana in international collaborative research. Our findings revealed a general optimism among scientists regarding the benefits of international collaborative for making impactful contributions in the global south, expanding professional networks, opening opportunities to publish in high impact journals and developing new research skills. At the same time, our findings also indicate that pervasive forms of inequality centered around lack of recognition, poor clarity of roles, disrespect, unequal resource sharing, poor communication, and non-adherence to contractual agreements persist. We contribute to the ongoing scholarly debate on research inequality by proposing a framework to guide the management, design, and implementation of north-south research partnerships. Our proposed framework serves as a starting point toward identifying potential unequal and unethical issues that often arise in north-south research partnerships.

Mass Cultivation of Microalgae III: A Philosophical and Economic Exploration of Carbon Capture and Utilization

This article discusses an innovative carbon capture and utilization project from societal, economic, and ethical perspectives. UiT—The Arctic University of Norway and the ferrosilicon producer Finnfjord AS, both located in Northern Norway, collaborate to develop sustainably produced fish feed by cultivating microalgae (diatoms) that feed on CO2 from the factory fume. The microalgae biomass, when added to fish feed applied in the aquaculture industry, contributes nutrients that are essential to human and fish health. The project carries the potential to contribute to the operationalization of the Sustainable Development Goals. The present study is intended as a contribution to the literature focusing on CO2 utilization as a means of achieving a sustainable “green” transition in the industry. By viewing the utilization of CO2 through the lenses of biotechnology, a circular economy, ethics and philosophy, our research findings are relevant to sustainability scholars, industrial actors, and policy makers. It also presents future perspectives on how the aquaculture and manufacturing industries can contribute to the operationalizing of the Sustainable Development Goals in a rapidly evolving industrial environment that is now undergoing a paradigm shift.

Does Financial Performance in Firms Benefit from Sustainability Performance? The Mediating Effect of Governance on Firm Performance of Listed Firms in Canada

Relying on dynamic agency and stakeholder perspectives as theoretical underpinnings, this paper analyzes the mediating effect of board governance and operational governance in the relationship between sustainability and financial performance of firms. Using a sample of 224 large and actively traded Canadian firms listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange, the authors use the partial least squares-structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) approach to analyze the data. The results show that there is a good fit between the data for both the measurement and structural equation models, and they further reveal partial mediation effects of board governance and operational governance singly and jointly as full mediation in the relationship between sustainability and financial performance of firms. The results are robust to controlling for various factors that affect firms’ sustainability and financial performance, such as firm type, firm age, and other industry-specific characteristics. This study provides valuable insights for corporate governance and sustainability scholars and practitioners that may allow them to link governance structures with sustainability for better financial performance outcomes, as well as to include an integrated sustainability focus into their competitive strategies.

Emotions and the Climate Crisis: A Research Agenda for an Affective Sustainability Science

Climate change and loss of biodiversity are advancing rapidly, making a transition to a more sustainable society one of the most pressing tasks facing humanity. This special section shines a spotlight on how emotions shape and are shaped by the climate and biodiversity crises, and how they intersect with pro-environmental behavior. To this end, leading sustainability scholars and policy makers articulate what they believe are the most important questions that emotion research should answer to support a sustainable societal transition. Here, we first provide an overview of the articles in the special section, which include a wide range of topics including global analyses of distress related to climate change and biodiversity loss, case studies on emotional experiences toward locally specific instances of climate change consequences and adaptation or mitigation efforts, discussions of the motivational functions of emotions and their potential to drive pro-environmental action, and reflections on how we can make affective science more salient to policy makers in the sustainability domain. In the second part, we summarize the emerging overarching themes that point to promising research objectives and questions for affective sustainability science. Finally, we discuss how the study of sustainability can also be beneficial for the affective sciences. Our hope is that this special section will put sustainability on the research agenda of emotion researchers and stimulate more research in affective sustainability science.

Creative destruction in academia: a time to reimagine practices in alignment with sustainability values

AbstractAcademia has experienced acceleration and expansion in parallel with the Great Acceleration, which has shaped the Anthropocene. Among other pressures, the expectation to be internationally mobile conflicts with many values held by sustainability scholars and results in disillusionment. The changes in the academic system can be seen through the framework of the adaptive cycle, which can help us understand historical parallels and shape the system to better align with sustainability values in future. We hope this piece can contribute to the discussion of the next steps forward to reimagine academia.

Unpacking ecosystem dynamics in the construction industry: The transition toward circular construction ecosystems

The transition towards a circular economy within the construction industry continues to be a formidable challenge. One reason why the construction industry is not at the forefront of circularity is due to the complexity of ecosystem-level organizational forms. In the construction industry, the product-based organizational form characterizes an ecosystem structure with multilateral interdependencies among firms seems to be a more compatible approach towards circularity. Nevertheless, little research has been conducted into how the inter-organizational arrangements and interdependencies of actors within a product-based structure affect the orchestration and alignment between different firms during the implementation of new circular practices in the construction industry. Using an explanatory multi-grounded theory approach, this study investigates how product-based organizational forms affect partner alignment in construction ecosystems compared to project-based organizational forms during the implementation of new practices within the wider transition towards circularity. Based on a multiple-case study involving seven ecosystems, it is suggested that there is a positive connection between a construction ecosystem implementing a product-based approach and the extent of partner alignment being performed by the lead firms as well as a stronger iterative use of orchestration mechanisms to achieve partner alignment. The findings are relevant for both business ecosystems and sustainability scholars.

Targeting socioeconomic transformations to achieve global sustainability

Green growth and post-growth are alternative concepts for transformative change. I investigated the amount of support each enjoys among sustainability scholars by performing a global expert survey (n = 461), in which scholars from around the world evaluated what future pathways they would prefer for different country income groups. Support for post-growth was substantial for high-income (77%) and upper-middle-income countries (59%) for the 2020s, while green growth was the most preferred pathway for lower-middle-income (64%) and low-income (58%) countries. Support for post-growth increased from 2020s to 2030s. On average, preferred future GDP rates were at or above 0% and at or below past average GDP rates regardless of context. I found an interaction between pathway preference and familiarity with post-growth, which helped explain desired future GDP rates in the context of high-income countries. Around 60% of the participants considered GDP to be a bad indicator of societal well-being. My results call for more emphasis on targeted transformational change in research, education, and policymaking, with particular focus on facilitating post-growth approaches for affluent countries. This could help societies find a safe and just way to secure global sustainability.

What do We Know about Vision? A Sustainability Lens

Given the paucity of knowledge on sustainability-related organizational vision, the present study’s objective is to examine the current state of the organizational vision knowledge base with a sustainability focus. It adapts the Integrated Systematic Literature Review approach. Five hundred and four journal articles from Scopus between 1981 and October 2022 are identified and reviewed. Influential journals, scholars and documents concerning organizational vision in the sustainability context are identified, along with four schools of thought on Organizational Vision: Vision Component, Vision Motivation, Transformational Vision and Educational Vision. Overall, findings suggest that organizational vision scholars have focused their efforts on organizational vision in a way that leads to organizational productivity as opposed to sustainability productivity. This knowledge gap is fundamentally critical for sustainability scholars and practitioners alike since (a) organizational culture with vision as a core component is a pre-condition for sustainable enterprise development and (b) sustainability transformations are fundamental changes in cultures that move socio-technical systems toward sustainable production and consumption. Drawing from the identified body of knowledge, a model linking organizational vision and sustainability-related organizational performance is derived as a major contribution of the present study. The model explains how vision components theoretically lead to improved sustainability performance, followed by theoretical, empirical and practical implications as significant contributions to the field of corporate sustainability.

Is urbanization sustainable? A longitudinal study of developing nations, 1990-2015

ABSTRACT Sustainability scholars have long asked whether urbanization fosters sustainable development. To stimulate progress on this question for the cross-national quantitative literature, we draw on theories from modernization and political economy and address two empirical issues: the lack of a comprehensive metric on sustainable development as well as a need to differentiate between the multiple dimensions of urbanization. Covering the years 1990–2015, first in models with listwise deletion (n = 88) and then using full information maximum likelihood (n = 156), we regress change in the Sustainable Development Index (SDI) and its component parts on changes in the basic percentage urban variable as well as on independent measures for country-level density, urban primacy, the size of urban agglomerations, and slum prevalence, controlling for unit fixed effects. For developing nations, results from these models indicate that the multiple dimensions of urbanization exert countervailing pressures on the social and environmental components of sustainable development. These results highlight competing claims from urban-ecological theories of modernization and political economy.

Policy sequencing for early-stage transition dynamics – A process model and comparative case study in the water sector

Sustainability scholars increasingly recognize that policy mixes can positively impact socio-technical transitions. However, the temporal dimension of policy interventions remains under-researched, especially in the context of early transition dynamics that typically emerge in niche contexts. In this article, we explore how policy sequencing can play a key role in supporting the scaling-up of early-stage transition dynamics to drive wider system change. We contribute to transition research by proposing a process model for analyzing policy sequences by focusing on the interplay between policy instruments and institutional barriers. We conceptualize two ideal-type policy sequencing patterns - strategic and reactive - which we illustrate with empirical examples from early transition dynamics in the urban water sector of San Francisco (United States) and Sant Cugat del Vallès (Spain). Applying the process model to these case studies reveals how different sequences of policy (instrument) mixes can assist in overcoming institutional barriers, thus supporting transition trajectories.

Why corporate sustainability initiatives fail to reduce deforestation and what to do about it

AbstractDeforestation is a complex environmental problem that has eluded a series of public policies and private‐sector interventions. The need to develop effective solutions to this problem is urgent because unabated deforestation exacerbates climate change, biodiversity loss, human rights violations, displacement of Indigenous communities, and breakouts of zoonotic diseases. This paper focuses on corporate‐led efforts to stop deforestation and identifies four reasons behind their failure: global trade and supply‐chain obscurity, power dynamics in supply chains, neglected consumption in emerging economies, and diluted goal setting. We call upon corporate sustainability scholars, specifically in entrepreneurship, marketing, strategy, and supply‐chain management domains, to dedicate efforts to develop novel corporate sustainability initiatives that can address the complex, rampant, and stubborn challenge of deforestation. We propose three broad areas of research to advance scholarship on the role of corporate sustainability in stopping deforestation: zero‐deforestation supply chains, zero‐deforestation consumption, and nature‐positive business models.

Empirical examples demonstrate how relational thinking might enrich science and practice

AbstractInterdependent relationships among humans and nature often go overlooked, delaying better environmental, social and public health outcomes. Emerging approaches have emphasized thinking through relationships, which we call ‘relational thinking’.Threads of relational thinking have matured in areas such as anthropology and Indigenous scholarship, and interest is growing across many disciplines. Welcoming this new cadre of relational thinkers requires a more broadly accessible synthesis. Sustainability scholars have begun to overcome these barriers with high‐level overviews and broad calls to adopt relational thinking.This literature has investigated the conceptual underpinnings of relational thinking, but the concrete, empirical benefits of relational thinking for understanding human–natural systems remain obscure.Here, we introduce a wide range of accessible empirical examples to demonstrate the potential for relational thinking to illuminate diverse coupled human‐and‐natural systems. We complement these examples with an overview of the theory behind relational thinking.We use these empirical examples to argue that some conventional methods are consistent with relational thinking, particularly when accompanied by deliberation and flexibility about which relationships to target, why, and how.Read the freePlain Language Summaryfor this article on the Journal blog.

Institutionalising interdisciplinarity in PhD training: challenging and redefining expertise in problem-oriented research

Interdisciplinary research is gathering increasing support from sustainability scholars, however, there is little dialogue between scholarship on interdisciplinarity and interdisciplinary environmental science education. The aim of this paper is to take stock of the insights of studies of interdisciplinary research to inform environmental research and education. We take as our case study a research centre in Spain, which created an interdisciplinary PhD programme on climate change. The analysis is based on 18 interviews with PhD students and supervisors. We focus on: (i) the need to train experts while redefining expertise outside of disciplinary boundaries; (ii) the practical and institutional challenges of interdisciplinarity in the context of PhD training; and (iii) the challenges of assessing the quality across disciplines. Our results show that conflicts with institutional requirements lead to a tendency to abandon interdisciplinary aspects and to the training of experts narrowly centred on the specific problem they analyse.

A Literature Review on ESG Score and Its Impact on Firm Performance

Research covering Environmental, Social, and Governance (hereafter ESG) and financial performance often suffers from inconsistent terminology and jargon. ESG refers to companies and investors incorporating environmental, social, and governance issues into their business. Meanwhile, the ESG score is an innovative method of evaluating a company's activities. The ESG score focuses not on financial reporting, which investors and managers are accustomed to using when making decisions, but on statements on the corporation's influence on the underlying pillars of the score. Stakeholders and fund managers believe that firms with high ESG scores yield better operating performance, higher returns, and lower firm-specific risk. But still, abundant inconclusive evidence attracts sustainability scholars to fill concerning sustainability disclosure and performance. Therefore, this paper examines the need for overall ESG scores and their impact on the firm performance of listed companies. It shows that there are both positive and negative relationships between ESG scores and firm performance. The author intends to continue research by formulating the hypotheses for analysing the influence of overall ESG scores on firm performance and proposing a model for analysing this correlation. The findings of this study will be helpful to investors, policymakers, and other related agencies and widen the scope of literature to examine the impact of overall ESG scores on their accounting performance (ROA and ROE) and market valuation (Market Capitalisation).