Sustainable Institutional Development

I-iECONS e-proceedings, 2023

This study provides in-depth explanation on institutionalisation of sustainability initiatives. This study applies a qualitative research method, i.e. case study, to address the specific research objective. The findings revealed that a structured and strategic process of sustainability initiatives institutionalisation starting from a clear vision and mission is reflecting the commitment for accountability and legitimacy. The processes involve participation and engagement, self-regulation and assurance, performance assessments and evaluations, and reporting and disclosure statements. Two essential dimensions emerged in the findings to support the institutionalisation process, namely corporate image and culture. The findings of this study provide managers and policymakers with evidence to what extent sustainability initiatives could be institutionalised starting with a clear vision and mission. As sustainability initiatives are an important effort of the company towards materialising sustainability effort, is thus crucial to reflect the commitment for accountability and legitimacy. Past studies have primarily focused on sustainability initiatives from the perspective of several external stakeholders such as customers. However, this study examined the internal process of institutionalisation involving the four processes, in turn, introducing to the existing literature on sustainability initiatives.

Sustainability Science, 2012

The field of sustainability science aims to understand the complex and dynamic interactions between natural and human systems in order to transform and develop these in a sustainable manner. As sustainability problems cut across diverse academic disciplines, ranging from the natural sciences to the social sciences and humanities, interdisciplinarity has become a central idea to the realm of sustainability science. Yet, for addressing complicated, real-world sustainability problems, interdisciplinarity per se does not suffice. Active collaboration with various stakeholders throughout society-transdisciplinarity-must form another critical component of sustainability science. In addition to implementing interdisciplinarity and transdisciplinarity in practice, higher education institutions also need to deal with the challenges of institutionalization. In this article, drawing on the experiences of selected higher education academic programs on sustainability, we discuss academic, institutional, and societal challenges in sustainability science and explore the potential of uniting education, research and societal contributions to form a systematic and integrated response to the sustainability crisis.

2020

Sustainability is an urgent developmental task for our society, and is attracting increasing attention. Therefore, also Higher education institutions (HEIs) are called upon to deal theoretically, conceptually, methodically, critically, and reflectively with the associated challenges and the processes and conditions of transformation in order to contribute to sustainable development. How can complex organisations such as HEIs succeed in initiating and maintaining the process of sustainable development within their own institutions, and make it a permanent responsibility? How can as many protagonists as possible be persuaded to get involved in sustainable development? This book deals with the promotion of sustainable university development and provides an overview of how universities can be organised sustainably and how sustainable development can be implemented in their various functional areas. In the sense of a “whole-institution approach”, which encompasses entire HEIs, the focus is not only on the core areas of teaching (higher education for sustainable development) and research (sustainability in research), but also on the operational management of HEIs. In addition, this book focuses on sustainability governance and transfer for sustainable development at HEIs as cross-disciplinary issues.

Institutional sustainability in agriculture and rural development: A global perspective, 1990

To explain institutional sustainability, analysts often rely on ad hoc ar guments. As noted in Chapter 2, the factors they stress include national level commitment (Heaver & Israel, 1986), in particular a willingness to provide for recurrent costs (Heller, 1982; Gray & Martens, 1983); an appropriate mix of public and private sector institutions (Lamb, 1987; Nellis, 1986); within the public sector, an appropriate delegation of tasks to the various levels of government (Schroeder, 1987); a sensitivity to issues of ecological degradation and long-term ...

Sustainability Science, 2012

The field of sustainability science aims to understand the complex and dynamic interactions between natural and human systems in order to transform and develop these in a sustainable manner. As sustainability problems cut across diverse academic disciplines, ranging from the natural sciences to the social sciences and humanities, interdisciplinarity has become a central idea to the realm of sustainability science. Yet, for addressing complicated, real-world sustainability problems, interdisciplinarity per se does not suffice. Active collaboration with various stakeholders throughout society—transdisciplinarity—must form another critical component of sustainability science. In addition to implementing interdisciplinarity and transdisciplinarity in practice, higher education institutions also need to deal with the challenges of institutionalization. In this article, drawing on the experiences of selected higher education academic programs on sustainability, we discuss academic, institutional, and societal challenges in sustainability science and explore the potential of uniting education, research and societal contributions to form a systematic and integrated response to the sustainability crisis.

Considering the recent resurgence of debate surrounding the role of the university in the 21 st century, and the complexity of interconnected sustainability challenges we face as a species, more reflexive and embedded research methods are required. In the context of analysing transformations towards sustainability at universities, I relate the example of Action research at Maastricht University to exemplify the utility of participation and social impact of organisational research. There is a systemic relationship and interconnectedness that exists within the university and its surroundings. Appropriate research methods must follow suit by disentangling these associations in insider-academic research of the system in question, clarifying the dynamic role science must now play in society toward greater socio-ecological well-being. Challenges present in this kind of embedded research range from being privy to information (whether tacit or explicit), pre-understanding, role duality, and managing organisational politics associated with perceived implications of one's research to its stakeholders.

This paper offers a case study of a major university initiative to embed sustainability into practices in a number of ways, with a focus here on embedding the sustainability agenda across the curriculum. The purpose of this is to examine how far the concepts and axioms around change processes which run out of two theoretical traditions are borne out by this case. Those traditions are, first, social practice theory, an ontological perspective on the social world which has implications for how both stability and change are accomplished in organizations and beyond them. Second is an approach to the management of change specifically, a more immediately practical theory termed complex-adaptive systems theory. The paper’s intent is to consider how far such theories of change offer managers lenses for seeing the issues involved, while illuminating some of the key factors that the social practice and complex-adaptive systems theory viewpoints foreground.

Earth Charter Magazine, 2023

This article explores the concept of whole institution approach (WIA) for sustainability as a preferred strategy to implement education for sustainable development and as a way to enhance quality education. The article brings perspectives from transdisciplinary research to elucidate ways that WIA can be implemented and enhanced. https://earthcharter.org/ec-magazine/

2012

How does innovation come about in a highly institutionalized field like the construction sector? The construction sector is characterized by relatively rigid routines, strong professional boundaries, clear division of labor, and elaborate national legislation. It tends to lag behind other sectors of the economy when it comes to innovation, being perceived as mechanically responding to external (client) needs and as implementing innovations that originate elsewhere (Winch 1998, Harty 2008). Sustainable construction represents a remarkable break with this tradition with strong ambitions to boost construction in terms of its economic, environmental and social performance. In sustainable construction, new technologies are appearing, new ‘best practices ’ are being formulated, and new managerial systems and labels are being introduced. For instance, innovations like zeroenergy housing and eco-districts have emerged as novel ways to lower energy consumption and otherwise contribute to inc...

Przegląd Kulturoznawczy, 2021

Social Innovation and Deep Institutional Innovation for Sustainability and Human Development