Examining environmental fan engagement initiatives through values and norms with intercollegiate sport fans

The United Nations has asserted that sport organizations and/or allied sponsors can influence fans to engage in more sustainable behaviours intentions at sporting events and at home; however, more investigation is necessary to assess this assumption. The purpose of this study was to examine values and norms related to the natural environment and perceptions of fan engagement sustainability initiatives that influence sustainable at-home behaviours. Season ticket holders (N = 267) of a National Collegiate Athletic Association Division I men's collegiate basketball programme completed a preseason survey assessing values, norms, and perception of environmental efforts; at the conclusion of the season, recall and influence of three environmental initiatives (recycling, water conservation, and composting) featured at each game over the season were assessed. Results indicate that sport-event norms were a significant predictor of lower perception of recycling inconvenience, higher perception of recycling benefits, and positive influence of athletic department sustainability efforts while values and personal norms were non-significant predictors. Values and personal norms were not significantly related to sponsored initiative awareness, sponsor recall, and perceptions of influence related to at-home behaviour change. Sport-event norms significantly predicted influence towards at-home composting. Future research should longitudinally examine the influence of environmentally sustainability focused fan engagement initiatives on sustainable behavioural change at events and at-home.     

Deep transitions: Emergence,acceleration, stabilization and directionality

Industrial society has not only led to high levels of wealth and welfare in the Western world, but also to increasing global ecological degradation and social inequality. The socio-technical systems that underlay contemporary societies have substantially contributed to these outcomes. This paper proposes that these socio-technical systems are an expression of a limited number of meta-rules that, for the past 250 years, have driven innovation and hence system evolution in a particular direction, thereby constituting the First Deep Transition. Meeting the cumulative social and ecological consequences of the overall direction of the First Deep Transition would require a radical change, not only in socio-technical systems but also in the meta-rules driving their evolution – the Second Deep Transition. This paper develops a new theoretical framework that aims to explain the emergence, acceleration, stabilization and directionality of Deep Transitions. It does so through the synthesis of two literatures that have attempted to explain large-scale and long-term socio-technical change: the Multi-level Perspective (MLP) on socio-technical transitions, and Techno-economic Paradigm (TEP) framework.     

Action research in Singapore education: constraints and sustainability

Action research has received increasing attention, especially by school leaders, as a result of the Singapore Ministry of Education’s push for greater autonomy, diversity and innovation at the school level. It is also perceived as a means for teacher professional development and professionalism. The Teachers Network, which has its own brand of action research called ‘Learning Circles’, is in support of such a view. Action research projects are not, however, without problems. In this paper, structures that pose constraints to successful action research endeavours will be the main focus for discussion.     

Government-affiliated intermediary organisations as actors in system-level transitions

The article draws from two theoretical fields, innovation intermediation and sustainability transitions, to examine the role of government-affiliated intermediary organisations in system-level transitions. The role of intermediaries working between actors – producers and users, entrepreneurs and adopters, idea generators and funders – has seldom been specifically addressed in the transitions literature. Thus, the role of intermediary organisations in enacting change in socio-technical regimes, particularly of intermediaries falling between traditional public sector and private sector actors, is of interest in this article. Empirical analyses of two Finnish organisations, Sitra and Motiva, show that government-affiliated intermediaries are likely to engage in strategic niche management processes in diverse ways, each organisation having its own distinct characteristics. The analysis also points out that to get from niches to transition, sustained systemic intermediaries are crucial in articulating new visions and expectations. Government-affiliated intermediaries may make an important contribution to sustainability transitions by initiating and managing new policy or market processes and by acting as an impartial contact point or voice for new networks of actors. While independence from public administration is likely to facilitate networking, too neutral a stance or limited temporal engagement may reduce the transition-facilitating effects.     

The ‘East Asian’ Olympic Games: what of sustainable legacies?

Sport has proven to be an unstoppable globalising force. The Olympic Movement has come to epitomise modernisation and the extent to which Western sport has become globalised. The philosophy of Olympism, once resting upon just two pillars of Excellence in Sport and Culture has since 1994 been underpinned by a third, the Environment. All of the Olympic Games host cities now have to support a responsible concern for environmental issues and with that the very sustainability of ‘our’ culture, and sport itself. They must do so by bequeathing a holistic positive legacy from their Games. This paper will analyse the three ‘Asian’ Olympic Summer Olympic Games – Tokyo 1964, Seoul 1988 and Beijing 2008 – by looking at the cultural, sporting and environmental legacies each has left.

The discussion of the concept of sustainability as an element of culture will embrace Littig and Griessler’s idea that social sustainability is about the quality of societies expressed through the nature-society relationships and is not merely an economically based notion.1 ?1.?Littig & Griessler, ‘Social Sustainability’, 72. In this paper we consider the three Asian Summer Olympic Games. Each has been related to a specific nodal point in the host country's national history, as a means of illustrating, indeed emphasising, the always unique impacts of context on event and process. Yet we propose that, locked as they are in distinct epochs and differing cultural, political and economic contexts, they are nonetheless marked in common by an Asian discourse heavily reliant upon economic and nationalistic motivations.

The progressive analysis of each Games demonstrates that although each was unique, particularly in regards to the expectations stakeholders had of ‘their Olympics’, all three host nations represented themselves as ‘modern hybrids’ by simultaneously demonstrating their modernised characters and emphasising their ancient cultures. The analysis demonstrates the holistic impact of these events by reference to the wide range of economic, social, cultural and sporting changes that have emerged for each host from each festival. The evaluation of the nature and significance of these legacies reemphasises the impact of the Olympic Games as a vehicle for social change and illustrates the transformative power of sport at national and global levels.     

CEO多元化职能经历对创业企业可持续性的影响机理基于高阶理论的被调节的中介模型

如何塑造可持续的创业企业,是CEO在企业创建与发展过程中必须面对的关键议题,也是中国转型经济背景下亟待解决的重要问题。既往研究主要聚焦机会开发过程探讨创业企业可持续性,本文从创业产出视角重新定义创业企业可持续性并构建其绩效指标体系。利用两阶段收集的228位创业企业CEO问卷,本文基于高阶理论的研究框架提出并检验了CEO多元化职能经历如何及何时影响创业企业可持续性。结果表明,CEO多元化职能经历对创业企业可持续性具有显著正向影响,二者关系受到战略决策周密性的中介作用。此外,CEO自我超越价值观在第二阶段正向调节了CEO多元化职能经历通过战略决策周密性影响创业企业可持续性的间接作用。本研究延伸了创业企业可持续性的概念范畴,为探究创业企业可持续性在创业者个人层面的影响因素提供了新的见解和机制。     

Does engineering education need to engage more with the economic and social aspects of sustainability?

This paper questions if engineering educators are producing engineers that are accelerating humanity along an unsustainable path. Even though technology and engineering are important drivers in trying to move humanity towards an environmentally sustainable paradigm, the paper suggests that maybe the most important levers and challenges lie in the economic and social domains. Short case studies of energy efficiency, the experience of the industrialist Ray Anderson and the authors own reflection of teaching chemical engineering students are used to highlight this. Engineering/technological innovation may not be enough and is often counteracted by the rebound effect and the current dominant neoclassical economic paradigm. The paper discusses what engineering educators can do to produce sustainability informed engineers who are better able to engage with the economic and social dimensions of sustainability. Some suggestions for engaging engineering students with the economic and social dimensions of environmental sustainability are provided. Engineers must somehow find ways, not just to influence technological levers (which are very important) but also to influence economic and social levers so that changes in economic and social behaviours can complement and facilitate technological change in moving humanity to an environmentally sustainable paradigm.     

利用公共图书馆基础,推进农家书屋持续发展——以上海市闵行区农家书屋建设为例

"农家书屋"工程是保障农民群众基本文化权益的惠民工程。"农家书屋"的性质和管理与公共图书馆非常相似,因此,发挥公共图书馆资源采购、资源管理、读者服务工作的经验和优势,对推动农家书屋的科学与可持续发展。     

Creating sustainable societies: developing emerging professionals through transforming current mindsets

Future professionals will bear the brunt of creating sustainable societies. Equipping them for the task is the challenge of current educators. Educational experiences facilitating the development of sustainable habits of mind are needed. This research reports on the experiences of developing scientists and engineers engaged in a sustainable energy research program. Its focus is the learners’ changing conceptions about sustainability and their role in creating sustainable societies. It is an exploratory, multi-strand, case-oriented study, utilizing mixed methods to analyze qualitative and quantitative data. The research was grounded in the literature of education for sustainability and situated learning in communities, highlighting the common threads supporting the development of a new generation of scientists and engineers with sustainable mindsets. Findings indicated learners’ concepts of sustainability were broadened from narrow, discipline-specific definitions to an understanding of sustainability as a multidisciplinary field. Learners’ developing identities from budding scientists and engineers to citizens invested in and capable of creating sustainable societies is discussed. The development of learning communities was an integral mechanism for facilitating perspective changes; however, field trips and seminars focused on exploring sustainability were identified as key influences in developing multifaceted and more complex conceptions of sustainability.     

Approaches to embedding sustainability in teacher education: A synthesis of the literature

This study investigated how teacher education academics embed sustainability education in learning and teaching, using a systematic literature review of peer-reviewed journal articles. A taxonomy of four distinctive approaches was developed: (1) embedding sustainability education widely across curriculum areas, courses, and institution; (2) through a dedicated core/compulsory subject; (3) through a component of a core/compulsory subject; and (4) through a dedicated elective subject. This paper investigates the differing rationales, theoretical frames and pedagogical approaches used and identifies the perceived challenges underpinning each of these approaches. The final section offers an analysis and discussion of the implications of our review findings for teacher education academics and researchers, and others in the broader academic community who are interested in change towards sustainability through education.