Sustainability in the business context seeks to create long-term value by seizing the opportunities and overcoming the challenges of simultaneously addressing the organization’s economic, environmental and social responsibilities. Several sustainability models and frameworks have been put forward over the past three decades, aiming at helping organizations embed sustainability at the core of their businesses. Their relevancy and applicability are significant, particularly for the manufacturing sector and the overall value chain, even though service organizations are equally important stakeholders in this process. The raising interest to promote sustainability-focused practices, processes and policies in organizations in the Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC) region, particularly across the service sector, have contributed to define the goal of this research, namely: to establish the main drivers and challenges faced by local service organizations to embed sustainability at the core of their business strategy and practice, in order to develop an innovative multi-dimensional sustainability framework specifically adapted to the service sector in the GCC countries’ socio-cultural and economic environment. For this purpose, a research path was followed which included: comparative critical analysis of the leading organizational sustainability frameworks and maturity models; an empirical evaluation of their relevancy in the particular context of GCC countries; and primary research to confirm the perceived applied research gap and to evaluate the feasibility and relevancy of putting forward a sector specific framework. The outcome of this research is an innovative multi-dimensional sustainability framework for service sector organizations in the GCC region, which will provide stronger guidance on how to select and implement the most relevant sustainability aspects within the local service sector businesses, thus allowing them to develop better sustainability-focused policies and practices in the workplace. This framework will also contribute to academic community by opening new views on how sustainability is perceived and what adjustments are needed for it to work in the service sector in the context of GCC countries. This framework can later on be extended to other countries of the MENA region, where existing sustainability models and frameworks would not be fit for purpose. The framework hereby proposed was validated by combining the quantitative research and qualitative data collection and analysis using a combined positivist and interpretive case study strategy based on carefully selected cases across the service sector in the GCC countries. The measurable success of this framework will be the time it will take to reach a significant number of service sector organizations in the GCC countries that achieve the ideal balance between their social, economic and environmental dimensions with few constraints, thus becoming potential leaders of change for a more sustainable and inclusive successful future.

Orientador: Sandra Regina Monteiro Masalskiene Roveda / Resumo: A nova perspectiva rumo à conservação do meio ambiente como fato categórico de subsistência planetária tem colocado a sustentabilidade em primeiro plano como o grande desafio da universidade, responsável e equipada para a formação daqueles que terão o poder decisório sobre as questões relacionadas a um futuro viável. Este estudo se refere à sustentabilidade na universidade por meio do que é percebido pelos diversos atores que nela transitam. Teve como objetivo desvendar, em algumas instituições do setor público e do setor privado, quais as impressões que professores/coordenadores, alunos e funcionários possuem sobre as atuações da instituição em seu campus, os projetos e pesquisas voltados à sustentabilidade elaborados pela equipe docente e os aprendizados efetivos na formação dos novos profissionais, que deverão atuar nas diversas áreas de atividades em nossa sociedade. Para poder medir essas impressões, foram aplicados questionários e desenvolvido um modelo fuzzy com um índice associado, que apresenta o nível de sustentabilidade de uma Instituição de Ensino Superior – IES. Isso nos leva a concluir que os sistemas de inferência fuzzy são capazes de fazer uma avaliação do que pode ser percebido pela comunidade universitária sobre a sustentabilidade de sua instituição. / Doutor

Diss. (sammanfattning) Uppsala : Sveriges lantbruksuniversitet, 2004. / Härtill 4 uppsatser.

Since MIT launched the first OpenCourseWare (OCW) initiative in 2002, responses from the academic community have ranged from exuberance to angst. Some institutions have been reluctant to adopt a program of open publishing because of concerns about long-term funding and possible adverse effects on paid enrollment. Money is an issue, forcing some organizations that initially created OCW programs to furlough them due to funding challenges. This study examined the cost of converting online distance learning courses to OCW, the impact of opening these courses on paid enrollments, and the long-term sustainability of OCW through the generation of new paid enrollments. As part of this study, Brigham Young University's Independent Study Program (BYU IS) converted three university and three high school courses to OCW. BYU IS provided an option for OCW users to pay regular tuition and enroll in the online course for credit. The average ongoing cost to convert BYU IS courses to OCW was $284.12 per university course and $1,172.71 per high school course. The six opened courses generated 13,795 visits and 445 total paid enrollments in four months. The profit margin on the paid enrollments OCW generated was calculated to be 3.81% for open publishing to be financially self-sustaining at BYU Independent Study.