Preface

Sustainability is the vehicle that confronts the current dynamic environment of business. Good sustainable business practices are a vehicle to attain competitive advantage, which ultimately makes organizational sustainability undeterred. Conclusively, the significance of corporate governance is inevitable for maintaining sustainability. Organizations have obtained their growth sustainability though competitive advantage but still certain factors can decelerate their performance.

In this regard, sustainable management can augment the efficiency of decision making while ameliorating the corporate governance mechanism. Meanwhile, sustainable management also orientates corporate governance towards corporate social responsibility, which not only attracts the consumer but also suggests that emerging markets should adhere to corporate social responsibility measures. Another contribution of sustainable management is to acclimatize organizations to be accountable before consumers and regulators. Meanwhile, it also recommends specific rules for social, economic, and environmental factors, which influence the business vehemently. Remarkably, sustainable management endorses adherence to particular rules, which can mitigate the unnecessary costs of business while satisfying customers by obeying business ethics strictly.

In the current international environment, it is intensively complicated to prosper in any business without comprehending the pros and cons of catastrophic changes of business, its consequences, and its demands. *Sustainable Management Practices* will unveil with deep insight the current issues related to corporate governance, sustainable business management, and corporate social responsibility. Further, the reader will assimilate the practical concepts while comprehending the theoretical concepts.

The editors would like to acknowledge the help of all those involved in this project. Without their support, this book would not have become a reality. First, the editors would like to thank each of the authors, who contributed their time and expertise to this book. Second, the editors wish to acknowledge the valuable contributions of the reviewers regarding the improvement of quality, coherence, and content of each of the chapters.

> **Dr. Muddassar Sarfraz** Business School, Hohai University, PR China

**Dr. Muhammad Ibrahim Adbullah** Comsats University Islamabad,

Pakistan

**Dr. Abdul Rauf** Southeast University, PR China

**1**

**Chapter 1**

**Abstract**

**1. Introduction**

tion devices.

Over Engagement, Protective or

*Josep M. Blanch, Paola Ochoa and Maria Fernanda Caballero*

Megatrends in the organization and management of work promote intensification and acceleration processes in the form of overload and overtime. These processes, in a framework of deregulation and individualization of labor relations, constitute burnout risk factors. To tackle this contemporary pandemic, the positive occupational psychology proposes engagement as a strategic resource for preventing that syndrome, delaying its appearance, or cushioning its effects. The present study is based on the suspicion that engagement, in addition to functioning as a means of protection against burnout, may also constitute a risk factor for this pathology. The purpose of its exposition is to contextualize, situate, and argue the logic of this approach, and to advance a response proposal to the question about in which circumstances the engagement constitutes a risk factor of burnout: in moderate doses, it works as a protective factor of burnout, while in excessive doses, it acts

**Keywords:** burnout, engagement, protective factor, risk factor, occupational health

During the first decade of the century, a powerful line of empirical research and an equally influential dissemination device in the scientific and managerial fields, together with the positive psychology of organization and work, placed work engagement in the center of the disciplinary and professional scenario, playing the

At the same time, a wide debate has been developing on the nature and specificity of the new construct, on its articulation with that of burnout, and on the metatheoretical background of its construction and application. Most of the discussion focuses not so much on the theoretical and practical utility of the construct, but on the criteria and precautions that should guide the theoretical explanation of the research results and the practical application of the interven-

In general, the literature attributes to the engagement only positive functions of avoidance or minimization of the effects of burnout, reserving for other phenomena of high labor implication, such as workaholism, the role of risk factors of burnout. But this distinction does not seem sufficient to completely eliminate the doubt about whether engagement itself works like a risk factor for burnout. In this study, we will look for the circumstances in which the engagement may facilitate or

Risk Factor of Burnout?

as a risk factor by hiding the warning signs of the syndrome.

role of vaccine against the work burnout pandemic.

mask the appearance of this pathology.

### **Dr. Syed Ghulam Meran Shah**

Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, PR China

### **Chapter 1**

## Over Engagement, Protective or Risk Factor of Burnout?

*Josep M. Blanch, Paola Ochoa and Maria Fernanda Caballero*

### **Abstract**

Megatrends in the organization and management of work promote intensification and acceleration processes in the form of overload and overtime. These processes, in a framework of deregulation and individualization of labor relations, constitute burnout risk factors. To tackle this contemporary pandemic, the positive occupational psychology proposes engagement as a strategic resource for preventing that syndrome, delaying its appearance, or cushioning its effects. The present study is based on the suspicion that engagement, in addition to functioning as a means of protection against burnout, may also constitute a risk factor for this pathology. The purpose of its exposition is to contextualize, situate, and argue the logic of this approach, and to advance a response proposal to the question about in which circumstances the engagement constitutes a risk factor of burnout: in moderate doses, it works as a protective factor of burnout, while in excessive doses, it acts as a risk factor by hiding the warning signs of the syndrome.

**Keywords:** burnout, engagement, protective factor, risk factor, occupational health

### **1. Introduction**

During the first decade of the century, a powerful line of empirical research and an equally influential dissemination device in the scientific and managerial fields, together with the positive psychology of organization and work, placed work engagement in the center of the disciplinary and professional scenario, playing the role of vaccine against the work burnout pandemic.

At the same time, a wide debate has been developing on the nature and specificity of the new construct, on its articulation with that of burnout, and on the metatheoretical background of its construction and application. Most of the discussion focuses not so much on the theoretical and practical utility of the construct, but on the criteria and precautions that should guide the theoretical explanation of the research results and the practical application of the intervention devices.

In general, the literature attributes to the engagement only positive functions of avoidance or minimization of the effects of burnout, reserving for other phenomena of high labor implication, such as workaholism, the role of risk factors of burnout. But this distinction does not seem sufficient to completely eliminate the doubt about whether engagement itself works like a risk factor for burnout. In this study, we will look for the circumstances in which the engagement may facilitate or mask the appearance of this pathology.

First, some macro trends in the world of work that constitute the emergency context of the burnout pandemic will be analyzed, with special emphasis on the naturalization of working conditions and the psychologization of the sources of the burnout. Then will be described some singular developments of positive psychology, travel companion of work engagement theory. Next, some relevant developments on work engagement and engaged workers in positive organizations will be presented, to end with a balance of the lights and shadows that appear in the current panorama of research and theory on the complex engagement-burnout articulation. On this basis, a re-reading of this relationship will be proposed: engagement works as a protective factor for burnout, when applied in moderate doses, and as a risk factor, if it is present in such excessive doses that they mask anticipatory warning signals from the irruption of the syndrome.

### **2. Labor macro trends and new work management**

Recent studies have detected the emergence, on a global scale, of an epidemiological catastrophe of burnout driven by the combined effect of multiple vectors: first, the general dynamics of the labor market toward a scenario characterized by a constant increase in the quantitative and qualitative job demands, in a regime of temporary pressure to execute tasks quickly, and in the framework of an increasing uncertainty and insecurity in employment. This context determines the growing cognitive, emotional, social, and digital work overload in numerous professions, the generalized intensification and acceleration of working time and the corresponding decrease in the time devoted to rest, the dilution of boundaries between work spaces and times, and of nonlabor life, the labor colonization of nonlabor spaces and times, the progressive temporary and social precarization of employment contracts and the flexibilization, deregulation, and individualization of labor relations. In addition, the fulfillment of managerial objectives often demands an over commitment of the workers to the organization, which in the long run can lead to fatigue and exhaustion. This set of transformations constitutes a breeding ground for chronic work stress, considered the main psychosocial risk factor of burnout [1–5].

The last of the five-year reports on Living and Working Conditions in Europe [6] confirms the tendency already pointed out in previous surveys [51] to the significant and sustained increase in the declining European work paradise of the multiple perception of "working at great speed," "with tight deadlines," and with "feeling of general fatigue at work." In the same line, the recent Work and Well-Being Survey, published by the American Psychological Association's (APA's) Center for Organizational Excellence of the American Psychological Association, detects in the United States a fatal combination of overwork, lack of rest time, and almost absence of a managerial culture sensitive to the perverse effects of such excesses and deficiencies for the health of both workers and companies [7]. In the same vein, the second ESENER report highlights the economic, social, and organizational relevance of psychosocial risks and their prevention, while at the same time reflecting a moderate attention given by European businessmen and managers toward occupational safety issues and a remarkably lower interest that they dedicate to the issues concerning the occupational health, as it is the case of the psychosocial risks [8]. For this reason, the International Labor Organization has proposed to change these mentalities, guiding labor policies at a global, regional, and state level not only regarding workers' labor rights, but also regarding the prevention of occupational risks and the promotion of healthy and sustainable work environments [3, 9]. The World Health Organization itself has joined this task [10, 11].

**3**

job [2, 13–21].

*Over Engagement, Protective or Risk Factor of Burnout? DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.81746*

mitted to their work.

organization to the employed person.

The panorama described poses the challenge of balancing the functional imperatives of an organizational culture based on values and norms of the market company, such as efficiency and effectiveness, productivity and competitiveness, profitability and quality, cost-benefit analysis or evaluation by results, with human values, such as health and safety at work, occupational well-being and quality of working life. This difficult balance requires a double task: the effective prevention of the psychosocial risks of burnout and the promotion of healthy employees com-

The concern to prevent the general increase in work stress does not develop in a vacuum, but in the context of the metamorphosis of working conditions driven by the new neoliberal management. This hegemonic current generates a double effect, of objectification and subjectivation. On the one hand, it establishes working conditions under a *management by stress* regime that usually entails overload of work and temporary pressure, circumstances of risk of burnout. On the other, it transfers responsibility for the management of psychosocial risks from the employing

In this context, the psychology of work and its organization shows some lines of internal tension that express its theoretical and practical ambivalence when it comes to the evaluation and prevention of burnout: on the one hand, the orientation more sensitive to social factors explains the phenomenon as an effect of the psychological exhaustion experienced by the worker in given working conditions [12, 13], which the International Labour Office declares "indecent" [9]. Focused in this way, the promotion of engagement contributes to the prevention of burnout to the extent that it is combined with the performance of working conditions that determine chronic work stress. On the other, the most markedly clinical orientation of the discipline and the profession, which adopts the individual as an object of analysis and intervention, focuses on burnout above all as a matter of the same affected person, the agent and victim of the problem. In this sense, psychological wear is visualized as the expression of personal failure in coping with the labor demands that an organization imposes on its employees. The equivalent of this clinical approach to burnout presents engagement as an antagonist of burnout, placing it in the category of "personal resources" to effectively face those organizational demands. This clinical accent is more evident in the field of professional intervention in human talent management than in that of scientific research, which usually manages various combinations of resources located in the person and in the

This identification of different "psychologies" of burnout (and engagement) justifies considering previously the links of engagement theories with the current of positive psychology and with its branch of positive organizational psychology.

The traditional way of knowing production in psychology as a discipline and as a profession over the last century focused its object on mental illnesses, weaknesses, and dysfunctions. Placed in this context, the theory and the clinic of the burnout appear like manifestations of the *negative psychology* which conceives that upheaval like the pathological state to which a person arrived after to have remained a long time exposed to an excessive demand of work that could not or did not know how to face successfully. In contrast, the one related to engagement is inscribed in the line of *positive psychology* [22–24], based on a new approach of the human being that

**3. Positive occupational psychology, background of the work** 

**engagement research and intervention**

*Over Engagement, Protective or Risk Factor of Burnout? DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.81746*

*Sustainable Management Practices*

signals from the irruption of the syndrome.

**2. Labor macro trends and new work management**

First, some macro trends in the world of work that constitute the emergency context of the burnout pandemic will be analyzed, with special emphasis on the naturalization of working conditions and the psychologization of the sources of the burnout. Then will be described some singular developments of positive psychology, travel companion of work engagement theory. Next, some relevant developments on work engagement and engaged workers in positive organizations will be presented, to end with a balance of the lights and shadows that appear in the current panorama of research and theory on the complex engagement-burnout articulation. On this basis, a re-reading of this relationship will be proposed: engagement works as a protective factor for burnout, when applied in moderate doses, and as a risk factor, if it is present in such excessive doses that they mask anticipatory warning

Recent studies have detected the emergence, on a global scale, of an epidemiological catastrophe of burnout driven by the combined effect of multiple vectors: first, the general dynamics of the labor market toward a scenario characterized by a constant increase in the quantitative and qualitative job demands, in a regime of temporary pressure to execute tasks quickly, and in the framework of an increasing uncertainty and insecurity in employment. This context determines the growing cognitive, emotional, social, and digital work overload in numerous professions, the generalized intensification and acceleration of working time and the corresponding decrease in the time devoted to rest, the dilution of boundaries between work spaces and times, and of nonlabor life, the labor colonization of nonlabor spaces and times, the progressive temporary and social precarization of employment contracts and the flexibilization, deregulation, and individualization of labor relations. In addition, the fulfillment of managerial objectives often demands an over commitment of the workers to the organization, which in the long run can lead to fatigue and exhaustion. This set of transformations constitutes a breeding ground for chronic work stress, considered the main psychosocial risk factor of burnout [1–5]. The last of the five-year reports on Living and Working Conditions in Europe [6] confirms the tendency already pointed out in previous surveys [51] to the significant and sustained increase in the declining European work paradise of the multiple perception of "working at great speed," "with tight deadlines," and with "feeling of general fatigue at work." In the same line, the recent Work and Well-Being Survey, published by the American Psychological Association's (APA's) Center for Organizational Excellence of the American Psychological Association, detects in the United States a fatal combination of overwork, lack of rest time, and almost absence of a managerial culture sensitive to the perverse effects of such excesses and deficiencies for the health of both workers and companies [7]. In the same vein, the second ESENER report highlights the economic, social, and organizational relevance of psychosocial risks and their prevention, while at the same time reflecting a moderate attention given by European businessmen and managers toward occupational safety issues and a remarkably lower interest that they dedicate to the issues concerning the occupational health, as it is the case of the psychosocial risks [8]. For this reason, the International Labor Organization has proposed to change these mentalities, guiding labor policies at a global, regional, and state level not only regarding workers' labor rights, but also regarding the prevention of occupational risks and the promotion of healthy and sustainable work environments [3, 9]. The World Health Organization

**2**

itself has joined this task [10, 11].

The panorama described poses the challenge of balancing the functional imperatives of an organizational culture based on values and norms of the market company, such as efficiency and effectiveness, productivity and competitiveness, profitability and quality, cost-benefit analysis or evaluation by results, with human values, such as health and safety at work, occupational well-being and quality of working life. This difficult balance requires a double task: the effective prevention of the psychosocial risks of burnout and the promotion of healthy employees committed to their work.

The concern to prevent the general increase in work stress does not develop in a vacuum, but in the context of the metamorphosis of working conditions driven by the new neoliberal management. This hegemonic current generates a double effect, of objectification and subjectivation. On the one hand, it establishes working conditions under a *management by stress* regime that usually entails overload of work and temporary pressure, circumstances of risk of burnout. On the other, it transfers responsibility for the management of psychosocial risks from the employing organization to the employed person.

In this context, the psychology of work and its organization shows some lines of internal tension that express its theoretical and practical ambivalence when it comes to the evaluation and prevention of burnout: on the one hand, the orientation more sensitive to social factors explains the phenomenon as an effect of the psychological exhaustion experienced by the worker in given working conditions [12, 13], which the International Labour Office declares "indecent" [9]. Focused in this way, the promotion of engagement contributes to the prevention of burnout to the extent that it is combined with the performance of working conditions that determine chronic work stress. On the other, the most markedly clinical orientation of the discipline and the profession, which adopts the individual as an object of analysis and intervention, focuses on burnout above all as a matter of the same affected person, the agent and victim of the problem. In this sense, psychological wear is visualized as the expression of personal failure in coping with the labor demands that an organization imposes on its employees. The equivalent of this clinical approach to burnout presents engagement as an antagonist of burnout, placing it in the category of "personal resources" to effectively face those organizational demands. This clinical accent is more evident in the field of professional intervention in human talent management than in that of scientific research, which usually manages various combinations of resources located in the person and in the job [2, 13–21].

This identification of different "psychologies" of burnout (and engagement) justifies considering previously the links of engagement theories with the current of positive psychology and with its branch of positive organizational psychology.

### **3. Positive occupational psychology, background of the work engagement research and intervention**

The traditional way of knowing production in psychology as a discipline and as a profession over the last century focused its object on mental illnesses, weaknesses, and dysfunctions. Placed in this context, the theory and the clinic of the burnout appear like manifestations of the *negative psychology* which conceives that upheaval like the pathological state to which a person arrived after to have remained a long time exposed to an excessive demand of work that could not or did not know how to face successfully. In contrast, the one related to engagement is inscribed in the line of *positive psychology* [22–24], based on a new approach of the human being that does not focus on the pathology or the "ideology of the disease" [25] but in health and in the study of the phenomena and psychological processes that contribute to the well-being and happiness of people, orienting themselves toward the development of their strengths and the promotion of their optimal functioning [26]. According to Seligman [22], the main driver of the new approach, happy people get sick less, live longer, and function better in everyday life, in their social interactions, and at work. Within the framework of this new trend, promoted by the American Psychological Association (APA), positive occupational psychology studies that optimal functioning in the workplace to discover and promote the factors that allow and facilitate the prosperity of both employees and employers' organizations [15, 17, 20, 27–31].

The psychology of burnout considers both the environmental and personal factors that affect the phenomenon, although with a certain emphasis on the latter. On the other hand, the psychology of engagement, without disregarding the weight of external variables, including both job demands and job resources and their interaction, emphasizes subjective and intrapersonal factors, presenting the same engagement as "state of mind" that is part of the "personal resources" to coping with the "organizational demands" [14–18, 20, 21].

The psychology of engagement is sensitive to the contagion of certain biases of positive psychology, its traveling companion, as its emphasis on adopting the intraindividual and merely subjective as the basic unit of analysis and intervention. One of the models that contributed to reinforce that radically psychological point of view was the one proposed by Boehm and Lyubomirsky [32] in their *Promise of Sustainable Happiness* published in the Oxford Handbook of Positive Psychology. In this influential text, the authors start from the observation that traditionally philosophers, writers, gurus of all kinds, and scientists of the most diverse disciplines have considered well-being and happiness as dependent variables of objective external factors (such as, for example, living and working conditions). However, according to them, there is accumulated scientific evidence that what determines that some people are happier than others are not objective circumstances such as salary or marital status or even life events; that together "explain relatively little variation in people's levels of well-being." The key, according to them, is that "happy people are inclined to perceive and interpret their environment differently from their less happy peers." For that reason, they explore "how an individual's thoughts, behaviors, and motivations can explain their happiness over and above the mere objective circumstances of their life." Their research leads them to conclude that happy individuals tend "to view the world relatively more positively and in a happiness-promoting way," to "describe their previous life experiences (…) as more pleasant," and "to use a positive perspective when evaluating themselves and others."

According to its model of primary determinants of sustainable happiness, "three factors contribute to an individual's chronic happiness level: (a) the set point, (b) life circumstances, and (c) intentional activities, or effortful acts that are naturally variable and episodic." The authors dare to specify the coefficient of determination of each of these three influential factors: to the biophysiological base (set point) corresponds 50% of the causality on chronic happiness, to the life circumstances an insignificant 10%, and to the intentional activities 40%. On the set point, psychology has very little to do. Nor can much be done about external circumstances. Therefore, it is on this important 40% that research and intervention on well-being and happiness should focus. According to the authors, such intentional activities that include, for example, "committing acts of kindness, expressing gratitude or optimism, and savoring joyful life events," represent "the most promising route to sustaining enhanced happiness." In the text, they also describe half a dozen

**5**

*Over Engagement, Protective or Risk Factor of Burnout? DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.81746*

the artificer of his own happiness."

"randomized controlled interventions testing the efficacy of each of these activities in raising and maintaining well-being, as well as the mediators and moderators underlying their effects." His conclusion is that "less happy people can strive to be happier by learning a variety of effective strategies and practicing them with determination and commitment." From this, it implicitly follows that there are no reasons for the unhappy, for objective labor causes to waste their time or spend their energies in trying to change working conditions that entail a high risk of burnout. The path to wellness goes through the development of those subjective strategies. In the nineteenth century, German idealist philosophy was criticized for having limited itself to "interpreting the world" when it was urgent to "transform" it. Here and now the opposite is proposed: There is no need to transform the world; it is enough to reinterpret it, subjectively and individually. In case there is any doubt of the metatheoretical positioning of this "promise of sustainable happiness," in the frontispiece of the concluding remarks of the work is inscribed the well-known phrase of one of the philosophers of individualism, Henry David Thoreau: "Man is

This type of model provides the psychology of burnout with a "scientific" pretext to stop worrying about working conditions as psychosocial risk factors. It would be enough to change the subjective conditions from which each employee faces the objective demands of their organization. Binkley [33, 34] criticizes the radical "psychologism" of positive psychology of happiness for its connections with the program of the "government of neo-liberal interiority." His study on "happiness as enterprise" is presented as "an essay on neoliberal life" [35]. In the same vein, Fabián and Stecher [36] consider this type of positive psychology as a "construction technology of the new neoliberal subject" and relate their new discourses on happiness with the "neoliberal governmentality" and its maxim slogan: "Dedicate yourself to being happy and everything else will follow." For the historian Horowitz [37], the happiness studies promoted by positive psychology seem destined to persuade people that they can be happy even though the conditions of life, work, health, education, and wages are getting worse. Although not all the tendencies of the complex current of positive psychology assume with the same enthusiasm positions as individualistic as the one described, globally they progress in the same direction, questioning the traditional conception of well-being and happiness as effects derived from the conditions of life and moving precisely in the opposite direction: well-being and happiness lead to good results in life and work.

Understanding the conceptual articulation of the engagement model with that of burnout requires considering not only the theoretical implications of the important epistemic turn driven by positive psychology, but also those of that metatheoretical background of individualism underlying happiness studies. And this applies specially to models of work happiness based on the alleged "scientific evidence" that working conditions, as part of life circumstances, only determine 10% of job happiness. It seems unrealistic to claim that a person who goes to work every day to a company managed by stress, with a workday marked by task overload and temporary pressure, under a regime of contractually precarious employment, with low salary and minimum social protection, being object of racial discrimination, sexual harassment, mobbing, and third-party violence, can compensate those small inconveniences through a repertoire of magical rituals based on intentional activities as powerful as friendly faces, smiles of gratitude, refills of intrinsic motivation, or expressions on a role of experiences of happiness or good memories preserved. A conception of engagement as a mere personal resource for the individual management of burnout without touching the working conditions could appear as an

expression of a psychology made to the measure of new management.

*Over Engagement, Protective or Risk Factor of Burnout? DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.81746*

*Sustainable Management Practices*

"organizational demands" [14–18, 20, 21].

tive when evaluating themselves and others."

20, 27–31].

does not focus on the pathology or the "ideology of the disease" [25] but in health and in the study of the phenomena and psychological processes that contribute to the well-being and happiness of people, orienting themselves toward the development of their strengths and the promotion of their optimal functioning [26]. According to Seligman [22], the main driver of the new approach, happy people get sick less, live longer, and function better in everyday life, in their social interactions, and at work. Within the framework of this new trend, promoted by the American Psychological Association (APA), positive occupational psychology studies that optimal functioning in the workplace to discover and promote the factors that allow and facilitate the prosperity of both employees and employers' organizations [15, 17,

The psychology of burnout considers both the environmental and personal factors that affect the phenomenon, although with a certain emphasis on the latter. On the other hand, the psychology of engagement, without disregarding the weight of external variables, including both job demands and job resources and their interaction, emphasizes subjective and intrapersonal factors, presenting the same engagement as "state of mind" that is part of the "personal resources" to coping with the

The psychology of engagement is sensitive to the contagion of certain biases of positive psychology, its traveling companion, as its emphasis on adopting the intraindividual and merely subjective as the basic unit of analysis and intervention. One of the models that contributed to reinforce that radically psychological point of view was the one proposed by Boehm and Lyubomirsky [32] in their *Promise of Sustainable Happiness* published in the Oxford Handbook of Positive Psychology. In this influential text, the authors start from the observation that traditionally philosophers, writers, gurus of all kinds, and scientists of the most diverse disciplines have considered well-being and happiness as dependent variables of objective external factors (such as, for example, living and working conditions). However, according to them, there is accumulated scientific evidence that what determines that some people are happier than others are not objective circumstances such as salary or marital status or even life events; that together "explain relatively little variation in people's levels of well-being." The key, according to them, is that "happy people are inclined to perceive and interpret their environment differently from their less happy peers." For that reason, they explore "how an individual's thoughts, behaviors, and motivations can explain their happiness over and above the mere objective circumstances of their life." Their research leads them to conclude that happy individuals tend "to view the world relatively more positively and in a happiness-promoting way," to "describe their previous life experiences (…) as more pleasant," and "to use a positive perspec-

According to its model of primary determinants of sustainable happiness, "three factors contribute to an individual's chronic happiness level: (a) the set point, (b) life circumstances, and (c) intentional activities, or effortful acts that are naturally variable and episodic." The authors dare to specify the coefficient of determination of each of these three influential factors: to the biophysiological base (set point) corresponds 50% of the causality on chronic happiness, to the life circumstances an insignificant 10%, and to the intentional activities 40%. On the set point, psychology has very little to do. Nor can much be done about external circumstances. Therefore, it is on this important 40% that research and intervention on well-being and happiness should focus. According to the authors, such intentional activities that include, for example, "committing acts of kindness, expressing gratitude or optimism, and savoring joyful life events," represent "the most promising route to sustaining enhanced happiness." In the text, they also describe half a dozen

**4**

"randomized controlled interventions testing the efficacy of each of these activities in raising and maintaining well-being, as well as the mediators and moderators underlying their effects." His conclusion is that "less happy people can strive to be happier by learning a variety of effective strategies and practicing them with determination and commitment." From this, it implicitly follows that there are no reasons for the unhappy, for objective labor causes to waste their time or spend their energies in trying to change working conditions that entail a high risk of burnout. The path to wellness goes through the development of those subjective strategies. In the nineteenth century, German idealist philosophy was criticized for having limited itself to "interpreting the world" when it was urgent to "transform" it. Here and now the opposite is proposed: There is no need to transform the world; it is enough to reinterpret it, subjectively and individually. In case there is any doubt of the metatheoretical positioning of this "promise of sustainable happiness," in the frontispiece of the concluding remarks of the work is inscribed the well-known phrase of one of the philosophers of individualism, Henry David Thoreau: "Man is the artificer of his own happiness."

This type of model provides the psychology of burnout with a "scientific" pretext to stop worrying about working conditions as psychosocial risk factors. It would be enough to change the subjective conditions from which each employee faces the objective demands of their organization. Binkley [33, 34] criticizes the radical "psychologism" of positive psychology of happiness for its connections with the program of the "government of neo-liberal interiority." His study on "happiness as enterprise" is presented as "an essay on neoliberal life" [35]. In the same vein, Fabián and Stecher [36] consider this type of positive psychology as a "construction technology of the new neoliberal subject" and relate their new discourses on happiness with the "neoliberal governmentality" and its maxim slogan: "Dedicate yourself to being happy and everything else will follow." For the historian Horowitz [37], the happiness studies promoted by positive psychology seem destined to persuade people that they can be happy even though the conditions of life, work, health, education, and wages are getting worse. Although not all the tendencies of the complex current of positive psychology assume with the same enthusiasm positions as individualistic as the one described, globally they progress in the same direction, questioning the traditional conception of well-being and happiness as effects derived from the conditions of life and moving precisely in the opposite direction: well-being and happiness lead to good results in life and work.

Understanding the conceptual articulation of the engagement model with that of burnout requires considering not only the theoretical implications of the important epistemic turn driven by positive psychology, but also those of that metatheoretical background of individualism underlying happiness studies. And this applies specially to models of work happiness based on the alleged "scientific evidence" that working conditions, as part of life circumstances, only determine 10% of job happiness. It seems unrealistic to claim that a person who goes to work every day to a company managed by stress, with a workday marked by task overload and temporary pressure, under a regime of contractually precarious employment, with low salary and minimum social protection, being object of racial discrimination, sexual harassment, mobbing, and third-party violence, can compensate those small inconveniences through a repertoire of magical rituals based on intentional activities as powerful as friendly faces, smiles of gratitude, refills of intrinsic motivation, or expressions on a role of experiences of happiness or good memories preserved. A conception of engagement as a mere personal resource for the individual management of burnout without touching the working conditions could appear as an expression of a psychology made to the measure of new management.

### **4. Work engagement and engaged workers in positive organizations**

Kahn [38] used the term engagement to refer to the energy mobilized by certain employees who strive to achieve organizational goals and conceived this state as opposed to burnout. The psychology of engagement burst onto the scene in the period of transition to the new century as a new turn in research and theorization on burnout, and in parallel to the first developments in positive psychology, as a promise of production of healthy and productive workers for healthy, competitive, and sustainable organizations. With a new look of the human being focused less on its limitations and more on its potentialities, positive organizational psychology shifted attention from workers burned by exhaustion to those more vigorous and enthusiastic about their work [2, 39].

The implantation of the concept in occupational psychology went through an initial phase of some reasonable doubts raised about whether the new construct contributed something new and different with respect to others of the same semantic field already implanted in the discipline, such as those of job involvement, work commitment, organizational citizenship behavior, etc. [2]. At the beginning, Maslach and Leiter [12] presented a symmetrically opposed engagement model to that of burnout, explaining this pathological process as the erosion of a healthy state of engagement characterized by energy, involvement, and efficacy. In this process of psychological deterioration, energy is transformed into exhaustion, participation in cynicism, and efficacy into inefficacy. Over time, the engagement adopted the clearly motivational construct format, which includes energy, activation, effort, perseverance, commitment, and intentionality. The extensive literature available allows for a schematic characterization of engagement, of engaged workers and their importance for the optimal functioning of healthy and positive organizations.

Work engagement was defined and operationalized as "a positive, fulfilling, work-related state of mind that is characterized by vigor, dedication, and absorption" [40]. Vigor refers to "high levels of energy and resilience, the willingness to invest effort in one's job, not being easily fatigued, and persistence in the face of difficulties"; dedication refers to "a strong involvement in one's work, accompanied by feelings of enthusiasm and significance, and by a sense of pride and inspiration"; and absorption refers to "a pleasant state of total immersion in one's work which is characterized by time passing quickly and being unable to detaching oneself from the job."

The engagement, as a personal resource, has internal sources of energy such as intrinsic motivation and self-positive feedback; but it is also nourished by environmental factors, such as social support, positive leadership and coaching, performance feedback, task variety, and opportunities to learn and develop. In addition, the engagement is emotionally contagious within the organization and remains at high levels, because the same staff takes care of it, proactively modifying their work environment [14, 15, 19–21].

The literature identifies numerous characteristics of the engaged workers: they are active, autonomous, self-reliant, and self-responsible; have positive self-concept, self-evaluation, and self-esteem; have high levels of physical and mental health, well-being and quality of work life, emotional stability, performance, optimism, flexibility, adaptability, proactivity, prosociality, initiative, creativity, achievement motivation, and social skills and low levels of anxiety, depression, and burnout. They also show good performance, complain little, are rarely conflictive, and have more initiatives to solve problems related to the demands of work. In addition, they are well predisposed to the practice of job crafting, that is, to restructuring job demands and job resources to better meet organizational objectives, by creating

**7**

*Over Engagement, Protective or Risk Factor of Burnout? DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.81746*

resources, job crafting, and self-undermining" [17].

engagement effects (see **Table 1**).

outcomes [14–17, 39].

engagement.

variable [41–43].

make them more competitive and sustainable [14, 15, 19, 20].

**5. Lights and shadows of the work engagement model**

their own great place to work. They have a strong feeling of loyalty to the organization; so, they complain little, generate few tensions, and show a minimal intention to leave the job, the company, or the profession. By sharing and taking on the values of the organization, they commit themselves to them; so, they also require less supervision. Although they "sometimes feel tired," they are at the same time "satisfied" of working and with their work [13–15, 19–21]. Precisely, the balance of the latest developments in the research reinforce the evidence of the "buffering role of various job resources on the relationship between job demands and burnout." This new approach emphasizes the "role of the individual in modifying the impact of job demands and resources on motivation and energy, in the form of personal

Organizations with engaged workers enjoy multiple advantages, such as positive social climate; low levels of turnover, absenteeism, accidents, and conflicts; and high levels of productivity, innovation, and employee performance, all of which

The initial research on work engagement was developed almost in parallel with the design of the *Job Demands-Resources Model—JD-R—*which constitutes the most relevant contribution to the theoretical articulation of burnout-engagement. By *demands* is understood the set of quantitative and qualitative, cognitive, and emotional, physical, and social requirements of work, which involve psychological wear for the employee. The *resources* are the set of material, technical, organizational, and social devices and personal and professional skills available to cope with the job demands. The traditional version of the model explains and predicts burnout as an effect of the prolonged imbalance between high demands and low resources, characteristic of chronic work overload; situation that derives in disengagement, burnout, and malaise. This vicious combination is contrasted by a virtuous combination of high demands and high resources, generating health, well-being, and

The review of the extensive existing literature on the subject provides evidence that there is "distinctive pattern of antecedents and consequences of burnout and work engagement": job demands appear as the main cause of burnout, poor health, and negative organizational outcomes. On the opposite pole, job resources appear as antecedents of work engagement, work well-being, and positive organizational outcomes. With the JD-R model, we can understand, explain, and make predictions about employee burnout, work engagement, and

The positive side of the robustness of the JD-R model is contrasted by a dark side in which, according to various critical views, converge deficiencies, ambiguities, contradictions, and unresolved issues in the engagement model, concerning identity and distinctiveness of engagement, limitations in terms of the levels of analysis applied in research on the subject and potential negative effects of

In general terms, with regard to the first aspect, it is debated whether the engagement refers to a substantive, specific, distinct, univocal, and nonredundant phenomenon with respect to burnout; on whether both constructs constitute two poles of a continuous or two sides of the same coin; about whether their relationship is one of complementarity, compensation, antipodality, antagonism, independence, interdependence, or dialectic and about how much each of them is stable and *Over Engagement, Protective or Risk Factor of Burnout? DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.81746*

*Sustainable Management Practices*

enthusiastic about their work [2, 39].

healthy and positive organizations.

environment [14, 15, 19–21].

**4. Work engagement and engaged workers in positive organizations**

Kahn [38] used the term engagement to refer to the energy mobilized by certain employees who strive to achieve organizational goals and conceived this state as opposed to burnout. The psychology of engagement burst onto the scene in the period of transition to the new century as a new turn in research and theorization on burnout, and in parallel to the first developments in positive psychology, as a promise of production of healthy and productive workers for healthy, competitive, and sustainable organizations. With a new look of the human being focused less on its limitations and more on its potentialities, positive organizational psychology shifted attention from workers burned by exhaustion to those more vigorous and

The implantation of the concept in occupational psychology went through an initial phase of some reasonable doubts raised about whether the new construct contributed something new and different with respect to others of the same semantic field already implanted in the discipline, such as those of job involvement, work commitment, organizational citizenship behavior, etc. [2]. At the beginning, Maslach and Leiter [12] presented a symmetrically opposed engagement model to that of burnout, explaining this pathological process as the erosion of a healthy state of engagement characterized by energy, involvement, and efficacy. In this process of psychological deterioration, energy is transformed into exhaustion, participation in cynicism, and efficacy into inefficacy. Over time, the engagement adopted the clearly motivational construct format, which includes energy, activation, effort, perseverance, commitment, and intentionality. The extensive literature available allows for a schematic characterization of engagement, of engaged workers and their importance for the optimal functioning of

Work engagement was defined and operationalized as "a positive, fulfilling, work-related state of mind that is characterized by vigor, dedication, and absorption" [40]. Vigor refers to "high levels of energy and resilience, the willingness to invest effort in one's job, not being easily fatigued, and persistence in the face of difficulties"; dedication refers to "a strong involvement in one's work, accompanied by feelings of enthusiasm and significance, and by a sense of pride and inspiration"; and absorption refers to "a pleasant state of total immersion in one's work which is characterized by time passing quickly and being unable to detaching oneself from

The engagement, as a personal resource, has internal sources of energy such as intrinsic motivation and self-positive feedback; but it is also nourished by environmental factors, such as social support, positive leadership and coaching, performance feedback, task variety, and opportunities to learn and develop. In addition, the engagement is emotionally contagious within the organization and remains at high levels, because the same staff takes care of it, proactively modifying their work

The literature identifies numerous characteristics of the engaged workers: they are active, autonomous, self-reliant, and self-responsible; have positive self-concept,

self-evaluation, and self-esteem; have high levels of physical and mental health, well-being and quality of work life, emotional stability, performance, optimism, flexibility, adaptability, proactivity, prosociality, initiative, creativity, achievement motivation, and social skills and low levels of anxiety, depression, and burnout. They also show good performance, complain little, are rarely conflictive, and have more initiatives to solve problems related to the demands of work. In addition, they are well predisposed to the practice of job crafting, that is, to restructuring job demands and job resources to better meet organizational objectives, by creating

**6**

the job."

their own great place to work. They have a strong feeling of loyalty to the organization; so, they complain little, generate few tensions, and show a minimal intention to leave the job, the company, or the profession. By sharing and taking on the values of the organization, they commit themselves to them; so, they also require less supervision. Although they "sometimes feel tired," they are at the same time "satisfied" of working and with their work [13–15, 19–21]. Precisely, the balance of the latest developments in the research reinforce the evidence of the "buffering role of various job resources on the relationship between job demands and burnout." This new approach emphasizes the "role of the individual in modifying the impact of job demands and resources on motivation and energy, in the form of personal resources, job crafting, and self-undermining" [17].

Organizations with engaged workers enjoy multiple advantages, such as positive social climate; low levels of turnover, absenteeism, accidents, and conflicts; and high levels of productivity, innovation, and employee performance, all of which make them more competitive and sustainable [14, 15, 19, 20].

### **5. Lights and shadows of the work engagement model**

The initial research on work engagement was developed almost in parallel with the design of the *Job Demands-Resources Model—JD-R—*which constitutes the most relevant contribution to the theoretical articulation of burnout-engagement. By *demands* is understood the set of quantitative and qualitative, cognitive, and emotional, physical, and social requirements of work, which involve psychological wear for the employee. The *resources* are the set of material, technical, organizational, and social devices and personal and professional skills available to cope with the job demands. The traditional version of the model explains and predicts burnout as an effect of the prolonged imbalance between high demands and low resources, characteristic of chronic work overload; situation that derives in disengagement, burnout, and malaise. This vicious combination is contrasted by a virtuous combination of high demands and high resources, generating health, well-being, and engagement effects (see **Table 1**).

The review of the extensive existing literature on the subject provides evidence that there is "distinctive pattern of antecedents and consequences of burnout and work engagement": job demands appear as the main cause of burnout, poor health, and negative organizational outcomes. On the opposite pole, job resources appear as antecedents of work engagement, work well-being, and positive organizational outcomes. With the JD-R model, we can understand, explain, and make predictions about employee burnout, work engagement, and outcomes [14–17, 39].

The positive side of the robustness of the JD-R model is contrasted by a dark side in which, according to various critical views, converge deficiencies, ambiguities, contradictions, and unresolved issues in the engagement model, concerning identity and distinctiveness of engagement, limitations in terms of the levels of analysis applied in research on the subject and potential negative effects of engagement.

In general terms, with regard to the first aspect, it is debated whether the engagement refers to a substantive, specific, distinct, univocal, and nonredundant phenomenon with respect to burnout; on whether both constructs constitute two poles of a continuous or two sides of the same coin; about whether their relationship is one of complementarity, compensation, antipodality, antagonism, independence, interdependence, or dialectic and about how much each of them is stable and variable [41–43].


### **Table 1.**

*Aspects of the JD-R model.*

Regarding the second, conventional research on work engagement usually moves through the sphere of the individual and rarely exceeds the organizational level. This reduction in the analysis and explanation of complex and multidimensional phenomena to its more intraindividual facet is criticized for its effects of "psychologization," which lead to minimize the role of working conditions as a set of ecological, material, technical, economic, social, political, legal, and organizational circumstances within the framework of which activity and labor relations are developed. Such circumstances are not limited to "job demands." They constitute the context in which these demands are produced and dealt with. On a more general level, the literature on the subject rarely considers variables and factors corresponding to the sociocultural, political-legal, economic, and ideological macro-context, which is the matrix of the organizational culture, management models and values, norms, attitudes, and individual motivations that inspire and nourish work engagement [33–37].

The third point connects especially with the focus of interest of this chapter: With all the accumulated information, has any kind of evidence been built about eventual negative, perverse, or collateral psychosocial effects of work engagement? Have people been detected who, being strongly committed to their work and involved with the values and norms of their organization, have gone through processes of depression or burnout for work reasons? According to the mainstream literature, this type of phenomenon must be attributed not to work engagement, but to "workaholics," a form of addictive behavior motivated by the compulsion to work excessively and incessantly that involves a high level of commitment to the work that it seems, but it is not confused with work engagement. Workaholic's behavior is associated with low levels of health, job satisfaction and quality of social relations; the opposite as in work engagement [44–50].

**9**

**Figure 1.**

*Socio-labor environment and work well-being. Source:* [55, 56]*.*

*Over Engagement, Protective or Risk Factor of Burnout? DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.81746*

almost leaves no room for doubt.

burnout with a delayed effect.

**6. Over engagement, protective or risk factor of burnout?**

The conceptual and operational differentiation between work engagement and workaholics serves to put on the positive plate of the balance all the effects of the work engagement and on the negative those of the workaholics, as well as to obtain consistent empirical results from the application of standardized evaluation instruments of both constructs. The panorama seems so simple, clear, and perfect that it

But the results of empirical research that we have been carrying out with public attention services personnel, mainly from the worlds of the academy and the health and justice services [51–54], lead us to suspect that, in the empirical level, things are less clear than in the constructs: (a) In the context of interview and focus group, we have more difficulty distinguishing the indicators of engagement from workaholics than when we read texts on the subject. (b) The survey shows satisfied professionals above all for the material, technical, and social resources available to them and, at the same time, discomfort due to their job conditions regarding work overload and temporary pressure. In the survey, we apply standardized instruments for assessing working conditions, work well-being, burnout, and engagement. The results allow us to identify an irreducible sector of around 20% of the surveyed personnel that gives high scores in both burnout and engagement (not workaholics). A staff often so work engaged that, in natural contexts of returning results to people and groups that had requested it, they have difficulty to recognize how exhausted they really are. Which leads us to an interpretation not in accordance with the mainstream: in many of these cases, work engagement, rather than protecting from burnout, masks it, postponing the moment of becoming aware of it and confronting it proactively. In this circumstance, work engagement could work as a psychosocial risk factor for

How to reconcile this interpretation with the consensus generated among most researchers on the role of engagement as a protector of burnout? A possible *Sustainable Management Practices*

Virtuous combination

Vicious combination

*Inspired by* [14–17, 39]*.*

*Aspects of the JD-R model.*

**Table 1.**

**Working conditions**

**High job demands** combined with **high** (job and personal) **resources**

**High job demands** combined with **low** (job and personal) **resources**

**Job crafting** Proactive physical and cognitive changes employees make in their task and job demands for a better achievement of organizational goals

**Self-undermining Negative:** self-evaluation self-esteem self-efficacy expectations …

Regarding the second, conventional research on work engagement usually moves through the sphere of the individual and rarely exceeds the organizational level. This reduction in the analysis and explanation of complex and multidimensional phenomena to its more intraindividual facet is criticized for its effects of "psychologization," which lead to minimize the role of working conditions as a set of ecological, material, technical, economic, social, political, legal, and organizational circumstances within the framework of which activity and labor relations are developed. Such circumstances are not limited to "job demands." They constitute the context in which these demands are produced and dealt with. On a more general level, the literature on the subject rarely considers variables and factors corresponding to the sociocultural, political-legal, economic, and ideological macro-context, which is the matrix of the organizational culture, management models and values, norms, attitudes, and individual motivations that inspire and nourish work engage-

**Enabling factors Personal outcomes Organizational** 

**Motivation Work engagement** Job satisfaction Well-being Vigor Health Proactivity Flexibility Creativity …

**Strain Work disengagement** Job dissatisfaction Malaise Exhaustion Burnout Anxiety Depression Insecurity …

**outcomes**

**High job performance Achievement** Productivity Competitiveness Efficiency Innovation Success Progress …

**Low job performance Failure** Errors Absenteeism Turnover Conflicts Accidents Injuries …

The third point connects especially with the focus of interest of this chapter: With all the accumulated information, has any kind of evidence been built about eventual negative, perverse, or collateral psychosocial effects of work engagement? Have people been detected who, being strongly committed to their work and involved with the values and norms of their organization, have gone through processes of depression or burnout for work reasons? According to the mainstream literature, this type of phenomenon must be attributed not to work engagement, but to "workaholics," a form of addictive behavior motivated by the compulsion to work excessively and incessantly that involves a high level of commitment to the work that it seems, but it is not confused with work engagement. Workaholic's behavior is associated with low levels of health, job satisfaction and quality of social

relations; the opposite as in work engagement [44–50].

**8**

ment [33–37].

### **6. Over engagement, protective or risk factor of burnout?**

The conceptual and operational differentiation between work engagement and workaholics serves to put on the positive plate of the balance all the effects of the work engagement and on the negative those of the workaholics, as well as to obtain consistent empirical results from the application of standardized evaluation instruments of both constructs. The panorama seems so simple, clear, and perfect that it almost leaves no room for doubt.

But the results of empirical research that we have been carrying out with public attention services personnel, mainly from the worlds of the academy and the health and justice services [51–54], lead us to suspect that, in the empirical level, things are less clear than in the constructs: (a) In the context of interview and focus group, we have more difficulty distinguishing the indicators of engagement from workaholics than when we read texts on the subject. (b) The survey shows satisfied professionals above all for the material, technical, and social resources available to them and, at the same time, discomfort due to their job conditions regarding work overload and temporary pressure. In the survey, we apply standardized instruments for assessing working conditions, work well-being, burnout, and engagement. The results allow us to identify an irreducible sector of around 20% of the surveyed personnel that gives high scores in both burnout and engagement (not workaholics). A staff often so work engaged that, in natural contexts of returning results to people and groups that had requested it, they have difficulty to recognize how exhausted they really are. Which leads us to an interpretation not in accordance with the mainstream: in many of these cases, work engagement, rather than protecting from burnout, masks it, postponing the moment of becoming aware of it and confronting it proactively. In this circumstance, work engagement could work as a psychosocial risk factor for burnout with a delayed effect.

How to reconcile this interpretation with the consensus generated among most researchers on the role of engagement as a protector of burnout? A possible

### *Sustainable Management Practices*

answer to this question is provided by Warr's vitamin model [55, 56] on the sociooccupational determinants of psychological well-being, inspired by the role played by vitamins in the physical health of organisms (See **Figure 1**).

The application of this model allows to conceive the stress in the employment in terms of toxic effects attributable to hypervitaminosis due to over-demand of work and the one that occurs in unemployment because of psychosocial hypovitaminosis due to deficit of environmental features. Applying the same logic to the field of the relationship between work engagement and burnout, a vitamin deficit of engagement makes the person more vulnerable to burnout. An optimal level of such vitamin effectively prevents burnout, and an excessive level of engagement (not workaholics) could work as a risk factor for burnout by blocking alert signals and allowing the person to continue accumulating fatigue. This interpretation, still in the initial phase of formulation, has relevance in the double plane of theory and practice, which opens the way for future studies and developments in this field.

### **Author details**

Josep M. Blanch1,2\*, Paola Ochoa3 and María Fernanda Caballero4

1 Universidad San Buenaventura (USB-Cali), Cali, Colombia

2 Autonomous University of Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain

3 Escuela Superior Politécnica del Litoral, ESPOL, ESPAE Graduate School of Management, ESPOL Polytechnic University, Guayaquil, Ecuador

4 National Open and Distance University, Palmira, Colombia

\*Address all correspondence to: jmbr.blanch@gmail.com

© 2018 The Author(s). Licensee IntechOpen. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

**11**

WHO; 2010

2016

*Over Engagement, Protective or Risk Factor of Burnout? DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.81746*

> [12] Maslach C, Leiter MP. The Truth about Burnout: How Organizations Cause Personal Stress and What to Do About It. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-

[13] Leiter MP, Maslach C. Burnout and engagement: contributions to a new vision. Burnout Research. 2017;**5**:55-57

[14] Albrecht SL, editor. Handbook of Employee Engagement: Perspectives, Issues, Research and Practice. Glos, United Kingdom: Edward Elgar; 2010

[15] Bakker AB, Albrecht S. Work engagement: Current trends. Career Development International.

[16] Bakker AB, Demerouti E. The job demands-resources model: State of the art. Journal of Managerial Psychology.

[17] Bakker AB, Demerouti E. Job demands-resources theory: Taking stock and looking forward. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology.

[18] Bakker AB, Demerouti E, Sanz-Vergel AI. Burnout and work engagement: The JD-R Approach. The Annual Review of Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior. 2014;**1**:389-411

Psychology Press; 2010

[19] Bakker AB, Leiter MP, editors. Work Engagement: A Handbook of Essential Theory and Research. New York:

[20] Bakker AB. Job crafting among health care professionals: The role of work engagement. Journal of Nursing

[21] Schaufeli WB. What is Engagement? Employee Engagement in Theory and Practice. London: Routledge; 2013

Management. 2018;**26**:321-331

Bass; 1997

2018;**23**:4-11

2007;**22**:309-328

2017;**22**:273-285

[1] Ulferts H, Korunka C, Kubicek B. Acceleration in working life: An empirical test of a sociological framework. Time & Society.

[2] Schaufeli WB, Leiter WP, Maslach C. Burnout: 35 years of research and practice. Career Development International. 2009;**14**(3):204-220

enfermedades profesionales. Geneva: International Labour Office; 2013

[4] EU-OSHA. Psychosocial risks in Europe: Prevalence and strategies for Prevention. Bilbao: European Agency for Safety and Health at Work; 2014

[5] Winston TR, editor. Handbook on Burnout and Sleep Deprivation: Risk Factors, Management Strategies and Impact on Performance and Behavior. New York: Nova Science Publishers; 2015

[6] Eurofound. Sixth European Working Conditions Survey—Overview report. Luxembourg: Publications Office of the

[7] APA. Work and Well-Being Survey. Washington, DC: APA's Center for Organizational Excellence; 2018

[8] EU-OSHA. Second European survey of enterprises on new and emerging risks (ESENER-2). Bilbao: European Agency for Safety and Health at Work;

[9] ILO. Decent Work Indicators. Concepts and Definitions. ILO Manual. Geneva: International Labour Office; 2012

[10] WHO. Healthy workplaces: A WHO Global Model for Action. Geneva:

[11] WHO. Benefits of Workforce Health

Promotion. Geneva: WHO; 2017

European Union; 2016

[3] ILO. La prevención de las

2013;**22**(2):161-185

**References**

*Over Engagement, Protective or Risk Factor of Burnout? DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.81746*

### **References**

*Sustainable Management Practices*

answer to this question is provided by Warr's vitamin model [55, 56] on the sociooccupational determinants of psychological well-being, inspired by the role played

The application of this model allows to conceive the stress in the employment in terms of toxic effects attributable to hypervitaminosis due to over-demand of work and the one that occurs in unemployment because of psychosocial hypovitaminosis due to deficit of environmental features. Applying the same logic to the field of the relationship between work engagement and burnout, a vitamin deficit of engagement makes the person more vulnerable to burnout. An optimal level of such vitamin effectively prevents burnout, and an excessive level of engagement (not workaholics) could work as a risk factor for burnout by blocking alert signals and allowing the person to continue accumulating fatigue. This interpretation, still in the initial phase of formulation, has relevance in the double plane of theory and practice, which opens the way for future studies and developments in this field.

by vitamins in the physical health of organisms (See **Figure 1**).

**10**

**Author details**

Josep M. Blanch1,2\*, Paola Ochoa3

1 Universidad San Buenaventura (USB-Cali), Cali, Colombia

Management, ESPOL Polytechnic University, Guayaquil, Ecuador

4 National Open and Distance University, Palmira, Colombia

\*Address all correspondence to: jmbr.blanch@gmail.com

2 Autonomous University of Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain

provided the original work is properly cited.

© 2018 The Author(s). Licensee IntechOpen. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium,

3 Escuela Superior Politécnica del Litoral, ESPOL, ESPAE Graduate School of

and María Fernanda Caballero4

[1] Ulferts H, Korunka C, Kubicek B. Acceleration in working life: An empirical test of a sociological framework. Time & Society. 2013;**22**(2):161-185

[2] Schaufeli WB, Leiter WP, Maslach C. Burnout: 35 years of research and practice. Career Development International. 2009;**14**(3):204-220

[3] ILO. La prevención de las enfermedades profesionales. Geneva: International Labour Office; 2013

[4] EU-OSHA. Psychosocial risks in Europe: Prevalence and strategies for Prevention. Bilbao: European Agency for Safety and Health at Work; 2014

[5] Winston TR, editor. Handbook on Burnout and Sleep Deprivation: Risk Factors, Management Strategies and Impact on Performance and Behavior. New York: Nova Science Publishers; 2015

[6] Eurofound. Sixth European Working Conditions Survey—Overview report. Luxembourg: Publications Office of the European Union; 2016

[7] APA. Work and Well-Being Survey. Washington, DC: APA's Center for Organizational Excellence; 2018

[8] EU-OSHA. Second European survey of enterprises on new and emerging risks (ESENER-2). Bilbao: European Agency for Safety and Health at Work; 2016

[9] ILO. Decent Work Indicators. Concepts and Definitions. ILO Manual. Geneva: International Labour Office; 2012

[10] WHO. Healthy workplaces: A WHO Global Model for Action. Geneva: WHO; 2010

[11] WHO. Benefits of Workforce Health Promotion. Geneva: WHO; 2017

[12] Maslach C, Leiter MP. The Truth about Burnout: How Organizations Cause Personal Stress and What to Do About It. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass; 1997

[13] Leiter MP, Maslach C. Burnout and engagement: contributions to a new vision. Burnout Research. 2017;**5**:55-57

[14] Albrecht SL, editor. Handbook of Employee Engagement: Perspectives, Issues, Research and Practice. Glos, United Kingdom: Edward Elgar; 2010

[15] Bakker AB, Albrecht S. Work engagement: Current trends. Career Development International. 2018;**23**:4-11

[16] Bakker AB, Demerouti E. The job demands-resources model: State of the art. Journal of Managerial Psychology. 2007;**22**:309-328

[17] Bakker AB, Demerouti E. Job demands-resources theory: Taking stock and looking forward. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology. 2017;**22**:273-285

[18] Bakker AB, Demerouti E, Sanz-Vergel AI. Burnout and work engagement: The JD-R Approach. The Annual Review of Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior. 2014;**1**:389-411

[19] Bakker AB, Leiter MP, editors. Work Engagement: A Handbook of Essential Theory and Research. New York: Psychology Press; 2010

[20] Bakker AB. Job crafting among health care professionals: The role of work engagement. Journal of Nursing Management. 2018;**26**:321-331

[21] Schaufeli WB. What is Engagement? Employee Engagement in Theory and Practice. London: Routledge; 2013

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[36] Fabián R, Stecher A. New discourses on happiness and neoliberal governmentality: "Dedicate yourself to being happy and everything else will follow". Sociedad Hoy. 2013;**25**:29-46

[37] Horovitz D. Happier? The History of a Cultural Movement That Aspired to Transform America. New York: Oxford University Press; 2018

[38] Kahn WA. Psychological conditions of personal engagement and disengagement at work. Academy of Management Journal. 1990;**33**:692-724

[39] Schaufeli WB, Bakker AB. Job demands, job resources, and their relationship with burnout and engagement: A multi-sample study. Journal of Organizational Behavior. 2004;**25**(3):293-315

[40] Schaufeli WB, Salanova M, González-Romá V, Bakker AB. The measurement of burnout and engagement: A confirmatory factor analytic approach. Journal of Happiness Studies. 2002;**3**:71-92

[41] Demerouti E, Mostert K, Bakker AB. Burnout and work engagement:

**13**

*Over Engagement, Protective or Risk Factor of Burnout? DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.81746*

> [49] Schaufeli WB, Bakker AB, Van Rhenen W. Workaholism, burnout, and work engagement: Three of a kind or three different kinds of employee well-being? Applied Psychology: An International Review.

> [50] Zeijen ME, Peeters MC, Hakanen

engagement and job crafting: What is the role of self-management strategies? Human Resource Management Journal.

[51] Blanch JM. Quality of working life in commoditized hospitals and universities. Papeles del Psicólogo.

[52] Granero A, Blanch JM, Ochoa P. Labor conditions and the meanings of nursing work in Barcelona. Revista Latino-Americana de Enfermagem.

[53] Ochoa P. Impact of burnout on organizational outcomes, the influence of legal demands: The case of Ecuadorian physicians. Frontiers in

[54] Ochoa P, Blanch JM. Work, malaise, and well-being in Spanish and Latin-American doctors. Revista de Saúde

[55] Warr P. Work, Unemployment and Mental Health. Oxford, United Kingdom: Oxford University Press; 1987

[56] Warr P. Work, Happiness and Unhappiness. Mahwah, NJ: LEA; 2007

Psychology. 2018;**9**:662

Publica. 2016;**50**:21

JJ. Workaholism versus work

2008;**57**(2):173-203

2018;**28**(2):357-373

2014;**35**(1):40-47

2018;**26**:e2947

A thorough investigation of the independency of both constructs. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology. 2010;**15**:209-222

Behavior. 2006;**62**:165-174

in Psychology. 2017;**8**:2045

Elgar; 2010. pp. 264-271

2009;**23**:155-172

2009;**16**:249-272

[45] Bakker AB, Demerouti E, Burke R. Workaholism and relationship quality: A spillover-crossover perspective. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology. 2009;**14**:23-33

[46] Gorgievski MJ, Bakker AB. Passion for work: Work engagement versus workaholism. In: Albrecht SL, editor. Handbook of Employee Engagement: Perspectives, Issues, Research and Practice. Glos, United Kingdom: Edward

[47] Schaufeli WB, Bakker AB, Van der Heijden FMMA, Prins JT. Workaholism,

[48] Schaufeli WB, Bakker AB, Van der Heijden FMMA, Prins JT. Workaholism among medical residents: It is the combination of working excessively and compulsively that counts. International

burnout and wellbeing among junior doctors: The mediating role of role conflict. Work & Stress.

Journal of Stress Management.

[42] Gonzalez-Roma V, Schaufeli WB, Bakker AB, Lloret S. Burnout and work engagement: Independent factors or opposite poles? Journal of Vocational

[43] Hallberg UE, Schaufeli WB. "Same" but different? Can work engagement be discriminated from job involvement and organizational commitment? European Psychologist. 2006;**11**(2):119-127

[44] Andreassen CS, Bakker AB, Bjorvatn B, Moen BE, Mageroy N, Shimazu A, et al. Working conditions and individual differences are weakly associated with workaholism: A 2-3-year prospective study of shift-working nurses. Frontiers

*Over Engagement, Protective or Risk Factor of Burnout? DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.81746*

A thorough investigation of the independency of both constructs. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology. 2010;**15**:209-222

*Sustainable Management Practices*

2000;**55**(1):5-14

2005;**60**:410-421

2008;**57**:54-70

Penguin Press; 2008

2008;**29**:147-154

[22] Seligman ME. Authentic Happiness: Using the New Positive Psychology to Realize Your Potential for Lasting Fulfillment. New York: Free Press; 2002

In: Shane JL, Snyder CR, editors. The Oxford Handbook of Positive Psychology. New York: Oxford Press;

[33] Binkley S. Happiness, positive psychology and the program of

[34] Binkley S. Psychological life as enterprise: Social practice and the government of neo-liberal interiority. History of the Human Sciences.

[35] Binkley S. Happiness as Enterprise: An Essay on Neoliberal Life. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press;

discourses on happiness and neoliberal governmentality: "Dedicate yourself to being happy and everything else will follow". Sociedad Hoy. 2013;**25**:29-46

[37] Horovitz D. Happier? The History of a Cultural Movement That Aspired to Transform America. New York: Oxford

conditions of personal engagement and disengagement at work. Academy of Management Journal. 1990;**33**:692-724

[39] Schaufeli WB, Bakker AB. Job demands, job resources, and their relationship with burnout and engagement: A multi-sample study. Journal of Organizational Behavior.

[40] Schaufeli WB, Salanova M, González-Romá V, Bakker AB. The measurement of burnout and engagement: A confirmatory factor analytic approach. Journal of Happiness

[41] Demerouti E, Mostert K, Bakker AB. Burnout and work engagement:

[36] Fabián R, Stecher A. New

University Press; 2018

2004;**25**(3):293-315

Studies. 2002;**3**:71-92

[38] Kahn WA. Psychological

neoliberal governmentality. Subjectivity.

2009. pp. 1-21

2011;**4**(4):371-394

2011b;**24**(3):83-102

2014

[23] Seligman M, Csikszentmihalyi M. Positive psychology. An Introduction. American Psychological Association.

[24] Seligman ME, Steen TA, Park N, Peterson C. Positive psychology progress: Empirical validation of interventions. American Psychologist.

[26] Lyubomirsky S. The How of Happiness: A Scientific Approach to Getting the Life You Want. New York:

[27] Bakker AB, Rodríguez-Muñoz A, Derks D. The emergence of positive occupational health psychology. Psicothema. 2012;**24**:66-72

[28] Bakker AB, Schaufeli WB. Positive organizational behavior: Engaged employees in flourishing organizations. Journal of Organizational Behavior.

[29] Cameron KS, Spreitzer GM, editors. The Oxford Handbook of Positive Organizational Scholarship. New York:

Oxford University Press; 2011

[30] Leka S, Houdmont J, editors. Occupational Health Psychology: A Key Text. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell; 2010

[32] Boehm J, Lyubomirsky S. The promise of sustainable happiness.

[31] Linley PA, Harrington S, Garcea N, editors. Oxford Handbook of Positive Psychology and Work. Oxford, United Kingdom: Oxford University Press; 2010

[25] Maddux JE. Positive psychology and the illness ideology: Toward a positive clinical psychology. Applied Psychology.

**12**

[42] Gonzalez-Roma V, Schaufeli WB, Bakker AB, Lloret S. Burnout and work engagement: Independent factors or opposite poles? Journal of Vocational Behavior. 2006;**62**:165-174

[43] Hallberg UE, Schaufeli WB. "Same" but different? Can work engagement be discriminated from job involvement and organizational commitment? European Psychologist. 2006;**11**(2):119-127

[44] Andreassen CS, Bakker AB, Bjorvatn B, Moen BE, Mageroy N, Shimazu A, et al. Working conditions and individual differences are weakly associated with workaholism: A 2-3-year prospective study of shift-working nurses. Frontiers in Psychology. 2017;**8**:2045

[45] Bakker AB, Demerouti E, Burke R. Workaholism and relationship quality: A spillover-crossover perspective. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology. 2009;**14**:23-33

[46] Gorgievski MJ, Bakker AB. Passion for work: Work engagement versus workaholism. In: Albrecht SL, editor. Handbook of Employee Engagement: Perspectives, Issues, Research and Practice. Glos, United Kingdom: Edward Elgar; 2010. pp. 264-271

[47] Schaufeli WB, Bakker AB, Van der Heijden FMMA, Prins JT. Workaholism, burnout and wellbeing among junior doctors: The mediating role of role conflict. Work & Stress. 2009;**23**:155-172

[48] Schaufeli WB, Bakker AB, Van der Heijden FMMA, Prins JT. Workaholism among medical residents: It is the combination of working excessively and compulsively that counts. International Journal of Stress Management. 2009;**16**:249-272

[49] Schaufeli WB, Bakker AB, Van Rhenen W. Workaholism, burnout, and work engagement: Three of a kind or three different kinds of employee well-being? Applied Psychology: An International Review. 2008;**57**(2):173-203

[50] Zeijen ME, Peeters MC, Hakanen JJ. Workaholism versus work engagement and job crafting: What is the role of self-management strategies? Human Resource Management Journal. 2018;**28**(2):357-373

[51] Blanch JM. Quality of working life in commoditized hospitals and universities. Papeles del Psicólogo. 2014;**35**(1):40-47

[52] Granero A, Blanch JM, Ochoa P. Labor conditions and the meanings of nursing work in Barcelona. Revista Latino-Americana de Enfermagem. 2018;**26**:e2947

[53] Ochoa P. Impact of burnout on organizational outcomes, the influence of legal demands: The case of Ecuadorian physicians. Frontiers in Psychology. 2018;**9**:662

[54] Ochoa P, Blanch JM. Work, malaise, and well-being in Spanish and Latin-American doctors. Revista de Saúde Publica. 2016;**50**:21

[55] Warr P. Work, Unemployment and Mental Health. Oxford, United Kingdom: Oxford University Press; 1987

[56] Warr P. Work, Happiness and Unhappiness. Mahwah, NJ: LEA; 2007

**15**

**Chapter 2**

**Abstract**

**1. Introduction**

*Cătălin Popescu*

Adaptive Sustainable Academic

The unpredictable evolution at global level, in all aspects of society, as a whole, requires close attention from all socio-economic and even political entities, as well as from human decision-makers at various levels, in order to find viable solutions for what a robust and harmonious development of the whole society means. From this perspective, an essential role must be taken by academics and universities. Universities can be considered the true engines of society in terms of promoting, spreading and acquiring the elements that are defining sustainable development. University decision-makers have an obligation to resort to practices adapted to the evolution of the concept of sustainable development in relation to what is happening in the economic, social, political, demographic, ecological or technological spheres. A state of acceptance and awareness has to be created by all of what the

**Keywords:** sustainable university, strategic sustainability, entrepreneurial university,

Each generation has the same goals, which aim at growth and technological,

economic and social development, which means a better life. The perseverance for achieving these goals has enabled mankind to reach its current state of development. Undesirable and avoidable side effects are added to those that are favorable. More and more resources are becoming insufficient as the climate is changing in a negative way and the deterioration of the environment is increasing. Society is increasingly unbalanced, the rich become richer and the poor are getting poorer, many countries have serious difficulties in securing enough food, money and other resources as stated in Ref. [1]. The future and the sustainability of this planet, Terra, are constantly being jeopardized by the lethal actions of mankind, and it is almost exclusively our responsibility to adopt long-term strategies to mitigate the consequences we have been experiencing for a long time. On a planet that currently has 7.7 billion people, each action or lack of action generates a labyrinth of consequences, both in society and the environment both globally and locally. Mankind began to understand, under the effect of several constraints, that if it continues to consume unwarranted, dispel and ignore the signals of this lifestyle, it will self-destruct. The crisis from 2007 to 2008, as well as the forthcoming likely financial crisis, is nothing more than a concrete proof of the negative effects caused by unhealthy habits and over-reliance.

Management Practices

society needs to prepare for future generations.

academic decision-makers, adaptive change

### **Chapter 2**

## Adaptive Sustainable Academic Management Practices

*Cătălin Popescu*

### **Abstract**

The unpredictable evolution at global level, in all aspects of society, as a whole, requires close attention from all socio-economic and even political entities, as well as from human decision-makers at various levels, in order to find viable solutions for what a robust and harmonious development of the whole society means. From this perspective, an essential role must be taken by academics and universities. Universities can be considered the true engines of society in terms of promoting, spreading and acquiring the elements that are defining sustainable development. University decision-makers have an obligation to resort to practices adapted to the evolution of the concept of sustainable development in relation to what is happening in the economic, social, political, demographic, ecological or technological spheres. A state of acceptance and awareness has to be created by all of what the society needs to prepare for future generations.

**Keywords:** sustainable university, strategic sustainability, entrepreneurial university, academic decision-makers, adaptive change

### **1. Introduction**

Each generation has the same goals, which aim at growth and technological, economic and social development, which means a better life. The perseverance for achieving these goals has enabled mankind to reach its current state of development. Undesirable and avoidable side effects are added to those that are favorable. More and more resources are becoming insufficient as the climate is changing in a negative way and the deterioration of the environment is increasing. Society is increasingly unbalanced, the rich become richer and the poor are getting poorer, many countries have serious difficulties in securing enough food, money and other resources as stated in Ref. [1]. The future and the sustainability of this planet, Terra, are constantly being jeopardized by the lethal actions of mankind, and it is almost exclusively our responsibility to adopt long-term strategies to mitigate the consequences we have been experiencing for a long time. On a planet that currently has 7.7 billion people, each action or lack of action generates a labyrinth of consequences, both in society and the environment both globally and locally. Mankind began to understand, under the effect of several constraints, that if it continues to consume unwarranted, dispel and ignore the signals of this lifestyle, it will self-destruct. The crisis from 2007 to 2008, as well as the forthcoming likely financial crisis, is nothing more than a concrete proof of the negative effects caused by unhealthy habits and over-reliance.

Prolonged prosperity in the last 30 years has fueled these habits and over-reliance, and they mean that promises of modern economics can create the conditions of their own failure, according to Ref. [2].

Low inflation, high employment rates, rising stock prices and the housing market have led to the conviction that economics and economic growth would be less risky. Trust has become unjustifiably optimistic and the population has taken increasing risks (see [1]). Over the course of time, theories on the causes of the crisis have been proposed, but we can agree with Ref. [3], which declares that the deep explanations of the global crisis are found in the following three hypotheses, which are the hypothesis of government failure, the market failure and rising prosperity. Discussing these hypotheses leads to the conclusion that the crisis is the result of unwanted effects of unsustainable lifestyles and underlines the need for a new development model. In this respect, this new development model is related to the sustainable education approach. According to the UNESCO approach, Education for Sustainable Development aspires to *"empower learners to take informed decisions and responsible actions"* [4]*.* Sustainable development in education is increasingly focusing on the role of the formal education sector in partnership with the community as a key player in facilitating the education of society that is needed to meet the growing challenges posed by the environmental and social components of sustainable development.

Therefore, the main objectives of this study are to describe the role and the involvement of the universities in the future society and, also, explain what type of solutions use these universities in terms of sustainable management practices. This concept of sustainable education is related to a full and active academic community involvement that has to use adequate managerial practices, in order to design complex study programs, through the three well known pillars of sustainability, by having as major goals creation of adaptive knowledge abilities and improvement of the quality of life. Universities' role has changed in the last years, from teaching and basic research to the transfer of knowledge and skills in applied research that has to have a commercial and sustainable purpose, so that the universities are now connected to the economic, social and environmental evolution. On the other hand, many educational systems from all over the world have launched programs aiming to increase academic standards and to reconcile concerns for excellence with concerns for equity. Some of these programs have failed to reach their ambitious goals. Meanwhile, the rapid changes taking place in the globalizing world call for major educational reform in which the needs of all students are taken into account, the natural resources of the educational environment are not depleted, and the young generation is optimally prepared to meet the demands of the future world [5]. In order to produce sustainable outputs, there are required important actions starting with adequate curriculum design, teaching methodologies, teacher trainings and equity-enhancing programs. Another requirement in terms of Education for Sustainable Development is to include in the teaching, learning and research processes critical issues such as climate change, biodiversity, sustainable consumption, identifying and replacing conventional energy resources, etc. Since these issues are vital to the entire society, it is necessary to create a number of competencies such as critical thinking or imagining future scenarios that help solve the problems that human society will face in the near or far future. By doing all of these, every human being will get the knowledge, skills and attitudes required for a proper behavior that seeks a sustainable future for next generations. In line with the above mentioned things, an important work contains the top five pedagogical approaches required in the education for sustainable development such as critical reflection, systemic thinking and analysis, participatory learning, thinking creatively for future scenarios and collaborative learning [6].

**17**

*Adaptive Sustainable Academic Management Practices DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.87018*

energy to sustain human life on Earth.

and learner-centered way.

or more distant future.

general knowledge (e.g. see [11]).

**2. The concept of "sustainable university"**

On the other hand, today, from all the sustainable development dimensions, the economic sustainability is probably the most important one for the universities, since the future in academia is linked to entrepreneurial university, university spin-offs and start-up initiatives within universities. But, in order to gain economic sustainability, an ecological economy is needed. This type of economy must create renewable resources if necessary, use non-renewable resources when the renewable ones fall down and supervise the level of emissions with negative impact on the environment, as is stated in [7]. At the same time, according to [8], economic sustainability depends on the ability of natural ecosystems to obtain and store enough

In the same time, universities set-up "academic programs related to the environmental dimension of sustainability that have grown exponentially across the physical, natural, and social sciences, as well as the humanities and the professions,

Universities are seen as critical entities in the future. In this regard, "higher education institutions have a critical role to play in implementing and driving sustainable development initiatives through their institutional policies and practices" [10]. A sustainable university represents an educational institution that trains properly all the willing and interested persons for sustainable development, provides new insights into urgent social challenges and decreases the environmental and social footprints of its campus operations. One important role of a sustainable university is to empower students to learn about sustainability in an inter-disciplinary

The sustainability challenges universities around the world to rethink their mission and to restructure university curricula, research programs and campus life. Graduates are increasingly exposed to concepts of sustainability that are emotionally, politically, ethically and scientifically loaded. They must be able to cope with conflicting norms and values, with uncertain results and ideas, as well as changing

The sustainable university is considering running programs to generate expertise on sustainability issues, in the idea of being an example to society as a whole, through resource conservation programs, waste recycling and waste management and, of course, by focusing on education, research and policy formulation to create a sustainable future. The objectives of sustainable education are to develop students' awareness of their own responsibilities and develop their capacity to contribute to solving sustainability issues. It is also possible to propose the development of trans-disciplinary skills to equip prospective graduates with knowledge, skills and competencies to identify and solve the problems that humanity will face in the near

Universities must devote resources intelligently to become sustainable and to provide students with a living experience in a sustainable environment. At the level of university education, sustainable development refers to the management of specific processes and activities, always taking into account the fundamental and sustainable objective of increasing the quality of services provided by representative institutions. The greatest contribution that higher education can have in sustainable development is to determine students to acquire the skills and knowledge that enable them to make a lasting difference and to make them more responsible in economic, social and environmental terms. What it learns and what is learned is, therefore, critical. The vision is supported by the United Nations, which set the

but the attention to on-campus sustainability has grown even faster" [9].

*Sustainable Management Practices*

able development.

their own failure, according to Ref. [2].

Prolonged prosperity in the last 30 years has fueled these habits and over-reliance, and they mean that promises of modern economics can create the conditions of

Low inflation, high employment rates, rising stock prices and the housing market have led to the conviction that economics and economic growth would be less risky. Trust has become unjustifiably optimistic and the population has taken increasing risks (see [1]). Over the course of time, theories on the causes of the crisis have been proposed, but we can agree with Ref. [3], which declares that the deep explanations of the global crisis are found in the following three hypotheses, which are the hypothesis of government failure, the market failure and rising prosperity. Discussing these hypotheses leads to the conclusion that the crisis is the result of unwanted effects of unsustainable lifestyles and underlines the need for a new development model. In this respect, this new development model is related to the sustainable education approach. According to the UNESCO approach, Education for Sustainable Development aspires to *"empower learners to take informed decisions and responsible actions"* [4]*.* Sustainable development in education is increasingly focusing on the role of the formal education sector in partnership with the community as a key player in facilitating the education of society that is needed to meet the growing challenges posed by the environmental and social components of sustain-

Therefore, the main objectives of this study are to describe the role and the involvement of the universities in the future society and, also, explain what type of solutions use these universities in terms of sustainable management practices. This concept of sustainable education is related to a full and active academic community involvement that has to use adequate managerial practices, in order to design complex study programs, through the three well known pillars of sustainability, by having as major goals creation of adaptive knowledge abilities and improvement of the quality of life. Universities' role has changed in the last years, from teaching and basic research to the transfer of knowledge and skills in applied research that has to have a commercial and sustainable purpose, so that the universities are now connected to the economic, social and environmental evolution. On the other hand, many educational systems from all over the world have launched programs aiming to increase academic standards and to reconcile concerns for excellence with concerns for equity. Some of these programs have failed to reach their ambitious goals. Meanwhile, the rapid changes taking place in the globalizing world call for major educational reform in which the needs of all students are taken into account, the natural resources of the educational environment are not depleted, and the young generation is optimally prepared to meet the demands of the future world [5]. In order to produce sustainable outputs, there are required important actions starting with adequate curriculum design, teaching methodologies, teacher trainings and equity-enhancing programs. Another requirement in terms of Education for Sustainable Development is to include in the teaching, learning and research processes critical issues such as climate change, biodiversity, sustainable consumption, identifying and replacing conventional energy resources, etc. Since these issues are vital to the entire society, it is necessary to create a number of competencies such as critical thinking or imagining future scenarios that help solve the problems that human society will face in the near or far future. By doing all of these, every human being will get the knowledge, skills and attitudes required for a proper behavior that seeks a sustainable future for next generations. In line with the above mentioned things, an important work contains the top five pedagogical approaches required in the education for sustainable development such as critical reflection, systemic thinking and analysis, participatory learning, thinking creatively for future sce-

**16**

narios and collaborative learning [6].

On the other hand, today, from all the sustainable development dimensions, the economic sustainability is probably the most important one for the universities, since the future in academia is linked to entrepreneurial university, university spin-offs and start-up initiatives within universities. But, in order to gain economic sustainability, an ecological economy is needed. This type of economy must create renewable resources if necessary, use non-renewable resources when the renewable ones fall down and supervise the level of emissions with negative impact on the environment, as is stated in [7]. At the same time, according to [8], economic sustainability depends on the ability of natural ecosystems to obtain and store enough energy to sustain human life on Earth.

In the same time, universities set-up "academic programs related to the environmental dimension of sustainability that have grown exponentially across the physical, natural, and social sciences, as well as the humanities and the professions, but the attention to on-campus sustainability has grown even faster" [9].

### **2. The concept of "sustainable university"**

Universities are seen as critical entities in the future. In this regard, "higher education institutions have a critical role to play in implementing and driving sustainable development initiatives through their institutional policies and practices" [10].

A sustainable university represents an educational institution that trains properly all the willing and interested persons for sustainable development, provides new insights into urgent social challenges and decreases the environmental and social footprints of its campus operations. One important role of a sustainable university is to empower students to learn about sustainability in an inter-disciplinary and learner-centered way.

The sustainability challenges universities around the world to rethink their mission and to restructure university curricula, research programs and campus life. Graduates are increasingly exposed to concepts of sustainability that are emotionally, politically, ethically and scientifically loaded. They must be able to cope with conflicting norms and values, with uncertain results and ideas, as well as changing general knowledge (e.g. see [11]).

The sustainable university is considering running programs to generate expertise on sustainability issues, in the idea of being an example to society as a whole, through resource conservation programs, waste recycling and waste management and, of course, by focusing on education, research and policy formulation to create a sustainable future. The objectives of sustainable education are to develop students' awareness of their own responsibilities and develop their capacity to contribute to solving sustainability issues. It is also possible to propose the development of trans-disciplinary skills to equip prospective graduates with knowledge, skills and competencies to identify and solve the problems that humanity will face in the near or more distant future.

Universities must devote resources intelligently to become sustainable and to provide students with a living experience in a sustainable environment. At the level of university education, sustainable development refers to the management of specific processes and activities, always taking into account the fundamental and sustainable objective of increasing the quality of services provided by representative institutions. The greatest contribution that higher education can have in sustainable development is to determine students to acquire the skills and knowledge that enable them to make a lasting difference and to make them more responsible in economic, social and environmental terms. What it learns and what is learned is, therefore, critical. The vision is supported by the United Nations, which set the

period 2005–2014 as the decade of education for sustainable development. The aim is to integrate the principles, values and practices of sustainable development into all aspects of education and learning.

Sustainable development requires to universities around the world to rethink their mission and restructure their university curricula, research programs and campus life.

The curriculum of a higher education institution consists of everything that promotes the development of learners, intellectual, personal, social and physical development. A well designed curriculum is set to reach its targets. For sustainable development of the entire society, higher education institutions must place sustainable development at the heart of the curriculum. Current plans are constantly adapting to the need to incorporate knowledge related to sustainable development. In this sense, various disciplines are proposed in the curricula such as developmental studies, ecological economy, energy and environment engineering, environmental change and management, environmental geology, environmental pollution control, environmental studies, ethics and accountability sustainable development, sustainable management of resources, intercultural communication, culture, society and people, lack of equality and opportunity, social diversity in education, sustainable development, sustainable development, governance and sustainable development, international rural development, international education, training for informal education, social change, sociology and ecology of the community, organizational behavior, natural resources economy, chemicals and the environment, global change of environment environmental impact, culture and community, eco-transport or smart cities, aimed at familiarizing students with the complex and extensive problem of sustainable development, as well as improving the level of awareness of the challenges and dangers to which it is and will be subjected to human society.

The sustainable university is defined in many ways. For instance, "is a notion and concept that has been deliberated in specialized literature on Sustainable Development for about a decade, positioning the institution of the University as a vital driver toward a more sustainable society" [12]. Another point of view identified types of responses to sustainability within universities such as *accommodative*, *reformative* and *transformative* [13]. These types are declared as stages of progress, while the last one is seen as a mean of describing practices at the sustainable university.

Inevitably universities need to adapt to the society evolution in relation with sustainable development approach, and in order to have a successful implementation of the changes toward the future is required a holistic vision [14]. So, for this, it should be taken into account the '4C' model [15], which suggests that "Curriculum, Campus, Community and Culture should be seen as mutually enfolded and complementary foci of the sustainable university".

On the other hand, scientific research carried out in universities should focus largely, and themes defining sustainable development such as renewable energy, design sustainable buildings, green economy, population and development, the legal environment, waste management and so on.

In the next 30–50 years, the society needs to adopt new strategies to meet the needs of a growing population in a sustainable and equitable environment. Higher education has played, play and will play a critical role in determining our success or failure as a whole. The fundamental recommendation is to mobilize a critical mass of internal and external exponents to develop the model of the sustainable university in a variety of locations and communities of higher education. The specific recommendations below are proposed to highlight the internal and external changes to be made to ensure a commitment to the sustainable development of higher education.

**19**

*Adaptive Sustainable Academic Management Practices DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.87018*

with all stakeholders.

(paradigm shift);

cal, etc.);

sustainability;

sustainable development;

the business environment;

sustainable development;

development.

Educational institutions operate in an environment characterized by ever more heterogeneous regulations and funding. For each activity, there is a range of interest groups (businesses, public institutions, NGOs, government agencies, local government, media and students), each one with their own responsibilities, interests and influences, as well as their own visions on sustainable development. Any move that universities do in sustainable development needs to be developed through dialog

University administrators and decision-makers have a vital role to play in supporting the transition to sustainable development, guiding the strategic planning of these institutions, coordinating major core programs and managing the interactions of institutions with external stakeholders. The leaders of these universities also have a symbolic role in influencing the views of staff and students on sustainable

The evolution of society as a whole makes the main change necessary to consider the attempt to become more flexible in thinking and more connected to the present and future reality in economic and social terms, according to [16]. This can be

• Education plans must be tailored to the needs of the moment, to the require-

• Trying to think beyond purely economic constraints and in terms of cost

• Introducing and developing sustainability education, including targeting prospective students to prioritize careers or jobs that are in areas that support

• Close links with the business community, local and regional community;

• Voluntary education activities in the spirit of sustainable development;

• Treating the subject as a priority in all disciplines in the curriculum;

• The need to promote change, by applying the principle of value, to everything

• Obligation of clear provisions in the procurement process (type of materials, minimum quantities, limited in the case of toxic or dangerous materials, etc.);

• Accepting only investments that comply with the principle of sustainable development (e.g. unconventional, non-polluting, renewable, "green", ecologi-

• Making partnerships with business organizations for projects in the field of

• Linking study programs to the realities of the labor market, with the needs of

• Introduction and awareness of the concept of sustainable development;

• Initiating large-scale projects in the field of resource management and

synthesized through some ideas, approaches and solutions:

ments of the goods and services market;

that an academic community defines;

### *Adaptive Sustainable Academic Management Practices DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.87018*

*Sustainable Management Practices*

campus life.

all aspects of education and learning.

period 2005–2014 as the decade of education for sustainable development. The aim is to integrate the principles, values and practices of sustainable development into

Sustainable development requires to universities around the world to rethink their mission and restructure their university curricula, research programs and

The curriculum of a higher education institution consists of everything that promotes the development of learners, intellectual, personal, social and physical development. A well designed curriculum is set to reach its targets. For sustainable development of the entire society, higher education institutions must place sustainable development at the heart of the curriculum. Current plans are constantly adapting to the need to incorporate knowledge related to sustainable development. In this sense, various disciplines are proposed in the curricula such as developmental studies, ecological economy, energy and environment engineering, environmental change and management, environmental geology, environmental pollution control, environmental studies, ethics and accountability sustainable development, sustainable management of resources, intercultural communication, culture, society and people, lack of equality and opportunity, social diversity in education, sustainable development, sustainable development, governance and sustainable development, international rural development, international education, training for informal education, social change, sociology and ecology of the community, organizational behavior, natural resources economy, chemicals and the environment, global change of environment environmental impact, culture and community, eco-transport or smart cities, aimed at familiarizing students with the complex and extensive problem of sustainable development, as well as improving the level of awareness of the challenges and dangers to which it is and will be subjected to human society.

The sustainable university is defined in many ways. For instance, "is a notion and concept that has been deliberated in specialized literature on Sustainable Development for about a decade, positioning the institution of the University as a vital driver toward a more sustainable society" [12]. Another point of view identified types of responses to sustainability within universities such as *accommodative*, *reformative* and *transformative* [13]. These types are declared as stages of progress, while the last one is seen as a mean of describing practices at the sustainable

Inevitably universities need to adapt to the society evolution in relation with sustainable development approach, and in order to have a successful implementation of the changes toward the future is required a holistic vision [14]. So, for this, it should be taken into account the '4C' model [15], which suggests that "Curriculum, Campus, Community and Culture should be seen as mutually enfolded and comple-

On the other hand, scientific research carried out in universities should focus largely, and themes defining sustainable development such as renewable energy, design sustainable buildings, green economy, population and development, the

In the next 30–50 years, the society needs to adopt new strategies to meet the needs of a growing population in a sustainable and equitable environment. Higher education has played, play and will play a critical role in determining our success or failure as a whole. The fundamental recommendation is to mobilize a critical mass of internal and external exponents to develop the model of the sustainable university in a variety of locations and communities of higher education. The specific recommendations below are proposed to highlight the internal and external changes to be made to ensure a commitment to the sustainable development of

**18**

higher education.

university.

mentary foci of the sustainable university".

legal environment, waste management and so on.

Educational institutions operate in an environment characterized by ever more heterogeneous regulations and funding. For each activity, there is a range of interest groups (businesses, public institutions, NGOs, government agencies, local government, media and students), each one with their own responsibilities, interests and influences, as well as their own visions on sustainable development. Any move that universities do in sustainable development needs to be developed through dialog with all stakeholders.

University administrators and decision-makers have a vital role to play in supporting the transition to sustainable development, guiding the strategic planning of these institutions, coordinating major core programs and managing the interactions of institutions with external stakeholders. The leaders of these universities also have a symbolic role in influencing the views of staff and students on sustainable development.

The evolution of society as a whole makes the main change necessary to consider the attempt to become more flexible in thinking and more connected to the present and future reality in economic and social terms, according to [16]. This can be synthesized through some ideas, approaches and solutions:


Starting from one of the important missions of the university, the academic education, we can design medium- and long-term educational activities oriented toward the knowledge and development of the concept of sustainable development. Formal educational activities refer to specific courses on sustainable development and its incorporation into existing courses and specific subjects. These include a variety of themes and are valid for a range of qualifications from undergraduate studies to doctoral studies. Informal educational activities aim at raising awareness of volunteering that individuals can take to support sustainable development. They are also useful for changing attitudes and behavior on better practices in sustainable household management, energy and water saving, waste reduction and disposal, selective collection, sustainable consumption and environmentally friendly transport options. Examples of activities specific to informal education include sustainable development or environmental pages on institutional sites; sustainable development groups within student associations; guides for students and staff for a sustainable lifestyle; institutional events; competitions; charity activities, etc.

In the last years many approaches and models related to the sustainable university are proposed. Among all of these works, it is worth to mention an interesting point of view [14], which proposed a model of sustainable university. In fact, this model proposed three different approaches of a sustainable university: an academic approach, an internal and an external approach of the university. The model has the vision proposed by Asitha Jayawardena as starting point. Therefore, this model has to be detailed in an adequate mode. The university consumes natural resources, produces waste and, of course, affects the environment. These aspects are related to the campus and campus family and require focusing of critical issues like access for disabled people, waste management, energy efficiency, occupational health and safety, etc. Advanced-thinking universities are acting as agents in promoting sustainability principles. How universities could equip their students with knowledge, skills or values? The response is very simple: through their core functions—education and research. The model does not focus on the pedagogies, but declares that the knowledge, skills or values can be delivered through formal, informal and no-formal education. The external approach refers to the idea that universities operate and have impacts in communities and ecosystems that range from local to regional and global. In fact, the model aims to be a useful tool for exploring strategies in order to transform the university into a sustainable one. As a first finding of this model, it can be stated that the model can be easily adapted by different organizations that want to green their infrastructure and production processes. Secondly, the sustainable university is not easy to be achieved, but all the efforts, energy, resources and time invested in many universities show progress [17]. Thirdly, the model can represents a starting point for defining the model of a sustainable business organization and could be an important tool for the managers of future organizations.

Another useful contribution is related to another point of view, namely that of participatory approaches [18]. So, participatory approaches can be declared as a requirement, but also as an advantage to the overall model change toward sustainable development. In this regards, this way of looking at specific issues regarding the sustainable development would contribute toward the integration

**21**

best use of resources;

*Adaptive Sustainable Academic Management Practices DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.87018*

of sustainability concept into the university culture. This work described some of the failures and successes experienced within participatory approaches in campus sustainability initiatives, and bring a set of critical success factors that can help to incorporate the dimensions of participation into sustainability assessment. The outcomes offer empirical proof to some of the features related to stakeholder engagement, and connect higher education for sustainable development to empowerment and capacity building. A better integration of the dimensions of participation into sustainability assessment practices can help in defining and establishing participatory approaches on institutional level and promoting a

Finally, it will be described a comprehensive study which represent a review regarding the sustainable university [19]. This study, internet based, is split in two components: sustainability implementation methods and assessment tools. This research underlines two sustainability management systems. In fact, two models used to implement the environmental management systems (EMS): the ISO 14001 standard and the environmental management accounting system (EMAS) regulation are presented. For these two models, the similarities found are the advantages of having a systematized management system, either by using an EMS or being the sustainability management systems (SMS) itself; the need to address environmental issues and putting special attention on the use of resources, especially energy, on campus buildings; the university's responsibility of teaching and promoting research activities on sustainability. In conclusion, both models are designed to address a sustainability policy within all four university dimensions—education,

culture of participation in the transition to sustainable universities.

research, campus operations and community outreach.

strategic plans and their organizational culture? [10].

**3. Strategic sustainability of the academic environment**

of effective principles and criteria, validated internationally, such as

In many articles, scientific papers or books is stated a key general question: What can higher education leaders, faculty and students do to implement sustainable development in their institutional vision, mission and values statements, their

In many countries, sustainable development strategies are not legally established, officially through a legislative (parliament, government, etc.). However, in some countries, there is a legal mandate for sustainable development strategies at the parliamentary level. In the EU, for example, there is a need to integrate sustainability issues into Union policies (Article 6 of the EU Treaty, the decisions of the EU Cardiff meeting). The institutional framework responsible for developing, approving and implementing the strategy varies from one country to another, but anyway, environmental bodies (ministries, government agencies, training centers on specific issues, etc.) have begun to play a role bigger. Sustainable strategic management implies, as is declared in Ref. [16], additionally to establishing long-term objectives that are compatible with those on short and medium term, the application of a set

• Integrated management is the principle that involves the unitary approach of production, processing, transport, distribution, use and storage processes, taking into account the life cycle of products and technologies, stakeholder engagement, inter-institutional coordination, optimization processes for the

• Inter-generational equity is a "sine qua non" requirement that the present generation has the right to use and benefit from land resources with the obligation

### *Adaptive Sustainable Academic Management Practices DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.87018*

*Sustainable Management Practices*

sustainability issues;

• Particular partnerships with local, national and international companies on

• Collaborating universities with local and regional firms to influence the cur-

Starting from one of the important missions of the university, the academic education, we can design medium- and long-term educational activities oriented toward the knowledge and development of the concept of sustainable development. Formal educational activities refer to specific courses on sustainable development and its incorporation into existing courses and specific subjects. These include a variety of themes and are valid for a range of qualifications from undergraduate studies to doctoral studies. Informal educational activities aim at raising awareness of volunteering that individuals can take to support sustainable development. They are also useful for changing attitudes and behavior on better practices in sustainable household management, energy and water saving, waste reduction and disposal, selective collection, sustainable consumption and environmentally friendly transport options. Examples of activities specific to informal education include sustainable development or environmental pages on institutional sites; sustainable development groups within student associations; guides for students and staff for a sustainable lifestyle; institutional events; competitions; charity activities, etc.

In the last years many approaches and models related to the sustainable university are proposed. Among all of these works, it is worth to mention an interesting point of view [14], which proposed a model of sustainable university. In fact, this model proposed three different approaches of a sustainable university: an academic approach, an internal and an external approach of the university. The model has the vision proposed by Asitha Jayawardena as starting point. Therefore, this model has to be detailed in an adequate mode. The university consumes natural resources, produces waste and, of course, affects the environment. These aspects are related to the campus and campus family and require focusing of critical issues like access for disabled people, waste management, energy efficiency, occupational health and safety, etc. Advanced-thinking universities are acting as agents in promoting sustainability principles. How universities could equip their students with knowledge, skills or values? The response is very simple: through their core functions—education and research. The model does not focus on the pedagogies, but declares that the knowledge, skills or values can be delivered through formal, informal and no-formal education. The external approach refers to the idea that universities operate and have impacts in communities and ecosystems that range from local to regional and global. In fact, the model aims to be a useful tool for exploring strategies in order to transform the university into a sustainable one. As a first finding of this model, it can be stated that the model can be easily adapted by different organizations that want to green their infrastructure and production processes. Secondly, the sustainable university is not easy to be achieved, but all the efforts, energy, resources and time invested in many universities show progress [17]. Thirdly, the model can represents a starting point for defining the model of a sustainable business organization

and could be an important tool for the managers of future organizations.

Another useful contribution is related to another point of view, namely that of participatory approaches [18]. So, participatory approaches can be declared as a requirement, but also as an advantage to the overall model change toward sustainable development. In this regards, this way of looking at specific issues regarding the sustainable development would contribute toward the integration

• Partnerships with other universities on sustainability issues and

riculum so that there are mutual benefits.

**20**

of sustainability concept into the university culture. This work described some of the failures and successes experienced within participatory approaches in campus sustainability initiatives, and bring a set of critical success factors that can help to incorporate the dimensions of participation into sustainability assessment. The outcomes offer empirical proof to some of the features related to stakeholder engagement, and connect higher education for sustainable development to empowerment and capacity building. A better integration of the dimensions of participation into sustainability assessment practices can help in defining and establishing participatory approaches on institutional level and promoting a culture of participation in the transition to sustainable universities.

Finally, it will be described a comprehensive study which represent a review regarding the sustainable university [19]. This study, internet based, is split in two components: sustainability implementation methods and assessment tools. This research underlines two sustainability management systems. In fact, two models used to implement the environmental management systems (EMS): the ISO 14001 standard and the environmental management accounting system (EMAS) regulation are presented. For these two models, the similarities found are the advantages of having a systematized management system, either by using an EMS or being the sustainability management systems (SMS) itself; the need to address environmental issues and putting special attention on the use of resources, especially energy, on campus buildings; the university's responsibility of teaching and promoting research activities on sustainability. In conclusion, both models are designed to address a sustainability policy within all four university dimensions—education, research, campus operations and community outreach.

### **3. Strategic sustainability of the academic environment**

In many articles, scientific papers or books is stated a key general question: What can higher education leaders, faculty and students do to implement sustainable development in their institutional vision, mission and values statements, their strategic plans and their organizational culture? [10].

In many countries, sustainable development strategies are not legally established, officially through a legislative (parliament, government, etc.). However, in some countries, there is a legal mandate for sustainable development strategies at the parliamentary level. In the EU, for example, there is a need to integrate sustainability issues into Union policies (Article 6 of the EU Treaty, the decisions of the EU Cardiff meeting). The institutional framework responsible for developing, approving and implementing the strategy varies from one country to another, but anyway, environmental bodies (ministries, government agencies, training centers on specific issues, etc.) have begun to play a role bigger. Sustainable strategic management implies, as is declared in Ref. [16], additionally to establishing long-term objectives that are compatible with those on short and medium term, the application of a set of effective principles and criteria, validated internationally, such as


to take into account the long-term impact of its activity and to support the resource base and the global environment for the benefit of future generations;


From this perspective, universities can develop a successful sustainable strategy if they conform to the guidelines presented by T. Ellis' 4C perspective, according to [1, 20]. Sustainability strategy for universities must have a **C**lear goal, which means that those who develop the strategy must select the environmental and social activities that correspond to the environmental and social competences of the university, according to their mission and charter, and which reflect culture, values, its challenges and its overall strategy. Then the university has to engage in strategic **C**hanges. This means that changes need to be made in structures, processes, performance and quantification systems to support the effort to win sustainability, and they must be found in improving communication, employee performance and designing leadership development programs in order to encourage the creation of sustainable value, thinking, skills and practices in this direction. The third feature of the sustainability strategy is **C**reation. Sustainable creation also involves collaborating with outsiders by inviting them to become strategic partners in the innovation process in all aspects. Last but not least, clear **C**ommunication, openness and transparency regarding both successes and failures in relation to people inside and outside the university to build trust and mutual understanding can be considered the fourth feature of the sustainability strategy, this is critical for the university's sustainable success.

**23**

*Adaptive Sustainable Academic Management Practices DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.87018*

qualified and prepared to get these jobs.

employability of young people.

skills and entrepreneurial attitudes.

and industry and the initiation of joint projects.

in universities and the link with the sustainable university.

long as possible.

The sustainable university needs to be interactive if it wants to collect potential ideas and feedback from people outside it, and make sustainable adjustments to the strategy in line with them and, also, be student-oriented to collect feedback from students which help universities to generate a sustainable strategy for a period as

A key strategic component of the continuous process of improving sustainability is represented by innovation. However, this aspect is very well represented in universities because both didactic and research processes are the basis for innovation. The innovation within universities is related to many issues but the challenges of present days are related to innovative tools to quick skills transfers to the students and innovative learning methods to increase and update the knowledge level of the future graduates, because in time, the labor markets are changing the requirements for the jobs and therefore the potential candidates need to demonstrate that they are

A pillar of the sustainability strategy in the academic environment is about discovering and promoting entrepreneurship. In the following paragraph, it will be mentioned relevant aspects regarding the promotion of the entrepreneurial concept

In November 2012, the European Commission published the Communication

Entrepreneurial skills presuppose active methods by which students are determined to give free rein to creativity and the spirit of innovation. Entrepreneurship skills and competences can only be acquired or formed through practical and real-life learning experiences, including the concept of "learning by doing". Entrepreneurial skills can be taught in all subjects as well as in separate subjects. In order to ensure the real pull of entrepreneurial education, it is necessary to achieve learning outcomes related to entrepreneurship; it is also necessary to use assessment methods as well as relevant quality assurance procedures at all levels of education. These should be designed to help students make progress in acquiring knowledge,

A useful method in learning entrepreneurial knowledge is the concept of simulated enterprise. Simulated enterprise represents an innovative and interactive teaching method. Simulated enterprises are created in the same manner as the real companies. In fact, process and activities are simulated in a virtual network, by

Today, the entrepreneurial university integrates economic development as a function of teaching and research. Creating an entrepreneurial culture will encourage creativity and innovation, using intellectual capital, the most important asset in a university. In this respect, universities need to develop their ability to innovate, recognize and create opportunities, teamwork, risk-taking and respond to challenges. In this respect, it is necessary to encourage and support the creation of collaborative relations with other academic institutions as well as with the business

using the real economic, social and legal rules, applied to each country.

**4. Entrepreneurial education versus entrepreneurial university**

entitled "Rethinking education: investing in skills for better socio-economic results". This policy initiative underlines the fact that "twenty-first century competences" requires efforts to develop transversal skills such as entrepreneurship and highlights "the ability to think critically, take initiative, solve problems and collaborate." These "entrepreneurial skills" should be given particular attention as they not only contribute to concrete entrepreneurial activity but also increase the

*Sustainable Management Practices*

compensation;

tion and

to take into account the long-term impact of its activity and to support the resource base and the global environment for the benefit of future generations;

environmental consequences generated by the economic effects related to the

• Substitution involves the replacement of inefficient products and services that are highly resource-intensive, with more efficient and less environmentally

• Public participation implies unrestricted access to environmental information, with certain justified exceptions (confidential business information), the public's right to take part in environmental decisions and to take account of their consequences, the ability to react to the parties involved stakeholders) from civil society, the right to know potential environmental risks in time;

• The principle of good governance requires state authorities and institutions to carry out their work transparently, efficiently and honestly, under conditions of preventing and penalizing pollution and promoting environmental protec-

From this perspective, universities can develop a successful sustainable strategy if they conform to the guidelines presented by T. Ellis' 4C perspective, according to [1, 20]. Sustainability strategy for universities must have a **C**lear goal, which means that those who develop the strategy must select the environmental and social activities that correspond to the environmental and social competences of the university, according to their mission and charter, and which reflect culture, values, its challenges and its overall strategy. Then the university has to engage in strategic **C**hanges. This means that changes need to be made in structures, processes, performance and quantification systems to support the effort to win sustainability, and they must be found in improving communication, employee performance and designing leadership development programs in order to encourage the creation of sustainable value, thinking, skills and practices in this direction. The third feature of the sustainability strategy is **C**reation. Sustainable creation also involves collaborating with outsiders by inviting them to become strategic partners in the innovation process in all aspects. Last but not least, clear **C**ommunication, openness and transparency regarding both successes and failures in relation to people inside and outside the university to build trust and mutual understanding can be considered the fourth feature of the sustainability strategy, this is critical for the university's

• Public-private partnerships are based on direct, inter-institutional and intra-institutional cooperation between stakeholders represented by public authorities and institutions, NGOs, groups and industrial firms, networks and business people who together can obtain, by aggregating their own expertise and efficiency, a higher added value for the sustainability of economic growth

• The life-cycle approach of goods, services and technologies assesses the

• Prevention involves reducing the damage to human health and natural capital in relation to the phenomena and economic processes that could be prevented by investments and costs of modernization, repair, treatment or

different stages of processing and marketing products;

friendly and less harmful environmental impacts;

at macro and microeconomic levels.

**22**

sustainable success.

The sustainable university needs to be interactive if it wants to collect potential ideas and feedback from people outside it, and make sustainable adjustments to the strategy in line with them and, also, be student-oriented to collect feedback from students which help universities to generate a sustainable strategy for a period as long as possible.

A key strategic component of the continuous process of improving sustainability is represented by innovation. However, this aspect is very well represented in universities because both didactic and research processes are the basis for innovation. The innovation within universities is related to many issues but the challenges of present days are related to innovative tools to quick skills transfers to the students and innovative learning methods to increase and update the knowledge level of the future graduates, because in time, the labor markets are changing the requirements for the jobs and therefore the potential candidates need to demonstrate that they are qualified and prepared to get these jobs.

A pillar of the sustainability strategy in the academic environment is about discovering and promoting entrepreneurship. In the following paragraph, it will be mentioned relevant aspects regarding the promotion of the entrepreneurial concept in universities and the link with the sustainable university.

### **4. Entrepreneurial education versus entrepreneurial university**

In November 2012, the European Commission published the Communication entitled "Rethinking education: investing in skills for better socio-economic results". This policy initiative underlines the fact that "twenty-first century competences" requires efforts to develop transversal skills such as entrepreneurship and highlights "the ability to think critically, take initiative, solve problems and collaborate." These "entrepreneurial skills" should be given particular attention as they not only contribute to concrete entrepreneurial activity but also increase the employability of young people.

Entrepreneurial skills presuppose active methods by which students are determined to give free rein to creativity and the spirit of innovation. Entrepreneurship skills and competences can only be acquired or formed through practical and real-life learning experiences, including the concept of "learning by doing". Entrepreneurial skills can be taught in all subjects as well as in separate subjects. In order to ensure the real pull of entrepreneurial education, it is necessary to achieve learning outcomes related to entrepreneurship; it is also necessary to use assessment methods as well as relevant quality assurance procedures at all levels of education. These should be designed to help students make progress in acquiring knowledge, skills and entrepreneurial attitudes.

A useful method in learning entrepreneurial knowledge is the concept of simulated enterprise. Simulated enterprise represents an innovative and interactive teaching method. Simulated enterprises are created in the same manner as the real companies. In fact, process and activities are simulated in a virtual network, by using the real economic, social and legal rules, applied to each country.

Today, the entrepreneurial university integrates economic development as a function of teaching and research. Creating an entrepreneurial culture will encourage creativity and innovation, using intellectual capital, the most important asset in a university. In this respect, universities need to develop their ability to innovate, recognize and create opportunities, teamwork, risk-taking and respond to challenges. In this respect, it is necessary to encourage and support the creation of collaborative relations with other academic institutions as well as with the business and industry and the initiation of joint projects.

In connection with the academic environment, realities tell us that we are confronted in a competitive arena. Competition is manifested not only to obtain funding sources for the education and research process, but also to attract the best students, create the best faculties, and above all for the best ideas. The direct beneficiaries of the universities are the students. In this respect, their role as well as their involvement in promoting the principles of sustainable development at the level of the whole society has to be emphasized and need to be fully supported by any decision-maker, responsible or manager.

Also, it is important to underline that the model regarding the Entrepreneurial University has been included in many works and all of these described the approach in different terms such as University Technological Transfer, Innovative Universities and Market Universities [21]. On the other hand, some other works include the issues of effectiveness of teaching the entrepreneurship and holding the special trainings in the Entrepreneurial Universities [21, 22].

Another problem concerns a poor connection, in many cases, in terms of cooperation between universities and businesses in the field of education. This confirms the weak final results of the partnership and the issue of an effective mandatory leader in these situations. Thus, the leaders must provide that "both expertise and new perspectives must be available in the work place, both academic and personal diversity must be present in the institution of higher learning, innovative opportunities must be identified and/or put into practice, time must be made available for reflection (incubation period) and creativity must be followed up by convergent thinking through priorities and choice" [21, 23].

### **5. The role and the involvement of students in a sustainable university**

The students have to manifest and act as agents of change within universities. In order for students to become agents of successful change in the sustainable development of universities and society, they must have:


On the other hand, opportunities and student campus commitments reflect a deep commitment to sustainability through these institutional practices such as new student guidelines, scholarships, job counseling related to community services, sustainability and/or aspects of justice. Also, higher education institutions need to prepare students for careers that are environmentally oriented and/or sustainable; to prepare those who direct students to increase their education and information efforts in the campuses of universities; to train them adaptively for the new demands on the labor market and for the professions and crafts of the future.

In addition, the campus, as a laboratory for learning sustainability and developing related skills, offers models and opportunities for practicing change in student behavior. The activities carried out in the Campus by and for students should be geared toward reducing the "environmental footprint" of the institution. There are plenty of examples of water and energy conservation, carbon dioxide reduction practices, sustainable building construction and targeted renovation, promoting

**25**

*Adaptive Sustainable Academic Management Practices DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.87018*

social responsibility of promoters of this concept.

millennium:

independence;

can be listed [24]:

other companies;

resource management and

**6. Sustainable tools and practices in academic management**

management measures in community management;

clean and healthy food, reducing paper consumption, selective waste collection and so on. Last but not least, students must be the first persons to spread the lessons and the content of the concept of sustainable development, with even the civic and

Everything that the deciders in the academic area think and propose must relate

• the analysis of the efficiency of the use of depleting mineral resources and the potential of the Romanian extractive industry, regarding Romania's energy

• analyzing sustainable solutions for environmental protection and conservation, using clean fuels and technologies, as well as promoting innovative

• analyzing and developing innovative management tools useful for sustainable

• promoting innovative educational tools needed to improve the qualifications, skills and expertise of graduates, which will contribute directly to increasing the level of absorption in the labor market, in the context of a knowledge-based economy and a new type of society, the information society, which generates new challenges for occupations, professions or craftsmanship of the future.

In treating properly and solving adequately all these major themes and challenges, by using classical tools and practices, those means that are defining the rapid acquiring knowledge processes and generating adaptive skills for future jobs

• Enterprises' piloting: a set of activities undertaken by the respective company management to achieve the mission of the enterprise activity by using welldefined strategies and objectives to ensure the provision of activities of different beneficiaries in terms of quantity, quality and certain terms stipulated in the contract, activities that take place in competition with the activities of

• Management simulation IT tools: creates competitive situations of economic and management (strategic management) and contribute substantially to the development of participants' ability to diagnose the economic and managerial nature competitive, to substantiate and implement strategic and tactical decisions to be taken in conditions of risk or uncertainty, which is required in terms of rolling out a new business in the real world and wants to be a successful alternative to initiate business and to prepare students for future successfully

• Simulated enterprise: a learning method, an innovative and interactive tool with great student demand. The proximity of the business environment can be achieved by integrating this innovative method into the education

trained managers to deal with increasingly fierce competition;

to the major themes and challenges of this century and of this beginning of the

*Sustainable Management Practices*

any decision-maker, responsible or manager.

trainings in the Entrepreneurial Universities [21, 22].

thinking through priorities and choice" [21, 23].

ment of universities and society, they must have:

able development—understanding;

of a change agent—motivation and

3.the skills required by the change agent—skills.

In connection with the academic environment, realities tell us that we are confronted in a competitive arena. Competition is manifested not only to obtain funding sources for the education and research process, but also to attract the best students, create the best faculties, and above all for the best ideas. The direct beneficiaries of the universities are the students. In this respect, their role as well as their involvement in promoting the principles of sustainable development at the level of the whole society has to be emphasized and need to be fully supported by

Also, it is important to underline that the model regarding the Entrepreneurial University has been included in many works and all of these described the approach in different terms such as University Technological Transfer, Innovative Universities and Market Universities [21]. On the other hand, some other works include the issues of effectiveness of teaching the entrepreneurship and holding the special

Another problem concerns a poor connection, in many cases, in terms of cooperation between universities and businesses in the field of education. This confirms the weak final results of the partnership and the issue of an effective mandatory leader in these situations. Thus, the leaders must provide that "both expertise and new perspectives must be available in the work place, both academic and personal diversity must be present in the institution of higher learning, innovative opportunities must be identified and/or put into practice, time must be made available for reflection (incubation period) and creativity must be followed up by convergent

**5. The role and the involvement of students in a sustainable university**

The students have to manifest and act as agents of change within universities. In order for students to become agents of successful change in the sustainable develop-

1.the knowledge of environmental, economic and social issues related to sustain-

2. a system of values and its own conception to support and measure the actions

On the other hand, opportunities and student campus commitments reflect a deep commitment to sustainability through these institutional practices such as new student guidelines, scholarships, job counseling related to community services, sustainability and/or aspects of justice. Also, higher education institutions need to prepare students for careers that are environmentally oriented and/or sustainable; to prepare those who direct students to increase their education and information efforts in the campuses of universities; to train them adaptively for the new demands on the labor market and for the professions and crafts of the future.

In addition, the campus, as a laboratory for learning sustainability and developing related skills, offers models and opportunities for practicing change in student behavior. The activities carried out in the Campus by and for students should be geared toward reducing the "environmental footprint" of the institution. There are plenty of examples of water and energy conservation, carbon dioxide reduction practices, sustainable building construction and targeted renovation, promoting

**24**

clean and healthy food, reducing paper consumption, selective waste collection and so on. Last but not least, students must be the first persons to spread the lessons and the content of the concept of sustainable development, with even the civic and social responsibility of promoters of this concept.

### **6. Sustainable tools and practices in academic management**

Everything that the deciders in the academic area think and propose must relate to the major themes and challenges of this century and of this beginning of the millennium:


In treating properly and solving adequately all these major themes and challenges, by using classical tools and practices, those means that are defining the rapid acquiring knowledge processes and generating adaptive skills for future jobs can be listed [24]:


system with the help of companies that can find a "clone company" within these simulated enterprise laboratories. Thus, in a virtual environment, companies that exist in the real economy can operate. They "borrow" to the simulated enterprise their own identification elements, object of activity, organizational structure, suppliers, customers, market, while the real company's officers can get involved directly in guiding the students alongside the teachers involved in the operation of the virtual company. This learning solution develops skills and abilities for prospective graduates through which they can integrate more easily and quickly into work. In addition, collaboration between academia and business can increase the interest of companies in their involvement in improving the practical training of their future employees and

• Business incubators: an entity that aims at creating a favorable and sustainable environment for start-ups and innovative companies with growth potential. The concept of university incubators is still at the beginning and additional steps need to be added, by generating special, efficient and business-friendly entities that could provide prerequisites for the creation and development of these incubators [25].

On the other hand, based on the own expertise and related to the specific projects [26], the main practices in the field of sustainable development at the academic level should focus on:

a.Research on technical and economic optimization in the energy sector.

At this time, each country tries to maximize its chances of accessing energy sources that give them the chance to get as much energy independence as possible. Since, in most cases, no new mineral resources have been found and, in addition, their excessive use has led to a clear deterioration in air, water and soil quality, but has also led to an increase in the greenhouse effect, more and more countries are concerned about minimizing/optimizing energy production costs, energy efficiency, energy intensity reduction, investigation of potential and alternative energy sources. The oil crisis, materialized by a permanent and major drop in crude oil prices in recent years to a historical level of approx. 27USD/barrel of crude oil on January 20, 2016, had influences throughout the world economy. Realities say that the current model of civilization supports energy consumption predominantly from exhausting natural resources. In addition, there are a number of factors that can create or stimulate a crisis in the energy field:


**27**

*Adaptive Sustainable Academic Management Practices DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.87018*

finance energy-efficiency projects.

useful to sustainable development.

obtain funding for applied research.

• the efficiency of the use of depleting mineral resources;

neurial skills training.

performance.

development.

major impact on society:

management;

• innovation in the SME area;

4.the environmental impact generated by the significant consumption of fossilbased resources, as the energy sector is the transport industry's main agents of

At the same time, we need to be aware that the evolution of human society will increase consumption of any kind, including energy, in particular. This must be complemented by other trends that will be highlighted in the future: technical and technological development involving the automation and robotics of processes of any kind, the increase of urbanization, the shift of the preoccupations in the investigation and the use of alternative energy sources on the background of the dramatic exhaustion of conventional energy resources, the need to research and

b.Innovative tools for increasing the competitiveness of companies and entrepre-

Another direction of concern in the field of scientific research is to analyze

c.Effective use of existing IT applications and design of particular IT solutions

In this respect, it is necessary to know and use the particular IT applications that cover various topics in order to generate solutions in the spirit of the principles of sustainable development such as money savings, low energy consumption, minimum specific consumption of material resources, reduction of pollution levels, efficiency increased economic efficiency, improved energy efficiency, etc. These applications are licensed by universities and are used in laboratories specific to the topics addressed, in order to familiarize students with the issues related to some disciplines that incorporate and approaches in the sphere of sustainable

d.Building effective project proposals and national and international grants to

Topics that can be covered by the projects relate to various themes but with a

• developing innovative management tools useful for sustainable resource

• easy transition from school to active work and a successful career;

• creating and developing specific competencies in certain areas;

and propose tools and measures in the field of innovation to help increase the economic competitiveness of firms and to train professionals to promote an entrepreneurial spirit. The training and assessment of entrepreneurial skills can help to develop the business environment, create more small- and medium-sized enterprises, create jobs and, implicitly, improve macroeconomic

pollution of all kinds that can create climate change as well.

*Sustainable Management Practices*

future employees and

level should focus on:

energy field:

resources;

and development of these incubators [25].

system with the help of companies that can find a "clone company" within these simulated enterprise laboratories. Thus, in a virtual environment, companies that exist in the real economy can operate. They "borrow" to the simulated enterprise their own identification elements, object of activity, organizational structure, suppliers, customers, market, while the real company's officers can get involved directly in guiding the students alongside the teachers involved in the operation of the virtual company. This learning solution develops skills and abilities for prospective graduates through which they can integrate more easily and quickly into work. In addition, collaboration between academia and business can increase the interest of companies in their involvement in improving the practical training of their

• Business incubators: an entity that aims at creating a favorable and sustainable environment for start-ups and innovative companies with growth potential. The concept of university incubators is still at the beginning and additional steps need to be added, by generating special, efficient and business-friendly entities that could provide prerequisites for the creation

On the other hand, based on the own expertise and related to the specific projects [26], the main practices in the field of sustainable development at the academic

At this time, each country tries to maximize its chances of accessing energy

1.there is an unequal distribution of primary energy resources that divides the world into countries rich in natural resources and countries without such

2.the pressure generated by the major transnational corporations operating in the oil and gas industry which, through their financial strength, can have important influences on various resource, commodity and service markets

3.industrial and economic development strategies of developed countries to access the various primary energy resources of less developed countries and

with major effects in the global economy;

a.Research on technical and economic optimization in the energy sector.

sources that give them the chance to get as much energy independence as possible. Since, in most cases, no new mineral resources have been found and, in addition, their excessive use has led to a clear deterioration in air, water and soil quality, but has also led to an increase in the greenhouse effect, more and more countries are concerned about minimizing/optimizing energy production costs, energy efficiency, energy intensity reduction, investigation of potential and alternative energy sources. The oil crisis, materialized by a permanent and major drop in crude oil prices in recent years to a historical level of approx. 27USD/barrel of crude oil on January 20, 2016, had influences throughout the world economy. Realities say that the current model of civilization supports energy consumption predominantly from exhausting natural resources. In addition, there are a number of factors that can create or stimulate a crisis in the

**26**

4.the environmental impact generated by the significant consumption of fossilbased resources, as the energy sector is the transport industry's main agents of pollution of all kinds that can create climate change as well.

At the same time, we need to be aware that the evolution of human society will increase consumption of any kind, including energy, in particular. This must be complemented by other trends that will be highlighted in the future: technical and technological development involving the automation and robotics of processes of any kind, the increase of urbanization, the shift of the preoccupations in the investigation and the use of alternative energy sources on the background of the dramatic exhaustion of conventional energy resources, the need to research and finance energy-efficiency projects.

b.Innovative tools for increasing the competitiveness of companies and entrepreneurial skills training.

Another direction of concern in the field of scientific research is to analyze and propose tools and measures in the field of innovation to help increase the economic competitiveness of firms and to train professionals to promote an entrepreneurial spirit. The training and assessment of entrepreneurial skills can help to develop the business environment, create more small- and medium-sized enterprises, create jobs and, implicitly, improve macroeconomic performance.

c.Effective use of existing IT applications and design of particular IT solutions useful to sustainable development.

In this respect, it is necessary to know and use the particular IT applications that cover various topics in order to generate solutions in the spirit of the principles of sustainable development such as money savings, low energy consumption, minimum specific consumption of material resources, reduction of pollution levels, efficiency increased economic efficiency, improved energy efficiency, etc. These applications are licensed by universities and are used in laboratories specific to the topics addressed, in order to familiarize students with the issues related to some disciplines that incorporate and approaches in the sphere of sustainable development.

d.Building effective project proposals and national and international grants to obtain funding for applied research.

Topics that can be covered by the projects relate to various themes but with a major impact on society:


The experience gained in these projects is the prerequisite for building new proposals for project applications with a higher quality level and with increased relevance, creating the possibility of obtaining the funds necessary for carrying out the activities proposed in these projects.

All these opportunities should be used in the idea of integrating sustainable development into future project proposals on the three defining components: environment (by protecting the environment and the proper use of natural resources), society (focusing on improving living standards, improving health of the population and raising awareness of the new role that man must have in this information society) and economics (in terms of economic competitiveness in general and increased productivity in particular). The idea of sustainability of any project from the perspective of sustainable development is a necessary issue to treat through which findings and outcomes can help to develop new ideas, solutions and even future projects to support future generations to have a better life.

Also, in the last two decades, universities adapt their main mission in order to respond adequately to the challenges arise from the society evolution toward the future. In this regards, there are some fashionable approach that aims to fulfill the objectives and the stakeholders' wishes, which define the principles of sustainable development. First of all, universities are being increasingly considered as a source for creation of high-technology firms. Based on the relation between science, technology and university spinoffs, academic entities are moving from teaching, training and basic research to a much active and advanced role by creating spinoffs and develop academic entrepreneurial skills and abilities [27]. In this light, universities decided to invest in labs equipment and applied research by developing and commercially exploit their technic and technological inventions. University spinoffs transform these technic and technological inventions into a successful business venture. The process of establishing the spin-off as a new corporation involves transferring the intellectual property rights to the new corporation or giving the latter a license on this intellectual property [28]. On the other hand, according to [29], universities do not have a proper set of competencies in order to create and support spin-off. Therefore, universities need to set-up specific structures (technology transfer office and business incubators) and use new organizational practices for facilitate academic entrepreneurship. In this regard, the universities' internal processes are critical for the spin-off efficiency. For instance, internal processes could eliminate poor initiatives and also, support promising initiatives by using different services such as financing, support in the patenting process or specific guidance. Universities, even they have rules and regulations, could use different levels of freedom in design internal processes about spin-offs. Of course, each university has its own approach in terms of how it processes its structure. In the same manner, the management practices used by universities are not all alike. In fact, the study explored the relationship between management practices and the performance of academic spin-offs. A first conclusion, based on this study, underlined the fact that by having the control on the effects of management practices over academic spinoffs is a mean of control for the universities' internal processes. Another conclusion is relevant for the policy implications for universities and policy-makers "universities should be more aware of the management practices they adopt and how these practices fit into their internal organization".

A means of maintaining links between the academic environment and the business environment is provided by academic consulting [30]. Academic consulting

**29**

research and so on are expressed.

*Adaptive Sustainable Academic Management Practices DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.87018*

and support in drawing up business plans.

the counseling entities).

**7. Conclusion**

society" [31].

is aimed to provide guidance, expertise or professional advice directly to start-ups. Academic consulting allows universities to train properly students out of the curriculum in a focused manner on very well-defined topics. The networks thus created can contribute to the implementation of new sustainable management practices related to academic management (e.g. the realization of internships within

Another option, considered at the moment, a fashionable practice in sustainable academic management refers to the Student Entrepreneurship Society within the universities administration. Student entrepreneurship society (SES) is considered a mechanism for supporting, developing and encouraging entrepreneurship in the university environment, especially among students and graduates. These SES entities carry out different activities and tasks like stimulating and promoting entrepreneurship approach; organizing training courses for the development of the entrepreneurial skills; supporting the start-ups registration; organizing start-up simulations and set-up business ideas; organizing competitions to attract funding for the best projects; incubate start-ups; coordinating the activities of all business incubators, simulated enterprises, and other entrepreneurial entities; and guidance

Universities represent the structures that need to promote and enforce the successful implementation of as many sustainable development principles as possible. Academic decision-makers need to adapt the curriculum to study each program; use innovative means and methods in the didactic and research process; identify effective solutions for using natural resources; protect and preserve the environment; promote and implement the concept of energy saving; create intelligent solutions to prevent and manage natural disasters; and rapidly generate skills tailored to the new jobs. The successful combination for the successful universities is adaptive change to the new forthcoming challenges by using proper sustainable academic management practices. Universities have to educate future leaders of corporations and their employees to convince them that the adoption of responsible business strategies in terms of sustainability is a "win-win-win proposal for companies, environment and the

This chapter has also some limitations, since it describes the author point of view. Since the specialized literature on issues such as sustainable development, education in sustainable development, sustainable university, entrepreneurial university and sustainable management practices, has an impressive volume and is rich in many book titles, articles and scientific papers, empirical studies and complex research, it is almost impossible to make a comprehensive review which includes all the professional views and opinions. Therefore, the chapter includes a review with some of these approaches, by mentioning some of the important works and studies, and not necessarily containing all the authors who wrote in this vast and complex field. Also in the paragraphs related to the current study, professional opinions and ideas, based on the author's experience, in using specific tools of sustainable management practices, used in some activities that are defining the academic environment functionality such as specific training courses, training sessions on the topic of entrepreneurship, design and implementation of complex projects, organizing and supervising the internships, academic consulting, support and guidance for the business incubators, using of innovative methods such as the simulated enterprise in teaching and research, cooperation with the business environment, collaborative

### *Adaptive Sustainable Academic Management Practices DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.87018*

is aimed to provide guidance, expertise or professional advice directly to start-ups. Academic consulting allows universities to train properly students out of the curriculum in a focused manner on very well-defined topics. The networks thus created can contribute to the implementation of new sustainable management practices related to academic management (e.g. the realization of internships within the counseling entities).

Another option, considered at the moment, a fashionable practice in sustainable academic management refers to the Student Entrepreneurship Society within the universities administration. Student entrepreneurship society (SES) is considered a mechanism for supporting, developing and encouraging entrepreneurship in the university environment, especially among students and graduates. These SES entities carry out different activities and tasks like stimulating and promoting entrepreneurship approach; organizing training courses for the development of the entrepreneurial skills; supporting the start-ups registration; organizing start-up simulations and set-up business ideas; organizing competitions to attract funding for the best projects; incubate start-ups; coordinating the activities of all business incubators, simulated enterprises, and other entrepreneurial entities; and guidance and support in drawing up business plans.

### **7. Conclusion**

*Sustainable Management Practices*

the activities proposed in these projects.

• innovative management measures in community management and

The experience gained in these projects is the prerequisite for building new proposals for project applications with a higher quality level and with increased relevance, creating the possibility of obtaining the funds necessary for carrying out

All these opportunities should be used in the idea of integrating sustainable development into future project proposals on the three defining components: environment (by protecting the environment and the proper use of natural resources), society (focusing on improving living standards, improving health of the population and raising awareness of the new role that man must have in this information society) and economics (in terms of economic competitiveness in general and increased productivity in particular). The idea of sustainability of any project from the perspective of sustainable development is a necessary issue to treat through which findings and outcomes can help to develop new ideas, solutions and even

Also, in the last two decades, universities adapt their main mission in order to respond adequately to the challenges arise from the society evolution toward the future. In this regards, there are some fashionable approach that aims to fulfill the objectives and the stakeholders' wishes, which define the principles of sustainable development. First of all, universities are being increasingly considered as a source for creation of high-technology firms. Based on the relation between science, technology and university spinoffs, academic entities are moving from teaching, training and basic research to a much active and advanced role by creating spinoffs and develop academic entrepreneurial skills and abilities [27]. In this light, universities decided to invest in labs equipment and applied research by developing and commercially exploit their technic and technological inventions. University spinoffs transform these technic and technological inventions into a successful business venture. The process of establishing the spin-off as a new corporation involves transferring the intellectual property rights to the new corporation or giving the latter a license on this intellectual property [28]. On the other hand, according to [29], universities do not have a proper set of competencies in order to create and support spin-off. Therefore, universities need to set-up specific structures (technology transfer office and business incubators) and use new organizational practices for facilitate academic entrepreneurship. In this regard, the universities' internal processes are critical for the spin-off efficiency. For instance, internal processes could eliminate poor initiatives and also, support promising initiatives by using different services such as financing, support in the patenting process or specific guidance. Universities, even they have rules and regulations, could use different levels of freedom in design internal processes about spin-offs. Of course, each university has its own approach in terms of how it processes its structure. In the same manner, the management practices used by universities are not all alike. In fact, the study explored the relationship between management practices and the performance of academic spin-offs. A first conclusion, based on this study, underlined the fact that by having the control on the effects of management practices over academic spinoffs is a mean of control for the universities' internal processes. Another conclusion is relevant for the policy implications for universities and policy-makers "universities should be more aware of the management practices they adopt and how these

A means of maintaining links between the academic environment and the business environment is provided by academic consulting [30]. Academic consulting

• promoting sustainable solutions for environmental protection.

future projects to support future generations to have a better life.

**28**

practices fit into their internal organization".

Universities represent the structures that need to promote and enforce the successful implementation of as many sustainable development principles as possible. Academic decision-makers need to adapt the curriculum to study each program; use innovative means and methods in the didactic and research process; identify effective solutions for using natural resources; protect and preserve the environment; promote and implement the concept of energy saving; create intelligent solutions to prevent and manage natural disasters; and rapidly generate skills tailored to the new jobs. The successful combination for the successful universities is adaptive change to the new forthcoming challenges by using proper sustainable academic management practices.

Universities have to educate future leaders of corporations and their employees to convince them that the adoption of responsible business strategies in terms of sustainability is a "win-win-win proposal for companies, environment and the society" [31].

This chapter has also some limitations, since it describes the author point of view. Since the specialized literature on issues such as sustainable development, education in sustainable development, sustainable university, entrepreneurial university and sustainable management practices, has an impressive volume and is rich in many book titles, articles and scientific papers, empirical studies and complex research, it is almost impossible to make a comprehensive review which includes all the professional views and opinions. Therefore, the chapter includes a review with some of these approaches, by mentioning some of the important works and studies, and not necessarily containing all the authors who wrote in this vast and complex field. Also in the paragraphs related to the current study, professional opinions and ideas, based on the author's experience, in using specific tools of sustainable management practices, used in some activities that are defining the academic environment functionality such as specific training courses, training sessions on the topic of entrepreneurship, design and implementation of complex projects, organizing and supervising the internships, academic consulting, support and guidance for the business incubators, using of innovative methods such as the simulated enterprise in teaching and research, cooperation with the business environment, collaborative research and so on are expressed.

*Sustainable Management Practices*

### **Conflict of interest**

I declare no 'conflict of interest'.

### **Author details**

Cătălin Popescu Petroleum-Gas University, Ploiesti, Romania

\*Address all correspondence to: cpopescu@upg-ploiesti.ro

© 2019 The Author(s). Licensee IntechOpen. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

**31**

*Adaptive Sustainable Academic Management Practices DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.87018*

[10] Blessinger P, Sengupta E,

[Accessed: 2019-05-18]

10.1007/0-306-48515-X

[Accessed: 2019-05-17]

[12] Nolim J, Brorstrom B. The University of Boras as a Sustainable University, Science for the Professions Report Series, Report no. 2015:31, Responstryck, Borås; 2015. Available from: https://www.hb.se/Global/ HB%20-%20externt/Forskning/

Sustainable%20university%20webb.pdf

[13] Sterling S, Maxey L. In: Sterling S,

[14] Grecu V, Ipina N. The sustainable university—A model for the sustainable

Maxey L, Luna H, editors. The Sustainable University: Progress and Prospects. London: Routledge; 2013

organization. Management of Sustainable Development Sibiu, Romania, 2014;**6**(2). DOI: 10.1515/ msd-2015-0002. Available from: https:// www.degruyter.com/downloadpdf/j/ msd.2014.6.issue-2/msd-2015-0002/ msd-2015-0002.pdf [Accessed:

[15] Jones P, Selby D, Sterling S. More than the sum of their parts? Interdisciplinarity and sustainability. In: Jones P, Selby D, Sterling S, editors. Sustainability Education— Perspectives and Practice Across Higher Education. Earthscan. Chapter

2019-05-18]

3, 2010. pp. 39-54

Makhanya M. Higher education's key role in sustainable development. In: University World News Newspaper, 07. September 2018. Available from: https://www.universityworldnews.com/ post.php?story=20180905082834986

[11] Corcoran PB, Wals AEJ. Higher Education and the Challenge of Sustainability. Problematics, Promise, and Practice. Kluwer Academic Publishers; 2004. DOI:

[1] Danciu V. The sustainable company: New challenges and strategies for more sustainability. Theoretical and Applied

[2] Samuelson R. Causes of the crisis.

[3] Palley T. From Financial Crisis to Stagnation: The Destruction of Shared Prosperity and the Role of Economics. Cambridge University Press; 2012

[4] What is Education for Sustainable Development. Available from: https:// en.unesco.org/themes/educationsustainable-development/what-is-esd

[5] Van den Branden K. Sustainable education: Basic principles and strategic recommendations. School Effectiveness and School Improvement.

[6] Tilbury D, Wortman D. Engaging people sustainability. In: Commission on Education and Communication. Switzerland, Gland: IUCN; 2004

[7] von Hauff M, Kleine A. Methodological approach for the systematization of the areas of action and the indicators of a sustainability strategy—The integrative sustainability

triangle. International Journal of Environment and Sustainable Development. 2006;**5**(4):372-394

Kumarian Press; 2012

[8] Ikerd J. The Essential of Economic Sustainability. Virginia, Sterling:

[9] Cortese A. Towards a sustainable university. Review of designing the New American University. In: Crow M, Dabars W, editors. Great Transition Initiative. June 2016. Available from: http://www.greattransition.org/ publication/towards-a-sustainableuniversity [Accessed: 2019-05-14]

Economics. 2013;**9586**:p7-p26

Real Clear Politics. 2012;**19**

[Accessed: 2019-02-03]

2012;**23**(3):1-20

**References**

*Adaptive Sustainable Academic Management Practices DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.87018*

### **References**

*Sustainable Management Practices*

I declare no 'conflict of interest'.

**Conflict of interest**

**30**

**Author details**

Cătălin Popescu

Petroleum-Gas University, Ploiesti, Romania

provided the original work is properly cited.

\*Address all correspondence to: cpopescu@upg-ploiesti.ro

© 2019 The Author(s). Licensee IntechOpen. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium,

[1] Danciu V. The sustainable company: New challenges and strategies for more sustainability. Theoretical and Applied Economics. 2013;**9586**:p7-p26

[2] Samuelson R. Causes of the crisis. Real Clear Politics. 2012;**19**

[3] Palley T. From Financial Crisis to Stagnation: The Destruction of Shared Prosperity and the Role of Economics. Cambridge University Press; 2012

[4] What is Education for Sustainable Development. Available from: https:// en.unesco.org/themes/educationsustainable-development/what-is-esd [Accessed: 2019-02-03]

[5] Van den Branden K. Sustainable education: Basic principles and strategic recommendations. School Effectiveness and School Improvement. 2012;**23**(3):1-20

[6] Tilbury D, Wortman D. Engaging people sustainability. In: Commission on Education and Communication. Switzerland, Gland: IUCN; 2004

[7] von Hauff M, Kleine A. Methodological approach for the systematization of the areas of action and the indicators of a sustainability strategy—The integrative sustainability triangle. International Journal of Environment and Sustainable Development. 2006;**5**(4):372-394

[8] Ikerd J. The Essential of Economic Sustainability. Virginia, Sterling: Kumarian Press; 2012

[9] Cortese A. Towards a sustainable university. Review of designing the New American University. In: Crow M, Dabars W, editors. Great Transition Initiative. June 2016. Available from: http://www.greattransition.org/ publication/towards-a-sustainableuniversity [Accessed: 2019-05-14]

[10] Blessinger P, Sengupta E, Makhanya M. Higher education's key role in sustainable development. In: University World News Newspaper, 07. September 2018. Available from: https://www.universityworldnews.com/ post.php?story=20180905082834986 [Accessed: 2019-05-18]

[11] Corcoran PB, Wals AEJ. Higher Education and the Challenge of Sustainability. Problematics, Promise, and Practice. Kluwer Academic Publishers; 2004. DOI: 10.1007/0-306-48515-X

[12] Nolim J, Brorstrom B. The University of Boras as a Sustainable University, Science for the Professions Report Series, Report no. 2015:31, Responstryck, Borås; 2015. Available from: https://www.hb.se/Global/ HB%20-%20externt/Forskning/ Sustainable%20university%20webb.pdf [Accessed: 2019-05-17]

[13] Sterling S, Maxey L. In: Sterling S, Maxey L, Luna H, editors. The Sustainable University: Progress and Prospects. London: Routledge; 2013

[14] Grecu V, Ipina N. The sustainable university—A model for the sustainable organization. Management of Sustainable Development Sibiu, Romania, 2014;**6**(2). DOI: 10.1515/ msd-2015-0002. Available from: https:// www.degruyter.com/downloadpdf/j/ msd.2014.6.issue-2/msd-2015-0002/ msd-2015-0002.pdf [Accessed: 2019-05-18]

[15] Jones P, Selby D, Sterling S. More than the sum of their parts? Interdisciplinarity and sustainability. In: Jones P, Selby D, Sterling S, editors. Sustainability Education— Perspectives and Practice Across Higher Education. Earthscan. Chapter 3, 2010. pp. 39-54

[16] Denes C, Radu S. Resource Management and Sustainability. Centre of Competence, Lucian Blaga University of Sibiu, Imbunatatirea Managementului Universitar; 2011. Project POSDRU/ 2/1.2/S/4

[17] Velazquez L, Munguia N, Platt A, Taddei J. Sustainable university: What can be the matter? Journal of Cleaner Production. 2006;**14**(9-11):810-819

[18] Disterheft A, Caeiro S, Azeiteiro UM, Filho WL. Sustainable universities—A study of critical success factors for participatory approaches. Journal of Cleaner Production. 2015;**106**:11-21. DOI: 10.1016/j. jclepro.2014.01.030

[19] Amaral LP, Martins N, Gouveia JB. Quest for a sustainable university: A review. International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education. 2015;**16**(2):155-172. DOI: 10.1108/ IJSHE-02-2013-0017

[20] Tania E. The New Pioneers: Sustainable Business Success through Social Innovation and Social Entrepreneurship. John Wiley & Sons; 2010

[21] Gagnidze I. Entrepreneurial university model—Short literature review. Model-based governance for smart organizational future BSLAB-SYDIC. In: International Workshop—Roma. Book of Abstracts. January 2017. DOI: 10.13140/ RG.2.2.20373.22241

[22] Munir ZA, Idrus S, Shukur SAM, Ithnin R, Mohamad SS. The effectiveness of entrepreneurial motivational training programme among university students. International Journal of Social Science and Humanity. 2015;**5**(5):487-490

[23] Oyugi JL. Entrepreneurial and innovative leadership: Evolution towards a better higher institution

of learning. Journal of Educational Policy and Entrepreneurial Research. 2015;**2**(8):18-27

[24] Popescu C, Oprea MC. Innovative methods that facilitate the smooth transition from education to labour market-case study Romania. In: Proceedings of 21th IBIMA Conference on Vision 2020: Innovation, Development Sustainability, and Economic Growth, 27-28 June, 2013; Vienna, Austria. 2013. pp. 1039-1045

[25] Udoh Iboro P, Olaoye A, Oloruntoba A, Sunday DK. University incubators: A pathway to entrepreneurial society. Covenant Journal of Entrepreneurship. 2018;**2**(2):24-33

[26] Popescu C. Research and contribution to the development of managerial tools for the sustainable management of conventional and non-conventional resources of energy and for the innovation in education and research [habilitation thesis]. Technical University of Cluj-Napoca; 2016

[27] Lerner J. The university and the start-up: Lessons from the past two decades. The Journal of Technology Transfer. 2004;**30**(1-2):49-56. DOI: 10.1007/s10961-004-4357-8

[28] Pattnaik PN, Pandey SC. University spinoffs: What, Why, and How? Technology Innovation Management Review. December 2014. Available from: www.timreview.ca

[29] Bennasi M, Landoni M, Rentocchini F. University Management Practices and Academic Spin-offs. Working paper 11/2017. Universita Degli Studi di Milano, Dipartimento di Economia, Management e Metodi Quantitativi; September 2017

[30] van Stijn N, van Rijnsoever FJ, van Veelen M. Exploring the motives and practices of university–start-up

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interaction: Evidence from Route 128. The Journal of Technology Transfer. 2018;**43**(3):674-713. DOI: 10.1007/ s10961-017-9625-5

*Sustainable Management Practices*

[16] Denes C, Radu S. Resource Management and Sustainability. Centre of Competence, Lucian Blaga University of Sibiu, Imbunatatirea Managementului Universitar; 2011.

of learning. Journal of Educational Policy and Entrepreneurial Research.

[24] Popescu C, Oprea MC. Innovative methods that facilitate the smooth transition from education to labour market-case study Romania. In: Proceedings of 21th IBIMA Conference

[25] Udoh Iboro P, Olaoye A, Oloruntoba A, Sunday DK. University incubators:

on Vision 2020: Innovation, Development Sustainability, and Economic Growth, 27-28 June, 2013; Vienna, Austria. 2013. pp. 1039-1045

A pathway to entrepreneurial society. Covenant Journal of Entrepreneurship. 2018;**2**(2):24-33

[26] Popescu C. Research and contribution to the development of managerial tools for the sustainable management of conventional and non-conventional resources of energy and for the innovation in education and research [habilitation thesis]. Technical University of Cluj-Napoca;

[27] Lerner J. The university and the start-up: Lessons from the past two decades. The Journal of Technology Transfer. 2004;**30**(1-2):49-56. DOI:

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**35**

**Chapter 3**

Change

**Abstract**

institutional and policy issues.

**1. Introduction**

value chain development, climate change

Sustainable Agricultural

*S.M. Fakhrul Islam and Zahurul Karim*

Management Practices and

Enterprise Development for

Coping with Global Climate

This book chapter provides an insight into the synthesis of climate change vulnerabilities across various regions of the globe, recent trends, issues and prospects of climate smart agribusiness, the skill, efficiency and sustainable management practices of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) of the globe in the context of climate change, addressing the needs of emerging markets, industries and regional trades through a transformation with development in the areas of technology, value chains, management of environmental and social risk in the supply chains, compliance of food quality and safety regulations, market linkages of smallholders, corporate social responsibility and institutional development. There is a growing concern on food safety regulation and certification as part of sustainable management practices that firms and industries should cope. Sustainable management practices in business prove to be more profitable as they tend to adapt and grow with the changing markets, providing a competitive advantage over other firms. This chapter also focused on the challenges in sustainable business practices as well as suggested a number of development options,

**Keywords:** agribusiness, enterprise development, sustainable management practices,

There are growing concerns on the impact of climate change on agribusiness. A number of studies assessed such impact at various country levels and food security challenges [1]. An ever increasing amount of evidence suggests that the continual increase in greenhouse gas emissions is affecting the global climate and altering the local precipitation and temperatures [2]. Climate change is expected to produce significant effects on global water resources and freshwater ecosystems [3, 4]. The effects and intensity of climate change will vary from region to region [5]. Impact of climate on global water storage capabilities and hydrologic functions will have significant implications on agricultural production and food processing sector.

### **Chapter 3**
