The need for social and academic responsibility advisor (SARA): a catalyst toward the sustainability of educational institutes

Abstract

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate elements of socio-academic-related sustainability in educational institutes and propose a structure of an advising system that can aid the most critical stakeholders in such educational institutes, i.e the student. Hence, after reviewing the contemporary University Social Responsibility (USR) Venn diagram, the paper focuses on the need to develop a social and academic responsibility advisor (SARA) system as a catalyst toward fulfilling social responsibility to the most important stakeholder and alternatively leads to enhanced sustainability of such educational institutes. Design/methodology/approach A combination of research methods used in this paper, defined as by identifying the need for SARA from a literature survey. By distributing a questionnaire to students investigating their desire of an academic advisor system and by establishing a focus group to study the academic and social aspects and its implications to students’ “quality of life” as an essential aspect toward the educational institutes' sustainability. Various issues related to the features of the SARA discussed. Findings Literature review shows only a few articles combine both aspects of advising activities (social and academic), most of which are not interrelated to the sustainability of educational institutes. This paper highlights the need and connectivity of SARA to contemporary USR sustainability. The descriptive statistics of the questionnaire showed about 86 per cent of student participants interested in applying the proposed features. The outcome of the focus group resulted in more detailed features of academic and social aspects of the expected SARA system. Research limitations/implications The proposed features of SARA described where the inter-related social and academic activities could be managed, logged and used by students. The proposed “heterogeneous study group” was investigated by observation implemented in four different courses in two different semesters. The result was not conclusive, and further study recommended. Even though this experimentation was not conclusive, the lesson learned from this study highlighted different issues associated with “study groups” within a course. Practical implications Applicability of SARA would enhance the quality of life of students in general and provide a mechanism to motivate low aptitude students to get engaged with study and projects with high-aptitude students. Social implications Avoiding the “feel” of isolation by some students due to the inability to find study partner who can also act as mentor to a study group. The proposed “Heterogeneous study group” would provide a mechanism for “Practiced student-to-student Social responsibility”. Originality/value The paper highlights and proves the need for SARA in contemporary USR where SARA can act as a catalyst for enhancing the socio-academic zone of the reviewed USR Venn diagram. Features of SARA identified as an outcome of the study in this paper. Proposal of “Heterogeneous Study Group” was proposed as mechanism of “social learning”. “Group health” testing was proposed as a criteria resulted from a balance between collaboration, social affinity and project effort.

Review of empirical research on university social responsibility

“…Thus, serving the local community through student volunteering and participation in knowledge transfer from academics and students to the local community has become widely popular and the benefits are undeniable. This review has again confirmed the benefits of USR suggestions for transitional economies, for example: enhancing the reputation of universities in Thailand (Plungpongpan et al , 2016), improving the interaction between advisors and social work students in Lebanese universities (Kouatli, 2019b), meeting campus sustainability targets in Chinese (Shuqin et al , 2019) and Indian (Wakkee et al , 2019) HEIs. Furthermore, the authors found that the significant barrier to implementing USR is the lack of resources to address social issues; however, only a few studies superficially mentioned this issue and determined its impact on USR performance.…”

“…Another obligation has replaced economic responsibility in the HEI context; instead of developing products and services to maximize profits, the focus is on education and research as core missions (Karima et al , 2006). Consistent with that, Kouatli (2019) has stated the changing of the USR concept compared to CSR is according to the basis of seven aspects: stakeholders, organization pattern, community contribution, protecting nature, financial resource, reputation and sustainability measurement. Thus, adopting the Venn diagram approach to identify the CSR concept, the term USR has become the basic guidance for HEIs in setup development strategy based on incorporating those three aspects to reach sustainability (Karima et al , 2006; Kouatli, 2019a).…”

“…Regardless of the national context or specific university, all universities were considered an organization interested in how adopting social responsibility is dependent on its benefits (Kouatli, 2019b; Larrán Jorge and Andrades Peña, 2017; Rodrigues de Sousa et al , 2021). Thus, identifying specific aspects of USR concerns provides clearer guidance for universities to better understand USR practices.…”

“…With regards to issues such as human rights, the work environment must aim to change and foster stakeholders' perceptions of the HEI (El-Kassar et al , 2019; Frandoloso and Rebelatto, 2019). In fact, when discussing a university's social responsibilities, pressure from its local society has unintentionally created barriers as well as opportunities with regard to USR implementation (El-Kassar et al , 2019; Kouatli, 2019b). Particularly, when comparing research between Lebanese and Colombian universities, El-Kassar et al (2019) stressed that USR is considered an excellent marketing tool that aims to enhance university image and student loyalty (El-Kassar et al , 2019).…”

University social responsibility: the present and future trends based on bibliometric analysis

“…Students who perceive their institution as more socially responsible are more loyal towards their university, as socially responsible HEIs are associated with better service quality and provided service to meet student satisfaction (V azquez et al, 2016;Latif et al, 2021). Kouatli (2020) proposed a social and academic responsibility advisor (SARA) system as a driver towards achieving USR to meet student needs, conceptualized as the most important stakeholder. The initiative is regarded as a way to enhance educational sustainability activities.…”