In the context of enormous global challenges such as climate change, poverty, and the unequal distribution of wealth, sustainability education within higher education has gained momentum as a tool to train a new generation of change agents. Previous research has examined the relationship between sustainability education and entrepreneurship education. There is however a knowledge gap regarding course development strategies that can integrate entrepreneurship competencies into sustainability education. Following a classroom action research (AR) approach, we developed a three-week graduate course aimed at an interdisciplinary cohort of students in the social sciences from partner universities in Brazil and Norway. The course integrated a problem-based learning (PBL) framework. Working in groups of four to five members, the students provided business solutions framed in a post-oil development context. The results indicate tension points in the integration of the learning principles of PBL along the different phases of PBL, namely during the group formation and problem analysis phases. To tackle these tensions, we suggest early group formation and integrate formative feedback and progressive problem analysis. Our framework contributes to the debate on competence-based frameworks within the sustainability education literature. The framework can also serve as an inspiration for course designers in higher education.

The literature on international business teaching has contributed to the development of international internships as a learning pedagogy through three key areas: making sense of the students’ developed competences and prospective added employment value following their participation in international internships, the role of support structures in the organization of internships abroad, and more recently the pedagogical design of internships abroad. Thus, more recent research has taken a critical stance toward internships as a learning form, as serious gaps exist in the pedagogical elements required to connect internships with the broader theoretical elements of international business programs. The present study addresses these gaps through two research questions: i) How can educators design and implement problem-based international internships in business education? ii) What adjustments does the combination of these two active learning experiences in business education demand for small business schools, partner universities, and hosting organizations? The paper presents pedagogical action research that was conducted over two courses for international business internships in a Norwegian-Brazilian context for bachelor’s and master’s students. It contributes to the international business teaching literature in the following ways: First, the validated teaching framework argues for international internships that are linked to loosely defined problems at the host organization, which the student self-scopes and connects based on their theoretical knowledge from other courses. Second, by providing an in-depth discussion of problem-based learning and its applicability in international business practicums, we address the existing gap in the field regarding the pedagogical foundations of how students connect theory to practice during international internships. Third, the framework serves as a practical guideline for teaching and administrative staff who wish to develop international internship programs at home universities, supporting their ability to connect the practical aspects established in the literature with the additional organizational requirements arising from working with hosting organizations overseas.

This study is part of a broader research project, conducted by the Triple Helix Research Group – Brazil, focusing on university–industry– government linkages in the state of Rio de Janeiro. The case study reported here is that of the Regional University of Volta Redonda: the aim was to develop an understanding of how a regional university can be transformed into an entrepreneurial university, oriented towards assisting regional economic development. A theoretical framework was constructed using existing literature on regional development and the Triple Helix approach. The research objective was to determine the relevance and effects of university–industry collaboration from the perspective of local players. Two surveys were conducted, one with faculty members at the university and the other with representatives of companies located in the region. No cultural barriers to collaboration were revealed on either side of the relationship; and opportunities to improve a relationship that, in the past, has had little influence on economic development in the region were also identified.

Purpose: This study aims to focus on the entrepreneurial education and profile in undergraduate business administration programs in Brazil, particularly in the southern region of the state of Rio de Janeiro. Assuming that the entrepreneurial profile can be developed by teaching and learning processes. Design/methodology/approach: The research performed qualitative approach through interviews and a quantitative approach using multiple criteria decision-making methods. Data were collected along 2015 in a survey with a population of 412 students from three high education institutions (HEIs) and analyzed using the analytic hierarchy process with ratings. Findings: The study has found that the key entrepreneurial trait for all groups was the ability to “plan”. Other relevant dimensions were “self-realization”, “innovative” and “leader”. The dimensions “risk taking” and “sociability” were considered not important in the opinion of all groups. Practical implications: The entrepreneurial profile does not seem to evolve over the four-year college period, thus suggesting a failure of the entrepreneurial education at the three surveyed HEIs to impact the overall perception of students about the requirements for creating and developing new ventures. Actions to revert this trend should be taken. Originality/value: This research aims to identify differences in perception about the entrepreneurial profile among freshmen and senior undergraduates. The theme is relevant in a knowledge era where academy has to prepare students to be entrepreneurs. Similar studies were done around in Brazil and around the world but no one in the state of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The work has a contribution by proposing and applying a method to compare students groups, programs, institutions and countries over time.

This study presents the evolution of the Triple Helix thematic using social network analysis. Our research covered 1,122 publications from the Web of Science database between 1995 and 2022. To analyze the data, we adopted the CiteSpace software, from which we interpreted the general properties of the co-citation network and the countries’ network. We also explored a set of nodes’ centralities to identify relevant publications and countries. The results showed two trends related to the literature relevance across different innovation systems. The first one is a possible theoretical replacement by authors who publish mainly about relationships between entities in economically developed countries that are leaders in innovation, whose research migrated from the Triple Helix model to the Quadruple Helix model. The second trend relates to the studies’ continuity based on the prior model by authors investigating innovation systems in less advanced technological ecosystems with newborn or young relationships.