Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and its disclosure in the university environment is a topic of current relevance, as it makes the entities’ commitments visible and provides indicators that enable them to improve the institution management and communication with stakeholders. The goal of this study is to determine to what extent the structure and mechanisms for governance and the demands of stakeholders influence policy for disclosing CSR information, both in general (more related to a strategic perspective) and specifically (more focused on specific social, environmental, economic, and educational issues). The results of our analysis of a sample of the top 200 universities in the Shanghai Ranking show no association of the profile and gender of the university’s rector and frequency of board meetings with CSR disclosure policy, but leadership team, the size of governance board, committees in the governance board and stakeholder participation are factors determining disclosure of information on matters of CSR. The results show that proximity to the day-to-day, diversification of functions, and communication with interest groups are crucial to transparency and disclosure of CSR information.

In recent years, sustainable crowdfunding has been one of the key elements in the search for new sources of financing. This has involved eliminating financial barriers and intermediaries, bringing entrepreneurs’ projects closer to fund providers, and thus instigating changes in traditional investment and profitability parameters. Among these indicators, the sustainable business return and its relationship with Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) could be a relevant factor to improve the cost of funding, to explain the return on assets (ROA), and, consequently, impacting on the return on equity (ROE). In this context, this paper takes as a reference 101 projects that are part of Colectual’s lending. We analyze factors such as sustainability—the application of CSR across a social responsibility index; the financial characteristics of the company—liquidity, leverage, and solvency; and the characteristics of the loans related to crowdfunding—amount, maturity, and charge rate of the loan. Our study provides empirical evidence that, besides financial characteristics, the commitment to CSR can improve collective lending and the management of resources, as well as enhance the capital wealth of companies, by improving shareholder profitability or ROE. Investors consider not only financial risk but also sustainability factors.

In the context of universities' commitment to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the paper aims to analyse the factors that influence the degree of information disclosure related to the economic, social, and environmental (ESE) aspects of SDGs. Based on a content analysis of the annual and/or sustainability reports for 2021 and the websites of the top 200 universities in the Shanghai ranking, the results show that the volume of ESE disclosures at universities is associated with gender diversity in the governance team, stakeholder commitment and position in academic and environmental rankings. By taking entities that are global benchmarks, the results make practical and managerial contributions. First, they can serve as a guide to setting policy frameworks for institutions to create procedures to develop their SDG‐compliant actions. Second, the promotion of women's participation on the board and the active presence of stakeholders favour universities' information disclosure policies. Third, the results show that the efforts towards disclosure at the top universities in both academic and environmental rankings are related to legitimising their actions and meeting stakeholders' demands. In addition, this study proposes the development of an index that could help improve the ESE information disclosed by universities, which is currently low, yet some aspects of it, such as economic aspects, are barely covered but essential to ensure sustainability. Finally, the proposed indicators can also serve as a guide for governing bodies' management of SDG‐related aspects.

Over the past decade, one of the demands upon public institutions, among which we find universities, has been for transparency and improvement of accountability. In this context, Colombian universities are introducing different methods of management and governance aimed at addressing the demands of society generally in relation to transparency and quality in the activities that they carry out. The objective of the present study is to analyze and evaluate factors which affect the level of transparency at Colombian universities based on the rectors’ perception of these universities. The results obtained indicate that the level of transparency depends on the type of governance which is adopted, the level of prestige and the level of delimitation of its identity. Other questions such as size, budget or the public or private nature of the university have not proved to be significant explanatory factors of the degree of transparency.

In a context of greater demands in terms of accountability and transparency in management, we analyse the extent to which Corporate Governance (CG) mechanisms have been adopted and we define the model of governance in universities in Colombia. In the field of higher education, there are usually no compulsory requirements related to CG. Nevertheless, governance mechanisms are nowadays crucial in determining the objectives, strategies and direction of universities. Based on a survey of 81 rectors of higher education institutions in Colombia, we analyse the models of CG adopted (managerial and stakeholder models). The results contribute to a better understanding of key CG concepts at universities. Points for practitioners: There is an increasing awareness of the importance of improving the mechanisms of governance that may help to achieve greater effectiveness and efficiency in the management of resources and awareness of society. The analysis of the predominant CG models, the stakeholder model and the managerial model, and the way in which Colombian universities are introducing these models could be used to promote the establishment of a common legal framework. This model should be flexible and include different opinions and preferences. The results may be useful and could be transferred to other countries that have the same characteristics.

El gobierno corporativo (GC) en los últimos años está siendo relevante debido entre otras cosas a sus múltiples acciones orientadas a mejorar la dirección y el control de las organizaciones. En este contexto, el sector público está buscando nuevas formas de mejorar la eficiencia y la eficacia de su gestión motivado en gran medida por la creciente demanda de los diversos stakeholders que están solicitando a las administraciones públicas, una mejora en la transparencia y una mayor rendición de cuentas. En este sentido, el presente trabajo se dirige a analizar el GC en el ámbito público específicamente en el campo de la educación superior. Para ello, se pretende identificar los aportes realizados sobre la gobernanza y la estructura de gobierno universitario existentes en España. Por otra parte, nuestro objetivo se centra en identificar y valorar el grado de adopción de los aspectos del GC que se recogen en las 49 universidades públicas españolas registradas en el Ministerio de Educación, Cultura y Deporte. Para tal fin, observaremos la información divulgada en los sitios online de las distintas instituciones educativas.