At present, the logistics industry in Spain is one that is mostly male-dominated, and women middle and top managers make up less than 10% of the workforce at these management levels. There is therefore an obvious lack of parity in this sector. Spanish regulation at present supports and promotes gender parity in different sectors including the logistics industry. Our article uses as a basis the fifth Sustainable Development Goal, “achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls”. Twenty-four female middle and top managers of the logistics sector were interviewed via a questionnaire of 52 questions. The research for this study was based on Avery and Bergsteiner’s 2011 Honeybee and Locust Sustainable Leadership Model and strived to determine how female middle and top managers in the logistics sector in Spain perceived leadership in their workplace and whether these perceptions were aligned with Avery and Bergsteiner’s sustainability leadership model. Findings showed interesting results, indicating that the Spanish logistics industry seemed to be a mixture of bee- and locust-type leadership. Respondents agreed that organizations were not very open to knowledge sharing and indicated that there is still a considerable need for improvement with regard to leadership practices in the logistics sector. Finally, our study is innovative in the sense that sustainable leadership and gender equality are two elements that have not been researched together.

The seventeen Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) aim to address environmental, social, global, and economic challenges. The SDGs were a continuation of the Millennium Development Goals and assumed a common vision for the year 2030. Efforts to achieve the SDGs must be carried out in an integrated manner, respecting the three pillars of sustainable development, which are economic, social, and environmental. This review analyses the viability of Sustainable Development Goal 17 (SDG 17), which aims to build global partnerships for development. It makes specific reference to multi-stakeholder collaboration between all sectors of society. While the first sixteen SDGs are dedicated to concrete actions, SDG 17 Partnerships for Development coordinates and facilitates the implementation of the other goals. SDG 17 promotes the “right way” of collaboration between different actors through the formation of multi-stakeholder partnerships, which are essential to foster sustainable development. Although SDG 17 has its multiple advantages, it also does have its limitations, such as the present absence of a lessons-learned repository to share and understand how multi-stakeholder partnerships can prove more effective in promoting the successful implementation of the rest of the SDGs, as well as that SDG 17 seems to be regarded as more appropriate to the achievement of the economic pillar of sustainability at the moment, rather than being applied more widely. In this review, we analyze two case studies located in the south-western part of France, from which one can observe the great number of stakeholders, some non-human, even inanimate, present even in relatively minor projects and how due consideration of the interests of all of them in a manner following due process (albeit lengthy) enables decisions to be reached correctly and approved projects implemented soundly. One of the projects was rejected and did not proceed, while the other was approved and is going ahead.

The seventeenth Sustainable Development Goal of the United Nations, Partnerships for the Goals, aims to strengthen the means of the implementation and revitalize the global partnership for sustainable development. The successful implantation of the UN’s seventeenth Sustainable Development Goal will aid the execution and achievement of the other sixteen goals. This article explores the importance and viability of Sustainable Development Goal 17, using a case study based in Valencia, Spain. The study presents an illustrative stakeholder situation, where we see that there are conflicting interests among conservationists, fishermen, municipality representatives, and others. Data collection was done using desk-based research and semi-structured interviews. The interview process was performed between October 2018 and October 2019. In total, 21 different stakeholders were interviewed. For the data analyses, a stakeholder register, Power–Interest Matrices, and a stakeholder map were used, and, to complement the latter, narratives were developed. The different analyses showed that most project stakeholders supported the project, while there was really only one stakeholder, the fishermen themselves, who were reticent about participating. However, it was shown over time that, by developing a common vision with them, the fishermen came on board the project and collaborated with the scientists. Stakeholder engagement analyses are especially useful in the application of Sustainable Development Goals at the project level. Although this case study is specifically applicable to a marine conservation context, it may be extrapolated and applied to any other Sustainable Development Goals’ context.

Adopting a long-term perspective has helped companies survive in difficult times and overcome economic crises, recessions, and pandemics such as the current COVID-19. At present, the project management approach is changing from more authoritarian management models to frameworks that are based on the management of people and society. This article researches the concept of sustainable leadership in the project management profession. It evaluates the level of sustainable leadership among project managers in Spain using the Avery and Bergsteiner’s (2011) model of bees and locusts as a reference framework (Bee and Locust Sustainable Leadership Model). A qualitative study was carried out based on the analysis of the responses given by sixty-eight project managers in Spain who answered a 52-point ques-tionnaire. The findings yielded interesting results. It was found that in projects considered as temporal organizations, companies tended to employ a mixture of bee and locust’s leadership elements. Respondents recognized the importance of employee training and development, and most considered that it was essential to consider the environment when determining the organization’s commercial objectives. However, based on this study’s findings, the project management profession still has a long way to go as regards the practical implementation of sustainable leadership.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming organizational functions across sectors; however, its application to human resource management (HRM) within healthcare remains underexplored. This study aims to unpack the black-box nature of AI capability’s impact on HR functions within China’s healthcare sector, a domain undergoing rapid digital transformation, driven by national innovation policies. Grounded in resource-based theory, the study conceptualizes AI capability as a multidimensional construct encompassing tangible resources, human resources, and organizational intangibles. Using a structural equation modeling approach (PLS-SEM), the analysis draws on survey data from 331 professionals across five hospitals in three Chinese cities. The results demonstrate a strong, positive, and statistically significant relationship between AI capability and HR functions, accounting for 75.2% of the explained variance. These findings indicate that AI capability enhances HR performance through smarter recruitment, personalized training, and data-driven talent management. By empirically illuminating the mechanisms linking AI capability to HR outcomes, the study contributes to theoretical development and offers actionable insights for healthcare administrators and policymakers. It positions AI not merely as a technological tool but as a strategic resource to address talent shortages and improve equity in workforce distribution. This work helps to clarify a previously opaque area of AI application in healthcare HRM.

Business sectors are generally evolving towards the adoption of models of sustainable practice, but is this also true in the specific audio-visual sector? This question leads us to examine whether sustainable practices are carried out in the image and sound sector, using sector business leadership as a starting point. Adopting a long-term perspective has helped companies survive difficult times, such as seemingly ever more frequent economic crises and recessions, as well as to overcome the current COVID-19 pandemic and its aftermath. Together with review of appropriate literature, the study aims to analyse the perception of managers in the audio-visual sector regarding styles of leadership in their organizations, through the Bee and Locust Sustainable Leadership framework that Avery and Bergsteiner developed in 2011. A quantitative study was carried out based on the analysis of the responses given by fifty middle and senior managers from the audio-visual sector in Spain who answered a 54-poit questionnaire. The findings yielded interesting results. Organizations within the audio-visual sector were found to display elements of both bee and locust leadership styles. The results showed that idea contribution and teamwork were valued by the managers interviewed. Furthermore, considerable importance was attached to the need to implement continuous training and the development of corresponding professional careers in companies. Overall, the results showed that there was a clear need for companies in the audio-visual sector to put greater effort into promoting and successfully achieving sustainable practices at the operational level.