Περίληψη: 

As sustainability increasingly becomes a central strategic and societal priority, research within the field has expanded across multiple disciplines, organisational contexts and stakeholder perspectives. This presentation explores conceptual pathways in sustainability research through two interconnected studies that examine sustainability from consumer-oriented (Paper 1) and institutional perspectives (Paper 2), while also reflecting on broader challenges and opportunities associated with conceptual and integrative academic research.

The first study presents a bibliometric–systematic literature review of generational perspectives in sustainable marketing, consumer behaviour and brand authenticity. Drawing on bibliometric and co-citation analyses of peer-reviewed literature published between 2015 and 2025, the study examines how different generations perceive sustainability communication, authenticity, greenwashing and ethical consumption. The findings reveal the dominance of behavioural intention models within the literature, while highlighting the fragmented dimension of authenticity and generational identity as explanatory mechanisms of sustainable consumer behaviour.

The study further demonstrates that younger generations, particularly Millennials and Gen Z, exhibit stronger sustainability engagement and scepticism toward greenwashing practices, whereas older generations tend to prioritise pragmatic considerations such as quality, value and durability. The second study examines the institutionalisation of sustainability within Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) through an integrative conceptual review approach.

The study addresses the fragmentation of sustainability initiatives across educational, environmental, economic, social and governance dimensions and proposes an Integrated Institutional Sustainability Framework aligned with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The findings position governance as the central coordinating mechanism enabling strategic sustainability integration, while education is conceptualised as the enabling institutional capability supporting long-term sustainability transformation and cross-dimensional coordination.