The conceptualisation of socially responsible universities in higher education research: a systematic literature review

ABSTRACT With the transition to knowledge-based economies, higher education (HE) has become a driving factor for economic and social development. Alongside high-quality education and excellent research, social responsibility (SR) has become an important aspect of universities’ accountability and legitimacy. Considering the growing importance of SR for universities operating in stratified systems, the objective of this study is to analyse how HE research has conceptualised a socially responsible university over time and to understand the role of the institutional and organisational environment in the implementation of SR in universities. The study employed a systematic literature review of prominent HE journals, covering a 30-year period. Findings show that SR is an umbrella concept, which has evolved from being a moral duty to provide service to society, to engaging external stakeholders in universities’ core functions, and more recently to showing evidence of social impact. The extent to which SR becomes implemented and legitimised as a core HE function is influenced by institutional and organisational factors. National policies and public funding, organisational strategy and incentives, and faculty agency were found to be important levers of implementation. This study informs practical application by showing that the implementation of SR requires coherence between SR strategies and structures, and incentives to strengthen internal commitment to SR. Furthermore, it proposes a research agenda on the evaluation of universities’ social impact and the influence of institutional pressures on organisational responses for SR.


Introduction
Higher education is a key factor in the development of knowledge-based economies and cohesive societies. Through education, research and service to society, universities play an important role in building human capital, strengthening research and innovation, and contributing to social, economic, cultural and environmental development (Farnell 2020;Godonoga and Sarrico 2019).
HE has always played an important role in society. Since the Middle Ages, universities have been critical spaces for the advancement of democratic values (Farnell 2020). In the twenty-first century, interest in the societal role of HE increased, alongside a change in knowledge production models from basic research performed by single disciplines (i.e. Mode 1) to more applied and multidisciplinary formats (Mode 2) (Nowotny, Scott, and Gibbons 2001;Queirós et al. 2022), and a shift towards more accountability, responsibility and impact (Brennan 2008;Meyer and Sporn 2018). The rise of New Public Management (NPM), particularly in Europe (Ferlie, Musselin, and Andresani 2009), brought autonomy to universities but also public expectations for more efficiency, effectiveness and relevance for society (Meyer and Sporn 2018).
Today, universities operate in an institutional environment that increasingly demands SR (Jorge and Peña 2017), and this includes generating benefits for a wider range of stakeholders (Miotto, Blanco-González, and Castillo Feito 2018). SR is increasingly called for in funding instruments (e.g. Horizon Europe), international accreditations (e.g. EQUIS -The European Quality Improvement System), global networks (e.g. The Talloires Network of Engaged Universities) and rankings (e.g. THE Impact Rankings). Institutional pressures, a stronger stakeholder orientation and an expectation for universities to respond to global challenges have raised the importance of SR in today's context (Geschwind et al. 2019). Accordingly, SR can be implemented by making education more accessible to non-traditional groups (e.g. mature learners, minority groups) through more flexible learning pathways (Martin and Godonoga 2020). It can also be embedded in research, through knowledge exchange and co-creation between academics and practitioners to generate knowledge that can address practical challenges (Johnson 2020). Finally, SR can be implemented through service to society, including volunteering, outreach, student engagement, and partnerships with external stakeholders (Godonoga and Sarrico 2019).
While interest in the social impact of HE has increased in recent years, higher education institutions (HEIs) operate in stratified HE systems, where pressures for competitiveness and excellence co-exist with calls for social impact. As such, universities can be 'paradoxical organisations' (Pitman 2020) that fulfil contradictory roles (Brennan, Niccolo, and Tangui 2014). They can be change agents and support social transformation, by enabling the upward social mobility of disadvantaged groups, promoting the societal impact of research, and engaging community stakeholders in their governance and core functions (Martin and Godonoga 2020;Petersen and Kruss 2021). But universities can also reproduce inequalities and elitist practices, by favouring access to education for socially privileged groups, focusing solely on the scientific impact of research, and engaging with those stakeholders that provide economic benefits (Benneworth et al. 2018;Isopahkala-Bouret 2019). The co-existence of a transformative and a reproductive role of HE can be attributed to historical path-dependencies but also to reputational hierarchies resulting from vertical differentiation, which are exacerbated by rankings and market-driven mechanisms (Brennan 2013). Moreover, the degree of institutional autonomy and external control by regulators and funders influence, through coercion and norms, the nature of SR practices at the organisational level.
The growing importance of SR for universities in a context of stratified systems facing multiple external pressures, and the limited systematic research available on the topic motivated this study. This review focuses on HE research published over the past 30 years in the most widely read HE journals. Its purpose is to analyse how HE research has conceptualised a socially responsible university over time and to understand the role of the institutional and organisational environment in the implementation of SR in universities.
This study is novel given that it represents a theoretically-informed literature review on a topic where systematic research has been scarce. Previous reviews focused mainly on analysing the implementation of SR in universities' core functions (see e.g. Jorge and Peña 2017). However, less is known about the influence of the institutional and organisational environment on the implementation of SR. This study addresses this gap by drawing on neo-institutional theory and corporate social responsibility (CSR) researchi.e. strands of literature that highlight the pivotal influence of the institutional environment in the adoption of SR in organisations. Furthermore, through a bibliometric approach using content analysis, it makes two key contributions to the research on SR in higher education (Jorge and Peña 2017;Parsons 2014). First, it shows that SR is an umbrella concept comprising normative, strategic and performative dimensions. Second, it highlights how environmental dependencies and organisational factors influence the implementation of SR in universities. Finally, it proposes a research agenda and practical implications in order to make the social impact of HE an equally important mission next to research and education.

Theoretical background
Given the goal of this study to analyse the conceptualisation of SR and the factors influencing its implementation in universities, two theoretical concepts are most relevant. First, neo-institutional theory helps as a departure point to understand the environmental dependencies of universities and how they create new requirements for legitimation, including showing stronger commitment to SR. Universities' survival depends on the adoption of similar norms (i.e. isomorphism) that are legitimate in the institutional environment (DiMaggio and Powell 1983;Meyer and Rowan 1977). An isomorphic response can originate from three sources: coercive (e.g. government regulations), normative (e.g. professional bodies) or mimetic (e.g. top-performing universities) (DiMaggio and Powell 1983). Generally, universities adopt norms from their environments to safeguard their legitimacy and survival. Social responsibilityas a growing external demand in the HE fieldhas become an area of strategic concern for universities and a tool for legitimation in an increasingly competitive market (Meyer and Sporn 2018;Miotto, Blanco-González, and Castillo Feito 2018). This study draws on neo-institutional theory to analyse how the institutional environment, through coercion, norms and mimetic peer pressure, influences the implementation of SR in universities.
Second, theoretical approaches to CSR, including stakeholder and legitimacy theory (Clarkson 1995;Suchman 1995), inform this study by uncovering the factors that shape the accountability agenda and legitimacy of organisations (De Bakker, Groenewegen, and Den Hond 2005). CSR refers to 'context-specific organiational actions and policies that take into account stakeholders' expectations and the triple bottom line of economic, social, and environmental performance' (Aguinis and Glavas 2012, 933). Along these lines, the adoption of CSR is informed by stakeholder theory, which emphasises the role of accountability to multiple stakeholders and the responsibility of organisations to generate not only economic but also social value. CSR implementation is also attributed to companies' institutional environments, where standards (e.g. The Global Reporting Initiative, The ISO 26000 Social Responsibility Standards) (Rasche and Waddock 2017) drive homogenisation and legitimation of global norms for CSR structures and procedures (Aras and Crowther 2009). A growing body of literature focuses on the assessment of CSR performance in response to the need for increased evidence of impact (Diez-Cañamero et al. 2020;Gilbert, Rasche, and Waddock 2011). Accordingly, this study uses insights from CSR research to develop an understanding of institutional and organisational factors that influence the implementation of SR in organisations.

Methodology
Drawing on the theoretical background discussed above, this systematic literature review addresses two research questions (RQs): (1) How has SR been conceptualised in the higher education research and how has it evolved over time? (2) How do the institutional and organisational environment influence the implementation of SR in universities?
Given the objective to analyse the most widely read and cited HE research, the journals located in the top quartile (Q1) in the SCImago Journal Rank were selected for this study (listed in Table 1). Their broad scope is particularly relevant since SR cuts across the education, research and management functions of universities.
Search queries were performed on each journal using these search terms: 'civic responsibility', 'civic university', 'engaged university', 'social impact', 'social mission', 'social responsibility' and 'third mission'. These terms were identified in the extant research to describe the contribution of HE to society (Jorge and Peña 2017;Miotto, Blanco-González, and Castillo Feito 2018;Parsons 2014). Search queries were applied on full text, which resulted in a sample of 747 publications. After removing duplicates, book reviews and indexes, the sample was reduced to 610 records. Next, their titles and abstracts were screened to ensure that they fulfil the following criteria for inclusion, necessary to answer the RQs: . the article includes concepts that describe the SR of universities; . the article discusses the role of institutional (i.e. environmental) and/or organisational factors that influence the implementation of SR in universities. After this step, 542 records were eliminated for not fitting these criteria. Namely, 163 focused on topics related to education and research quality; 146to reforms, financing, and the academic profession; 54to the economic role (i.e. commercialisation and technology transfer) of HE; and 179to internationalisation and educational technologies. In a next step, the remaining 68 articles were screened on full text and 21 were eliminated because they covered topics that did not meet the inclusion criteria. This resulted in a total of 47 articles selected for review (see Appendix for a complete list of articles).
Each article was content-analysed (Krippendorff 2004)i.e. a widely used approach in the social sciences to study organisational phenomena by analysing text data (Miotto, Blanco-González, and Díez-Martín 2020). The analysis was conducted in NVivo, enabling a systematic process to coding and interpreting the data. Core themes and their frequency across articles were identified, a standard approach used in other literature reviews (Walsh et al. 2021).
The information was classified using a coding process (illustrated in Figure 1) performed in NVivo, which comprised three steps. First, attribute coding was used to identify descriptive information on the articles (Saldaña 2013). Second, a coding framework was developed following a deductive approach, with themes identified a-priori, informed by the theoretical background. Third, the articles were content-analysed using an inductive approach, where additional themes and sub-themes were added to the coding framework a-posteriori (Adu 2019;Spiggle 1994).

Results
Results of attribute coding (see Figure 2) suggest that SR has gained substantial interest over the decades with two-thirds published during 2011-2020. Most articles are qualitative case studies informed by institutional and stakeholder theory, focusing on Anglo-Saxon countries.
To answer the first research question regarding the conceptualisation of SR, deductive coding was used to look for patterns of themes. Figure 3 illustrates the frequency of search terms in the reviewed articles.
The most frequent term used in the articles is 'social responsibility', followed by 'third mission' and 'civic responsibility'. During the last two decades, a growing reference to 'mission' and 'impact' emerged, suggesting an evolving conceptualisation towards strategic and performative aspects of SR. Strategic refers to embedding SR into organisational strategies and objectives, and performative relates to evaluating how universities fare in relation to their SR (i.e. evidence of impacts).
For a more in-depth analysis, Tables 2 and 3 depict the findings from the content analysis of the articles, in line with methodological guidelines for qualitative data coding and interpretation (Adu 2019). The overall themes and sub-themes (column 1 and 2) were identified through frequency counts from NVivo. The numbers in parentheses show the number of articles that include the respective theme or sub-theme. Column 3 includes an interpretative synthesis of the theme by the authors and column 4 presents selected quotes from the articles to illustrate the themes. All articles that include the respective themes are shown in Column 5.
As illustrated in Figure 3 and Table 2, SR can be interpreted as an umbrella concept, which frames the relationship between HE and society as part of an organisation's responsibility, service, engagement, mission and impact. Altogether, these five themes uncover a normative, strategic and performative dimension of SR, showing that a university's contribution to society is not only a moral duty but has also become a key element of its mission, strategy and performance.
A normative dimension of SR was highlighted in studies that describe social or civic responsibility as a moral obligation of universities to support democratic and ethical values (Thornton and Jaeger 2007). It also refers to universities' duty to transfer knowledge to the wider public through community or public service (Cummings 1998). A strategic dimension of SR is observed in studies that discuss the third or public mission of universities, emphasising strategies of extension of universities' education and research missions to deliver benefits for society (Scott 2006). It likewise relates to the literature on engagement, mentioning societal stakeholders as strategic partners in universities' governance and core functions (Lebeau and Bennion 2014). Finally, a performative dimension of SR is observed in studies that focus on the social impacts of universities. Research highlights the need to evaluate the social impact of academic research (Phillips, Moutinho, and Godinho 2018), or the effects of universities' engagement with society more broadly (Hart and Northmore 2011).
Findings therefore suggest that alongside its normative character, SR has become an important strategic and performative element for universities. This evolution in conceptualisation reflects (as suggested by the findings in Table 3), institutional pressures for evidence of SR and a stronger focus on SR in the organisational environment of universities.  Table 3 distinguishesbased on the theoretical background described earlierbetween institutional and organisational factors influencing the implementation of SR in universities. Institutional factors can be of coercive, normative or mimetic nature. Coercive factorsi.e. national policies and funding instrumentswere found to be particularly strong levers in steering universities to integrate SR into their missions and strategies (Thornton and Jaeger 2008). The content of such instruments and their control over universities' resource environments matter in the extent to which they can influence organisational practices for SR (Bowl and Hughes 2016). For example, in environments  3,4,5,6,7,12,13,14,15,17,18,19,23,26,27,29,30,34,35,37,39,41,42,43,44,45,46,47 Service (29) Public service (23) Community service (21) Transfer of knowledge to individuals and organisations outside of HE through service.
'An effect on, change or benefit to the economy, society, culture, public policy or services, health, the environment or quality of life, beyond academia' (Johnson 2020, 10  Coercive factors (29) The policy environment (legislation, policies and funding instruments) can support or inhibit the implementation of SR in universities.
'Each one strives for excellence measured by its comparative standing in a national ranking by reputation among its disciplinary communities and professional peer groups, which often become the faculty member's primary source of identification rather than the campus or community' (Checkoway 2001, 138 'Revising terms of employment, opportunity ladders and frameworks for career progression was seen as essential to a new academic culture that embraced engagement' (Watermeyer 2011, 399). 2, 7, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 15, 16, 17, 21, 22, 23, 24, 26, 28, 29, 37, 40, 42, 43, 46 Mission, vision and strategy Communicate organisational commitment to SR internally and externally and strengthen an institution's legitimacy.
'At an individual level many academics remain ensconced in the old model of academic life and are not prepared to innovate and adapt to a community research agenda, and do not see this activity as part of their role' (Murphy and McGrath 2018, 328). 1,2,4,7,10,12,16,17,21,22,24,28,29,31,37,43,46 (Continued ) with poorly-designed policies or those emphasising market relations above equity, concern for SR was found to receive low priority in university strategic planning (Barker 2015). Furthermore, findings show that in today's stratified HE systems, universities' commitment to society is also influenced by normative and mimetic pressures exercised by rankings, networks and high-status universities. For example, universities' tendency to mimic the strategies of highstatus institutions was found to shift attention from SR to research excellence (Bowl and Hughes 2016). Contrastingly, universities' affiliation to networks that support university engagement with society was found to build institutional commitment to SR (Kiyama, Lee, and Rhoades 2012).
With respect to the organisational environment, most frequently mentioned factors influencing the implementation of SR refer to incentives, mission, strategy and structure, and faculty agency. Incentives, such as the integration of service-oriented research into faculty tenure (Weerts and Sandmann 2008), time and flexibility to engage with local stakeholders (Webber and Jones 2010), and dedicated financial support for university-community partnerships (Hart and Northmore 2011), were found important in motivating faculty to get involved in SR-related activities. In fact, the lack of attention paid to SR in hiring, compensation, workload, promotion and performance evaluation was found to discourage faculty commitment to SR (Brown et al. 2016). Furthermore, the integration of SR into structures, such as designated units for outreach (Weerts and Sandmann 2008) or community partnership programmes (Hart and Northmore 2011) were recognised as important factors in building external legitimacy. Leadership was found to be instrumental in enhancing the legitimacy of SR internally by allocating resources and establishing structures and rewards to enable SR implementation (Weerts and Sandmann 2008). Finally, organisational culture was found important in developing internal values of commitment to a community that stretches beyond the walls of the university (Thornton and Jaeger 2008).

Discussion
Drawing on neo-institutional theory and CSR research, this study employed a systematic literature review to analyse how HE research has conceptualised a socially responsible university over time  (10) Provide an infrastructure for knowledge exchange and collaboration between HEIs and external stakeholders.
'At the University of Brighton a major part of the university's community and public engagement activity is promoted and developed through the Community University Partnership Programme' (Hart and Northmore 2011, 41). 2, 9, 11, 21, 28, 37, 38, 42, 43, 46 Leadership (7) Enhances the legitimacy of SR internally and aligns resources and structures to promote SR.
'Leadership has been identified in many studies as a key factor promoting institutional commitment to engagement' (Weerts and Sandmann 2008, 82). 2,11,12,28,43,46 Organisational culture (7) Inspires internal stakeholders to be part of a community that cares about the wider needs of society.
'At UNC, the special language related to civic responsibility encourages students, as well as faculty and staff, to view themselves as part of communities beyond the campus and to do their parts to serve those communities' (Thornton and Jaeger 2008, 171). 6, 9, 12, 22, 26, 45, 46 (RQ1), and identify how the institutional and organisational environment influence the implementation of SR in universities (RQ2). This study has shown that SR has gained attention in the HE research community and the publication output increased especially during the last ten years. Most of the published work comprises qualitative case studies conducted predominantly in the US and the UK, pointing to low diversity in terms of methodological and geographical coverage.
Findings have shown that SR is an umbrella concept framing universities' relationship with society as part of their responsibility, service, engagement, mission and impact. The research published in the 1990s highlighted the normative character of the term (e.g. Wagner 1993), conceptualising it as a moral duty to provide service to society. The decade after, scholars started referring to SR as engagement between universities and communities (e.g. Weerts and Sandmann 2008), characterised by greater stakeholder representation and participation in universities' core functions. A relationship based on transfer therefore evolved into a relationship based on exchange. More recently, SR has been referred to in relation to universities' mission and impact (e.g. Phillips, Moutinho, and Godinho 2018). All-in-all, these findings suggest that SR has become an important normative, strategic and performative aspect for universities, which may be explained by the spread of managerial practices in HE as an outcome of NPM (Ferlie, Musselin, and Andresani 2009), and a shift towards performance evaluation frameworks for SR in some contexts (e.g. the Knowledge Exchange Framework in the UK) (Johnson 2020).
The conceptualisation of SR is shaped by the institutional and organisational environment. Its normative character relates to the influence of universities' environmental dependencies. This study has shown that HE is influenced by multiple and often contradictory institutional pressures, and their power and control can enhance the transformative role of universities or perpetuate their reproductive nature (Barker 2015). Coercive controls, such as national policies and funding instruments are particularly important levers in steering the SR agendas of HEIs (Martin and Ibbotson 2019), but normative factors, including networks and rankings also influence priority setting regarding SR through the diffusion of standards and norms (Checkoway 2001).
Strategic and performative aspects of SR reflect the influence of the organisational environment. Mission and strategy, incentives, and faculty agency were found to be pivotal levers of implementation (Webber and Jones 2010;Weerts and Sandmann 2008). Nonetheless, research has shown that there is misalignment between expectations for faculty engagement with SR and incentive structures in universities, which emphasise primarily scientific impact (Murphy and McGrath 2018;Smith 2013;Thornton and Jaeger 2007). Strengthening internal commitment thus requires internal legitimation of SR and that involves adequate measures for recognising and rewarding engagement in socially impactful activities (Johnson 2020).

Conclusions and implications
Within an institutional context characterised by scarce resources and competition (Sporn 2017), universities are called upon to demonstrate their responsibility towards society. While HEIs have always been expected to generate social benefits, models of knowledge production have shifted over time from basic research performed by single disciplines (Mode 1) to more applied and multidisciplinary models (Mode 2) (Nowotny, Scott, and Gibbons 2001;Queirós et al. 2022), making knowledge a central ingredient in addressing economic and societal challenges (Geschwind et al. 2019). Accordingly, the conceptualisation and implementation of SR in universities has gained importance in HE research.
This study, informed by neo-institutional theory and CSR research, contributes to the body of knowledge on social responsibility in higher education (Jorge and Peña 2017;Parsons 2014). It responds to a research gap by synthesising the knowledge on the conceptualisation of SR and how it has evolved over time, and on the institutional and organisational factors influencing its implementation in universities. Findings revealed the strong influence of institutional pressures, whose power and control can steer organisational attention towards or away from SR. Particularly strong levers were found to be of coercive naturei.e. national policies and funding instruments, but research also highlighted the role of organisational factors (i.e. strategy, incentives, and faculty agency) in enabling stronger internal commitment to SR.
Based on the reviewed research, SR can be interpreted as an umbrella concept comprising normative (i.e. norms regarding responsibility and service), strategic (i.e. setting objectives and embedding SR into strategies) and performative (i.e. evaluation of impact) dimensions. Similar to CSR in the business context (Diez-Cañamero et al. 2020), social impact has become a growing aspect of universities' accountability and legitimacy.
Having provided insight into the factors that influence the implementation of SR in universities (i.e. Table 3), this study has several implications for practice. It suggests that university leaders can support the implementation of SR by defining it as an explicit element of organisational strategy and integrating it into structures and roles (e.g. social responsibility units, vice-rector for sustainability), rewards (e.g. compensation and awards for socially impactful teaching and research), and performance evaluation measures (e.g. volunteering, advisory services, socially impactful teaching and research as criteria for faculty appraisal). This is necessary to establish the necessary infrastructure to facilitate collaboration with external stakeholders (Hart and Northmore 2011), and build internal legitimacy for SR (Checkoway 2001). The more SR is regarded as an integrated (as opposed to peripheral) organisational function, the more likely it is to become institutionalised and valued inside the university (Barker 2015).
Given that findings problematise the lack of incentives, leaders can encourage faculty commitment by making SR a criterion in recruitment, promotion and tenure, staff training and development, and in evaluation of research and teaching performance (Brown et al. 2016;Watermeyer and Lewis 2018). Building internal legitimacy for SR requires rebalancing faculty research and teaching obligations to create space for engagement in SR (Webber and Jones 2010). It also requires adapting performance evaluation measures to account for public engagement (Watermeyer and Lewis 2018), action-oriented community-based research (Murphy and McGrath 2018) and other models of knowledge advancement that can lead to positive social impacts.

Future research agenda
A number of unanswered research questions emerged from this systematic literature review. They refer to the evaluation of universities' social impacts, the role of institutional environments in diffusing SR practices at the organisational level, and the need for more empirically diverse studies drawing on CSR research findings.
Results have shown that HE research focuses more on SR adoption by universities than on the measurement of its impact (Jorge and Peña 2017). Research questions thus include how social impact can be measured (e.g. what are appropriate qualitative and quantitative indicators), what types of impacts universities generate for society (e.g. improvement in social equality or civic engagement), how they generate these impacts (e.g. role of teaching, research and service) and who benefits from them (e.g. minority groups, first-generation students, mature learners). Topics would include the contribution of HE in supporting social mobility through equitable access or flexible learning pathways. Or they could relate to the role of open science movements or alternative metrics for measuring research performance in advancing the societal impact of research. Such analyses need to account for the diversity of profiles (i.e. research vs. teaching-oriented universities) and institutional contexts.
This study also showed the importance of institutional pressures in the adoption of SR practices in universities. More empirical evidence would be needed to understand the origin of these pressures and their influence on universities operating in diverse contexts. In this sense, research questions would include how recent trends (e.g. sustainability rankings, accreditation standards for social impact, funding instruments for sustainable development) influence organisational practices for SR and impact assessment in universities. Furthermore, it is important to understand better the role of institutional autonomy and agency by powerful stakeholders inside universities (Brennan 2008) on the implementation of SR.
Finally, most of the research reviewed is case-based focused on Anglo-Saxon countries. It would be important to explore further how CSR research could contribute to the topic of SR in higher education through more diverse research designs, including quantitative and comparative studies capturing broader geographical contexts (Brennan and Naidoo 2008). Here, especially the role of CSR standards in the sense of 'voluntary predefined rules, procedures and methods to systematically assess, measure, audit and/or communicate the social and environmental behaviour and/or performance of firms' (Gilbert, Rasche, and Waddock 2011, 24) could be of great importance.
The major limitation of this study relates to the selection of journals and search terms. Therefore, future research could use journals with a topical focus, i.e. the Journal of Higher Education Outreach and Engagement or the Journal of Business Ethics. Studies could also include grey literature, and consider search terms, such as 'engaged scholarship', 'responsible research', 'continuing education' or 'service learning', to understand better the role of research and education in supporting an institution's SR and impact.
To summarise, the 30 years of research reviewed in this study has shown that social responsibility has grown and will continue to grow in importance as universities become more dependent on their external environments for legitimacy and survival. National and global initiatives, such as the Knowledge Exchange Framework in the UK, the Talloires Network of Engaged Universities, and the Principles for Responsible Management Education, confirm the growing importance of the topic. Ensuring that SR becomes a practiced mission of universities requires supportive policy and organisational environments that complement strategies with adequate resources and incentives to recognise and reward not only excellent research and teaching but also commitment to SR. This can strengthen internal legitimacy and commitment to SR, and enable universities to have an even greater social impact.

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).