Page 159 - SUSTAINABILITY ISSUES & COVID-19

Data in this study comprises primary data and secondary data. Primary data were obtained through interviews and
unpublished documentation. Meanwhile, secondary data is obtained from documentation. Interviews were conducted
through personal contact via telephone and were also recorded due to the limitations of the current pandemic
conditions. The interview questions were adopted from research conducted by Aleixo, Azeiteiro, and Leal (2017) with
several modifications customized to the conditions of higher education in Indonesia.

The sample of this research are Riau University (Universitas Riau), Jakarta State University (Universitas Negeri Jakarta),
and State Financial Polytechnic STAN (Politeknik Keuangan Negara STAN), which are some of public higher education
institutions in Indonesia that provides accounting education. The interviewees in this study adopted from the research
conducted by Aleixo, Azeiteiro, and Leal (2017) and Lattu and Cai (2020), which consist of:
1. Deputy Dean / Assistant Director for Academic Affairs;
2. Head of D4 / S1 Accounting Study Program;
3. Academic Staff;
4. Students;
5. External stakeholders / users of higher education alumni.

Data collected from the interviews are processed using content analysis. The process’ sequences in content analysis
generally includes the coding, examining the meaning of context, and determining the description of a social event
through the formation of themes (Vaismoradi et al, 2016). At the same time, this process is also covering a perception
study of the research sample. Furthermore, this research explores the tensions faced by the organization along with
strategies can be implemented to deal with these tenseions similar with the research conducted by Lattu and Cai
(2020). Integrative framework, a framework proposed by Hahn et al. (2012), was used by Lattu and Cai (2020) on their
research and adapted in this study to formulate strategies to deal with the pressures faced by higher education.

FINDINGS

From this research, it is expected that all relevant stakeholders perceived that higher education needs to carry out
sustainability practices can be implemented in learning in process, social activities and environmental practices.
However, three universities have not fully impemented these practices due to challenges that they face.

Tensions in implementing sustainability practices are the difference in objectives between individuals and leaders/
higher education. Where, sustainability-related research is less attractive because it is considered to have small
contribution so that lecturers who want to do research on sustainability get less attention. In addition, cultural factor
also affect the sustainability practice, because they are accustomed to an environmentally unfriendly culture such as
a lack of interest in using campus vehicles and universities are reluctant to change the culture. Another pressure is the
needs users of alumni from higher education are not directly related to sustainability practices. This has resulted in
policies related to the concept of sustainability being not prioritized.

ORIGINALITY/VALUE

The sustainability issue is an important i, especially at the higher education level that carry out accounting education.
Research performed on this topic is still relatively limited. However, this has not been fully realized by the higher
education institutions. This can be seen through the policies and steps taken by the sample of higher education in
this study, both in of organization and academic matters, which still do not reflect the importance of implementing
the sustainability aspects in the organization. In fact, this sustainability issue reflects how higher education builds
relationships and responsibilities with all stakeholders related to higher education to achieve sustainable development.

The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in Indonesia has also increased the pressure faced by higher education.
This certainly makes higher education have to rearrange their strategies to be able to deal with sustainability issues.
Therefore, this study seeks to contribute by using an integrative framework to formulate strategies to deal with the
pressures faced by higher education. Thus, this research is expected to be useful for higher education institutions in
dealing with sustainability issues in the pandemic era through the strategies formulated in this study.

This research only examines three public higher education institutions in Indonesia, namely Riau University, Jakarta

158 International Conference on Sustainability
(5 Sustainability Practitioner Conference)
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