2026 PRME Education Award

Rim Gouia Zarrad, Mediterranean School of Business (MSB), Tunisia

Salma Mahouachi, Mediterranean School of Business (MSB), Tunisia

Our work advances the Sustainable Development Goals by providing the first empirical evidence on metaverse-based career platforms in a North African context and translating this evidence into institutional practice and curriculum design.

In research, we co-authored a peer-reviewed study published in Event Management, "From Campus to Virtuality: Evaluating Metaverse Job Fair Student Acceptance Using the TAM Model", based on data from 188 university students who participated in a metaverse career event. The study shows that perceived enjoyment is the strongest driver in the model (β = 0.774, nearly twice the weight of usefulness), with attitude explaining 75.5% of variance in students' intention to engage with similar platforms in the future. This work directly supports SDG 8 (Decent Work and Economic Growth) by demonstrating how immersive virtual recruitment environments can expand employer access for youth in emerging markets, and SDG 10 (Reduced Inequalities) by confirming that zero-cost virtual participation removes the geographic and financial barriers associated with traditional career events. It also contributes to SDG 9 (Industry, Innovation, and Infrastructure) by providing universities with an evidence-based framework to design scalable digital career infrastructure grounded in real adoption behavior.

In teaching, we have translated these findings directly into the classroom. The study is now used as a teaching case within Introduction to Management at Mediterranean School of Business, where students engage with the data to examine how digital platforms reshape access to professional opportunities, contributing to SDG 4 (Quality Education) through research-led, evidence-based learning.

The research has also opened a cross-disciplinary collaboration aligned with SDG 17 (Partnerships for the Goals). Findings have been shared with South Mediterranean University's career services, and we are now exploring, with engineering colleagues at Mediterranean Institute of Technology, whether a future capstone project could see students design and develop an SMU-owned metaverse job fair platform. While still at an exploratory stage, this initiative reflects how empirical research can stimulate institutional partnerships and inform future implementation.

By connecting behavioral research, institutional decision-making, and emerging opportunities for student-led engineering innovation, this work embeds inclusion, equitable access, and responsible technology design into both research and teaching. Being recognized by PRME demonstrates that rigorous, regionally grounded research can move beyond publication to inform the infrastructures that expand equitable access to opportunity for the next generation of students.

The clearest evidence of student skill development has emerged directly in the classroom. In Spring 2026, we integrated our published findings into a teaching case for Introduction to Management. Rather than approaching the metaverse as an abstract concept, students worked with the six hypotheses from our study and were asked to predict which factors would most strongly drive adoption before seeing the results. Most identify usefulness as the dominant driver. The data shows otherwise.

That moment, when confident assumptions are confronted with empirical evidence, creates a powerful learning experience. It develops analytical judgement, strengthens data interpretation skills, and fosters the intellectual humility that underpins responsible decision-making.

Building on this, students move from interpretation to decision-making. Starting from the data, they are asked to reconsider how a university career fair should be designed: if enjoyment outweighs usefulness, what should change in practice? Each group produces a short design brief and must justify their recommendations using findings from the study rather than intuition.

The skill we have not yet fully developed is the interdisciplinary, hands-on dimension. We are currently exploring the possibility of a future capstone project in which MedTech engineering students design a platform based on our findings, moving from analysis to implementation. This would introduce a different set of competencies, including technical design decisions, accessibility trade-offs, and collaboration across disciplinary boundaries that are not typically connected. While still at an exploratory stage, this direction reflects the next step of the work.

What is already evident, however, is the continuity of impact: the students who generated the original data are not the only beneficiaries. The next cohort in Introduction to Management is already engaging with their responses, learning how empirical evidence can inform real decisions.

This work offers a transferable model for linking research, teaching, and institutional innovation. Its key contribution lies in showing how behavioral evidence can be systematically translated into system design, enabling institutions to develop digital solutions grounded in validated user needs.

It also illustrates how emerging technologies can be integrated into education through real-world projects that combine empirical research with student involvement in design and implementation. The model is adaptable, allowing institutions to apply the same methodology using local data to develop context-specific career platforms.

In this sense, the approach provides not only a research contribution but also a replicable pathway for universities seeking to align digital transformation with responsible management education and more inclusive access to opportunity.