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A shift in how to measure well-being using more appropriate and coherent indicators has been long called for. Nonetheless, monetary indicators, such as income and GDP, or utilitarian frameworks, remain the most common approaches used. The capability approach (CA) has been advocated as an alternative framework to measure well-being. This paper aims to capture the state-of-the-art of how the CA has been applied to assess or characterise the well-being impacts of project-based development interventions in Global South countries. The ultimate goal is to discuss whether the CA provides more varied and complex indicators of well-being and therefore more comprehensive impact assessments. The results highlight that qualitative and participatory approaches are frequently applied methods to assess individual capabilities, most often related to educational, economic, social and empowerment dimensions. Capabilities linked to environmental and recreational activities, as well as collective capabilities, were significantly overlooked. Quantitative approaches to impact evaluation were less frequently used. This paper provides a first systematic review on the use of the CA to assess well-being impacts. Future applications of the CA could focus on better integration of qualitative and quantitative approaches for robust impact assessments and targeting understudied capabilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Whole-of-course approaches have emerged as an important topic in the contemporary outcomes-based education environment. While research-informed accounts of whole-of-course approaches exist, most take undergraduate education as the default. Few examples feature postgraduate education where students seek career enhancement rather than entry. Employing case study methodology, this paper discusses an innovative whole-of-course approach taken in the design and delivery of an Australian postgraduate education course. What marks it as innovative, is that the whole-of-course approach consists of two interrelated strands: One follows a (more familiar) whole-of-course practice of scaffolding graduate attributes, course and subject learning outcomes and is primarily driven by university interests and academics. A second whole-of-course process works alongside the first but is driven by postgraduates' professional practice and career goals. The paper concludes by suggesting that a whole-of-course approach to design combined with a whole-of-course student process can reconcile postgraduates' learning needs with the interests of the university. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While housing can facilitate many of the freedoms associated with a 'well-lived' life, the Capabilities Approach (CA) is yet to have transformed housing research and evaluation. This paper explores the relationship between housing conditions and well-being, using Nussbaum's version of the CA as the basis for analysis. It draws on data from a UK-based qualitative study of the experiences of individuals residing in privately-run hostels in the North of England. The analysis reveals much diversity in terms of the ways in which the residents perceived their housing conditions and the impacts of these on their exercise of key functions, despite all living in similar environmental conditions. This highlights the highly subjective and complex nature of the relationship between housing conditions and well-being. It is argued that a more robust understanding of the key factors that mediate the relationship being investigated is needed if the potential of the CA to advance housing research and evaluation is to be further realized. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An organization's capability to build, handle and exploit relationships and learn from these relations, defined here as relational capabilities, is increasingly important in a networked economy and in innovation activities. The paper introduces a framework that helps understand and analyse the relational capabilities of various organizations engaged in innovation activities. Based on theoretical discussion and empirical analysis the paper argues that the literature on organizational level capabilities and relational capabilities would benefit from deeper integration with the systems of innovation perspective. The empirical findings from three Finnish regions indicate that relational capabilities become particularly relevant in research–business–government cooperation contributing to innovation in the field of bioeconomy. Relational capabilities embedded in an organization's capability configurations can boost the efficient use of that organization's resources, bring greater flexibility, a chance to create value in networks and support renewal and innovation. Missing or underdeveloped relational capabilities may also hinder an organization's ability to tap into the economic opportunities that arise leading to failures at the regional and system level thus hampering the transition towards a bioeconomy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper discusses repair as valuable for thinking about and acting towards sustainable human development. Repair asks us to take account of intersections of past, present, and reimagined futures; the end is becoming and being full human beings with dignity, attentive to the lives of others and to what Achille Mbembe calls the "living world". We seek to repair that which is valuable to us, while also setting aside what cannot be fixed (for example colonialism and apartheid). The concept of repair is proposed as a lens to think about some disrepair challenges facing development: the enduring effects of history on justice, skewed global knowledge relations, and racism. The ideas are then applied to the space of education. A repair praxis framework is proposed based on four overlapping dimensions: conviviality as incompleteness; advancing epistemic freedoms; fostering transformational learning; and, spaces of dialogue and participation. The paper concludes with an example of renaming the world to repair the world and finally reminds us that we should pay attention to who we are with others, to what we repair, and to the kind of ancestors we choose to be for future generations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reviews the trends in income inequality over the last 40 years, and proposes a new explanation for their evolution – that it is hoped will be tested empirically by many studies in the years ahead – to see whether the observed increases in inequality of the last four decades have been caused by an aggravation of its traditional causes (such as land an human capital concentration), or by a widespread increase in instability in five key areas affecting inequality, the Human Development Index and human capabilities. The five areas where a sharp increase in instability has been observed concern: (a) the financial sector; (b) industry 4.0, especially the development of robotics and artificial intelligence; (c) diseases such as ebola, aids and covid; (d) number of conflicts and (e) a growing environmental crisis. A key unanswered question in the above proposed overall explanation is whether these five crises are interconnected and whether there is a primum movens that explains this series of problematic events. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores South African manufacturing of medical devices, focusing on firms' acquisition of imported and domestic technologies through technology transfer and their related absorptive capacity. Using an exploratory sequential mixed-methods approach, this paper demonstrates that technology transfer does occur in the medical device industry in South Africa, and that the absorptive capacity displayed by firms in the industry is sufficient to facilitate technology transfer. The results of the analysis suggest that there is room for policymakers to create and promote sectoral coherence and to coordinate the various stakeholders for the industry to grow. This study contributes to the scarce literature on technology transfer in the medical device industry in Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports on tensions between decarbonisation and energy poverty priorities in Great Britain's liberalised electricity markets. Switching electricity suppliers in this market can result in significant benefits for those on bad deals. Further benefits are determined by the regulator. However, many of the energy poor lack the capabilities to switch and access these benefits. Community organisations play an important role in providing such access through remedial action. Using the capabilities approach, this paper combines quantitative and qualitative organisational data analysis at a community level to reveal an increasing share of the population who could benefit from switching and who agree to switching. At the same time, eligibility for one-off discounts on electricity bills to support the energy poor has increased sharply in recent years. This data points towards climate mitigation policies and market structures which benefit wealthier groups at the expense of more deprived groups who lack capabilities. At the micro scale, data access and intermediation at various levels and scales can help support more targeted interventions that facilitate well-being and enhanced capabilities. At the macro level, liberalised retail electricity markets need to be accommodated by safety nets and supportive institutional arrangements to avoid competitive pressures translating into complexity and opacity for consumers. Failure to equitably address capability conflicts, also framed as energy justice tensions and trade-offs, risks reinforcing and creating new injustices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The objective of this paper is to study the role of firms' capabilities in their benefiting from public funds for innovation. The literature agrees that capabilities play a key role in policy access, but this relationship has not been specifically explored. The theoretical framework combines the evolutionary approach to firms' capabilities with the literature on innovation policy. The empirical strategy is based on the National Employment and Innovation Dynamics Survey, a CIS-type survey at the firm level. This includes data about access to the main Argentine Technological Fund (FONTAR). Results show that productive, innovation, and connectivity capabilities impact the probability of knowing about and accessing FONTAR, especially firms' productive and connectivity skills. Results also show that innovator firms have higher probabilities of knowing about and accessing FONTAR than non-innovator ones. This provides evidence about the need to think of the public funding of innovation articulated with other firm-level policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers the experience of local and Syrian refugee women enrolled on a skills development programme in rural Jordan from a capability perspective. It explores the value of the capability approach as an evaluative framework: one which opposes the dominant econometric lens traditionally used to evaluate skills development interventions. In doing so, it advocates the use of this approach for providing a holistic view of the outcomes of skills development programmes for women, who, in Jordan – as elsewhere in the Global South – are often prevented from participating in the formal labour market, but who may nevertheless stand to gain from skills development interventions. This paper argues that the selected skills development programme in north Jordan contributed significantly to the wellbeing and personal development of the women enrolled. However, it finds that the programme was largely unable to overcome the many barriers to local and Syrian refugee women finding fulfiling employment, as many of them wished to do. It argues that this is indicative of wider socioeconomic challenges in the region which it would be unreasonable to expect a skills development programme to offset and which should not negate the other human development outcomes of the programmes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Internet of things (IoT) transforms how businesses operate, create, and deliver products and services. Despite increasing interest in IoT business models, knowledge of the capabilities needed to implement them remains vague. The objective of this paper is to investigate patterns found in 21 empirical tested cases covering several industries. This paper identifies the most common capabilities (connectivity, data management and storage, monitoring, data analytics, control, operations management, maintenance, communication, applications, and security) in an IoT-Product Service System (PSS). Industry practitioners can use this information to visualise linkages between their intended business model and capabilities when developing IoT-PSSs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite a growing effort in recent years to theorize epistemic justice as a species of distributive justice from within a Rawlsian framework, there is as yet no well-worked out capabilities-based account. In this paper, we set out to provide one. According to our sufficientarian conception, epistemic justice requires a distribution of capabilities that ensures to all individuals opportunities for minimal epistemic agency, publicly conceived. We argue that this conception has advantages over existing resourcist accounts of distributive epistemic justice inspired by Rawls as well as over Miranda Fricker’s tentative capabilities-based alternative. We contend that epistemic justice concerns a plurality of capabilities for epistemic agency, where the scope and nature of these capabilities is ultimately left open to discernment through public reasoning, but where equal emphasis is placed on contributing as well as retrieving epistemic goods and resources from common pools and on exerting combined capabilities as well as developing internal ones in the first place. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Agro-biotechnology deployment has been very slow in Africa, yet it has potential for enhancing sustainable development and industrialization. This paper attempts to understand the underlying factors that characterize the new technologies' deployment process. It takes buildup of innovation capabilities as the point of interrogation considering that very few products have received regulatory approval for large-scale commercialization in Africa. It uses Kenya's agro-biotech innovation system as a case study. The study finds that creating and accumulating innovation capabilities is much broader than research and development (R & D) capability and entails institutional capabilities that are needed to enhance biotech innovation that may lead to a sustainable industrialization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper explores the contributions of undergraduate university education to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)' goals and development outcomes, proposing a normative capability-based approach oriented to human development. The approach is aligned with a developmental model of the university and development policy in sub-Saharan Africa and South Africa, where the study is located. It draws empirically from a four and a half year mixed-methods research project conducted with low-income, mostly rural students at five historically diverse universities in South Africa. The paper presents a justification for using the capability approach, and outlines the rationale and methodology for synthesising a specific capability set generated by theorising and empirical data. A set of corresponding functioning indicators offers an expansive approach to understanding 'learning outcomes' in contrast to dominant neoliberal approaches that seek quantification and efficiency, overlooking what cannot be easily measured. An indicative sketch of university arrangements required to advance and evaluate each functioning for development outcomes is then outlined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper engages with the experiences of refugee teachers through an identity-based conceptualisation of the capability approach to explore these teachers' social environment, working conditions, values, and lived experiences. The research builds on the teachers' capabilities literature to argue that norms, dynamics, and identities shape their political agency, opportunities, and constraints, providing nuanced understandings of their experiences as refugee teachers. Our aim is to narrate how they negotiate across different identities and mobilise their agency to be able to function as teachers and fit within their host countries. In doing so, we not only challenge the deficit model and oversimplified challenges experienced by teachers, but also explore the complexity and nuances of their journey of becoming and developing a teacher identity as a refugee under constrained working conditions. At the same time, teachers relentlessly build on their precarious teacher identities to work for their communities. The findings show that teachers build liminal identities in exile where the boundary between being a refugee and a teacher is simultaneously contested and embodied, but also key to their political agency and subjectivity of creating change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Distributed teams are a reality for several companies nowadays, many authors covered their benefits and problems, and the rate of adoption of such team's structure by companies is growing fast. Since these teams are more present in companies, a performance measurement system must get adapted to fulfill the gap of not having a vast theory about the subject. To fill that gap, this paper brings results from previous steps in the research (Systematic Literature Review and Qualitative analysis of the data). It presents to a group of experts to reach a consensus on which capabilities are essential to managing/developing distributed teams' performance. The experts were exposed to the information following a Delphi Panel format and provided output that reached consensus and refined the list. The experts indicated that a group of six capabilities (engagement, development of a culture of performance measurement, organizational learning, alignment between planning and execution, accurate information and consistency) are essential to have their performance measurement system working correctly and reaching all functions. The work also identified the success factors for virtual teams, providing directions for the adoption and the monitoring of this kind of team that gained importance during the COVID-19 pandemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Capabilities Approach provides an alternate lens to conceptualize substance misuse that embraces human dignity. This paper provides an overview of the Capabilities Approach, describes three overarching areas of substance misuse that hurt people who use substances, and explains how a shift to a Capabilities Approach would reduce that burden. These include (1) the stigmatizing effects of attributing substance misuse to personal responsibility while minimizing structural contributing factors; (2) the fragmented, siloed services separating micro and macro approaches; and (3) a rigid, prescriptive view of recovery based on 12 step philosophy with the sole outcome of abstinence thus not supporting a person-centered, multiple pathways approach, and in turn, self-determination. Finally, implications for Capabilities guided approaches to social work practice highlight person-in-environment, integrated practice, and a client-centered focus while replacing policies such as the War on Drugs with harm reduction and drug [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the growing importance of using social media to leverage external knowledge for new product development (NPD) in innovation, few studies have examined firm capabilities that underpin this knowledge acquisition route. This paper provides an empirical examination of firm capabilities that leverage external knowledge, utilising social media for the fuzzy-front-end (FFE) phase of the NPD process. With evidence from 27 interviews conducted with executives' from large fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) firms, a thematic analysis using NVivo 12 is used to develop a conceptual framework capturing the key capabilities for using social media in the FFE. The findings reveal that the utilisation of social media is an ongoing process of experimenting with new technologies within the NPD phase of a firm's innovation efforts. Hence, the results of the study suggest FMCG firms may consider developing the following capabilities to help effectively acquire external knowledge via social media: use staff specialised in social media for external knowledge identification; dedicate an independent department for social media knowledge acquisition; and encourage an open innovation culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent efforts to consider quality of (work) life rather than mere economic subsistence in determining living wages have received increasing attention. However, it remains unclear how increased income translates into quality of life. Previous research found curvilinear relationships between income and capability development, suggesting contextual influences. This conceptual paper proposes a framework of decent work with five dimensions (reproductive–material, social–communicative, legal–institutional [participation], status and recognition, meaningful–subject-related) with living wages at its core, enriched by employment- and work-related factors. Furthermore, we argue that capability development results from both living wages and decent work contributing to need satisfaction. Since different needs are satisfied differently, we propose each of the five dimensions of decent work to be predominantly related to a specific set of hierarchically ordered needs. Finally, we apply this framework to explain the shape of the curve that links income and capabilities. While higher income satisfies basic needs and triggers capability development up to a satiation point, psychological and self-fulfilment needs become more salient for capability development beyond that point. Individual, organizational, and country-level context factors outlined in this paper should be considered in future investigations of how living wages impact individuals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Asset-based approaches to public service reform suggest a need for policymakers to shift attention from 'fixing' the perceived deficits of disadvantaged neighbourhoods, to recognising and building on the resources, or assets, they hold. However, these approaches have also been critiqued for interpreting assets so broadly that they effectively become meaningless, or so narrowly that they perpetuate deficit views. To counter these tendencies, a new conceptually and methodologically robust endogenous assets-mapping approach is proposed. This has been designed to enable nuanced insights into the assets young people living in disadvantaged neighbourhoods may draw upon to pursue positive educational and wider life outcomes. The approach's utility is illustrated through the case of Ayesha, a 14-year-old student with a difficult relationship with school. The paper concludes that an endogenous assets-mapping approach can help to generate more positive narratives for vulnerable learners living in disadvantaged neighbourhoods than schooling may typically enable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Smart Specialisation Strategy (S3) is at the core of the 2014–20 European Cohesion Policy, supporting regions to identify the technologies and economic sectors that might comprise sustainable growth paths. This paper provides an early attempt to assess empirically, for the whole European Union, whether the choices made by regions in selecting S3 target sectors are consistent with their current or potential specialization patterns. Results show only a few regions selected S3 paths rooted in both their current specializations and related activities, most of them prioritized different combinations of unspecialized or unrelated sectors, thus limiting the growth potential of their S3 policy choices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Where do businesses source the capabilities that influence their diversification? From the resource-based perspective, capabilities are located within the firm. For many economic geographers, capabilities are place-based and flow between firms in local areas. Others claim the capabilities that count emerge from non-local collaboration. The value added of this paper is a firm–establishment–patent dataset that helps identify the sources of capabilities regulating technological diversification in the establishments of multi-locational firms. Results show that capabilities located within establishments themselves are most important to the process of diversification, followed by firm capabilities and then place-based capabilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Is the time men use on childcare and household work the result of preferences or cultural, institutional and economic constraints? Can such constraints be measured when we only observe men's choices (functionings) but not their capabilities? Using a random utility model together with stochastic specifications of the probability of having different capabilities, this paper shows that it is possible to distinguish between preferences and capabilities. Utilising time use data for Spain, we find that even though men do relatively little childcare, it is important to them. So, men do care to care. Our estimates show that, given our model, only about 9% of men with children have the full capability set, while 58% of them are constrained to a low level of care and housework. According to our model, many of these would not change behaviour if they had the full capability set, but about 20% of fathers would choose to provide more childcare and housework. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines how collective capabilities at a neighbourhood level can support youth voice and empowerment. By applying Ibrahim's 3C collective capabilities model in a new context with young people, we propose that it offers a useful framework to demonstrate the existing value and extend the social justice potential of youth work practice. Our findings aim to address the concern that youth work in Scotland supports individual but not collective transformation. They offer a framework to analyse the development of collective youth capabilities, with the potential to hold policy makers to account for commitments to youth decision-making such as The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (Incorporation) (Scotland) Bill. The 3C model conceptualises three key processes in the development of collective agency as conscientisation, conciliation and collaboration. The model recognises the personal and group processes of engagement that lead to grassroots action, but also prompts analysis of power relations between grassroots actors and the institutions that govern public decision-making. Drawing on a case-study example, we highlight the ways in which youth work practice might extend its social justice potential, highlighting the need for collaboration and power sharing with policy institutions in order to support meaningful youth empowerment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores young women's expectations on future work-family reconciliation in Finland, a Nordic country well-known for the promotion of gender equality. Utilising Sen's capabilities approach, we content-analysed thirty individual interviews to identify differences in women's expectations and their perceived capabilities in future work and care. The results showed that irrespective of their labour market status and educational attainment, the women's expectations were contradictory, reflecting a current Finnish gender culture that embraces both the ideal of shared parenthood and the primacy of maternal care. Between-group differences were also found. The employed women perceived themselves as having the capability to balance work, family and, personal time in the future. The women who were studying and had higher education- and career-related expectations perceived themselves as capable of combating gender inequality in their future working lives. In contrast, the unemployed women perceived their capabilities in both their future work and care as limited, thereby constraining their agency to realise their choices in work-family reconciliation and family decision-making. These findings indicate that Finnish women's expectations on future work-family reconciliation are shaped by institutional, societal and individual socioeconomic factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The field of medicine is traditionally associated with opportunities for training and knowledge sharing through movement and travel. Nevertheless, the contemporary migration of doctors may have negative impacts on lower-income countries. Some scholars argue for active restrictions on South to North migration of medical doctors, while others consider such suggestions as an unjustified infringement on individual rights to migrate. This paper draws on mobility justice and the capabilities approach, to conceptualise the complex dynamics of international medical migration through the example of Aotearoa New Zealand. In this context, a 'brain drain' of New Zealand-trained medical doctors is partially mitigated by a 'brain gain', with more than 40% of the medical workforce having trained overseas. However, overseas-trained medical doctors follow pathways to licensing determined by the public health indicators of their countries of training. Despite an overall 'brain gain', doctors who trained in the Global South experience significantly greater barriers to registration than those who trained in Global North countries. Many are unable to work as doctors, resulting in a 'brain waste' of their knowledge, experience, and capabilities. This may relate to (post)colonial legacies and discourses of medical competencies that underscore the hegemony of the Global North, warranting further exploration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Informed by the capabilities approach, this paper considers the importance of control over one's environment for people experiencing homelessness. Drawing on a study of temporary accommodation in Scotland, we make four arguments. First, control over one's immediate living environment has been insufficiently recognized as a foundational component of a minimally decent life within the capabilities literature. Second, such control is compromised, sometimes severely, in temporary accommodation provided for homeless households, with these impacts especially acute in congregate accommodation. Third, lacking control over one's immediate environment can be understood as a corrosive disadvantage that actively damages people's bodily and mental health and affiliation-related capabilities. Fourth, both intrinsic and contingent features of different kinds of temporary accommodation are implicated in constraining people's control over their environment. This distinction enables us to identify changes to existing provision that can mitigate their negative impacts, and to clarify where accommodation models are inherently problematic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 2030 Agenda positioned Science, Technology and Innovation as crucial means for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This paper explores how a localised South-African policy experiment named the "Living Catchments Project" (LC Project) contributes towards the SDGs. This project is part of a portfolio of experiments to trigger innovation for transformative change in South Africa. The LCP team worked directly with the Transformative Innovation Policy Consortium (TIPC) researchers adding a transformative layer to the project's design and implementation. The project embraces uncertainty and complexity by promoting experimentation to inform and facilitate learning processes and changes in people, organisations and institutions. Additionally, we combine the TIP perspective with core concepts of the capability approach: capabilities, agency, democratic deliberation and conversion factors. With this integrated approach, we explore what the capability approach can offer to the LC Project. We conclude with policy recommendations on the potentialities and constraints of the combined TIP- capability approach for achieving the SDGs and conducting transformative innovation experiments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article reviews the empirical evidence regarding the effect of economic sanctions on human development outcomes and discusses possible avenues for reform of the current sanctions regime to reduce their adverse impact on capabilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Bedouin community, a subpopulation of the Arab minority in Israel, has been subject to systematic discrimination throughout the state's history, including in accessibility to digital services. Based on 25 semi-structured, in-depth interviews with Bedouin men and women residing in unrecognised villages – townlets that are not legally designated as municipal entities by the state and therefore lack basic infrastructure – this study asks whether and how the capabilities approach can be used to assess and examine ICT usage among the Bedouin as a marginalised community with distinct needs. The analysis illuminates the tensions and contradictions that characterise their digital experiences and shows that the capabilities approach is particularly apposite for understanding digital exclusion while compensating for the shortcoming of the digital divide framework. The findings uncover the ubiquitous presence of mobile smartphones among Bedouin users as the central enabler of their desired capabilities while pointing out the vital place religion plays in the community members' decision-making regarding the use of ICTs for the realisation of their desired capabilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Systems engineers require breadth. Three approaches are discussed. The first is to develop a clear goal in the form of the attributes of a well-educated civil engineering systems specialist (CESS) – what such an engineer would be like. The second, complementary to the first, proposes a goal in terms of what the ideal CESS could do well as a series of tasks or actions. The third is to produce a list of books whose reading would result in a well-educated CEES. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A uniform carbon tax with equal per capita dividends is usually advocated as a cost-effective way of reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions without increasing, and in many cases even reducing, economic inequality, in particular because of the positive balance between the carbon taxes paid by the worse off and the carbon dividends they receive back. In this article, I argue that a uniform carbon tax reform is unjust regardless of how the revenue is used, because it does not discourage the rich from indulging in wasteful emissions. This is at odds with a normative account of the distribution of the GHG budget that I define as emissions limitarianism, which is a climate derivative of economic limitarianism. Emissions limitarianism holds that, under low GHG budget conditions, emissions permits should not be used to achieve functionings that over-consume the GHG budget without producing significant welfare gains relative to the achievement of alternative functionings. Accordingly, I argue that a uniform carbon tax should be complemented by a limitarian carbon tax, which restricts the capabilities of the rich to achieve wasteful emission-generating functionings. The article adopts a methodological multi-level perspective on capabilities as a measure of welfare, distinguishing between basic, secondary and tertiary capabilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Event management in the hospitality industry came into being because many corporate firms, families and friends asked hotels to organise their gatherings. For corporate firms, these events are considered training programmes, meetings, or conferences. For families, events include weddings, birthday parties, or even garden parties. When large numbers of people gather for any purpose, it requires proper management. This management of arrangements provided to people is done by the event management team. The hospitality sector includes event management. Hotel event management ensures that any event in the hotel runs smoothly. Event ventures use resources and create economic costs and benefits in equal measure. Apart from the provision of job alternatives, events raise the level of population participation in economic development, generate secondary income, enhance community stability, and are often considered to leave minimal damage to the physical environment. With rising competition in the events management industry, competitive strategies help focus on assessing organisations' strengths, growth opportunities and competitive threats. Traditional competitive advantage models may not be applicable for smaller firms because they assume the existence of scale economies. Yet small firms cannot compete with larger organisations in economies of scale. This article therefore tries to determine the influence of dynamic capabilities on the competitive advantage of event management ventures (EMvs) in selected counties in Kenya. The sample size comprised 230 managers selected through stratified and simple random sampling techniques respectively, and 15 entrepreneurs selected using purposive sampling. The regression analysis revealed that dynamic capabilities (β = 0.295, p < 0.001) significantly influenced the competitive advantage of EMvs. The study recommends that managers should be flexible in the constantly changing environment and adapt their competencies to achieve competitive advantage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study we focus on internet nonuse among Israeli ultra-Orthodox Jewish women, members of a community that mostly refrains from using the internet or deploys content-filtering when it does access it in some situations. We conducted in-depth interviews to empirically answer two questions: First, how do ultra-Orthodox women perceive their internet nonuse? Second, what direct and indirect solutions do they create to realize their desired capabilities that contemporarily require internet access? We found that adhering to religious strictures means more than obedience to religious commitments and community leaders, and that while nonuse may seem like a self-imposed disenabling act, it holds valuable social advantages at the individual, family, and community levels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Often referred to as the church's "best kept secret", Catholic social teaching (CST) has much that commends it to those employing the capabilities approach to frame and justify proposals to both shape structures of solidarity and organise collective decision making with an emphasis on personal participation. The permanent principles of CST – dignity of the human person, solidarity, subsidiarity, and the common good – correlate to several key features of the capabilities approach's development ethical landscape, namely dignity, agency, justice, and flourishing. Specifically, by leveraging the notions of solidarity and subsidiarity in CST, development theorists and practitioners can better articulate the necessary relationship between rights and duties especially as they relate to the expansion of capabilities and the promotion of human flourishing. The notion of reciprocal duties to others understood in terms of the virtue of solidarity while promoting agency and the support needed for personal participation through subsidiarity can be a way to articulate the frontiers of capabilities as they interface with rights. Both rights and capabilities imply and necessitate relationships of justice and the recognition of dignity in others and oneself which can help transform institutions, including the Catholic Church itself. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the past two decades, healthcare systems have shifted to adopt a more holistic, patient-centered care system. However, operationalization in practice remains challenging. Two frameworks have contributed substantially to the transformation toward more holistic and patient-centered care: the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF) and the capability approach (CA). Using these frameworks jointly can contribute to improved patient-centered care in clinical practice. This article explores the strengths and weaknesses of the use of the two frameworks in care and investigates whether using them jointly might contribute to more appropriate and patient-centered care. We will present a practical example of this integration in the form of a novel e-health application. The exploration indicated that if the frameworks are used jointly, the individual weaknesses can be overcome. The application, used to exemplify the joint use of the frameworks, contains all categories of the ICF. It offers a unique tool that allows a person to self-assess, record, and evaluate their functioning and capabilities and formulate related goals. Using the ICF jointly with the CA can foster holistic, patient-centered care. The e-health application provides a concrete example of how the frameworks can be used jointly. Using the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health jointly with the capability approach can foster holistic, patient-centered care. The joint use of the frameworks is demonstrated by an e-health application which enables users to evaluate their functioning in relation to their own goals, provides them with the opportunity to increase control over their health and have a more active role in their care. Tools to record both functioning and goals from a patient's perspective can support professionals in offering patient-centered care in daily practice. Individual recording, monitoring and evaluation of functioning, capabilities and goals regarding functioning can provide a basis for research and quality improvement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on the resource-based view of the firm, and counter to the mainstream literature, we propose and empirically show that two knowledge resources can be substitutive (rather than complementary) for each other. Our test focuses on the interplay between managers' and workers' knowledge stock, considered as knowledge resources that firms can apply to improve innovation. We hypothesise a mutually exclusive effect of managerial experience (managers' knowledge stock) and labour skills (workers' knowledge stock) on product innovation. Drawing on the most recent waves of the World Bank Enterprise Survey (WBES), we construct a cross-sectional sample of 2,725 manufacturing firms. We used binary choice model to test the proposed effects. The results show negative interaction between labour skills and managers' experience in determining the probability to achieve product innovation, putting the knowledge resource complementarity hypothesis into question, and opening an academic debate that will have implications for knowledge management practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social entrepreneurs do not work alone; they shape and are shaped by their entrepreneurial ecosystem. While navigating the ecosystem, it is critical to remain focused on the community, including beneficiaries and the end-user. After a brief review of the entrepreneurship ecosystem (EE) and social entrepreneurship ecosystem (SEE) literature and its evolution over time, we elaborate the active and passive roles of community within the SEE, considering both agency and participation. Turning to the capabilities approach, developed by Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum, we show its relevance not only for understanding the way community impacts the SEE, but also as a theoretical frame for processes and programs that aim to further embed community in the SEE. To illustrate this, we discuss the processes of asset mapping, human-centered design, and integrated advocacy; the way they relate to strengthening community-SEE integration; and the way they reflect the capabilities approach. We conclude by discussing lessons learned and providing suggestions for further research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Universal healthcare, encompassing coverage, generosity, and equity in health benefits and services, directly enhances human security. Expanding universal healthcare is becoming increasingly important amidst heightening, interrelated threats to human security. Developing countries are likely to bear greater impacts from these threats, but have healthcare systems that are inadequately prepared for the same. To strengthen healthcare universalism, policymakers must aim for the joint advancement of coverage, generosity, and equity as policy outputs. Building universal systems is necessarily a long-term effort, and each country's pathway will depend on its specific policy architecture and opportunities for reform. Policymakers must seek to create the right policy trajectories for expanding universalism over time, taking into account that approaches that incentivise coalition building across social groups can help sustain political support for future expansion. Prioritising unified systems that provide the same benefits to everyone can help mitigate inequities, strengthen resilience, and ensure the long-term sustainability of the system. Global trends and experiences of many developing countries demonstrate that progress on healthcare universalism is achievable at all levels of development, and is among the most important strategies today for advancing human security. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The U@Uni Academy provides a case study of a composite preparation and access programme, integrating key elements of widening participation, alternate entry and enabling schemes. It is offered to students from a low socioeconomic background andfocuses on non-traditional indicators of attainment in order to prepare for, access and successfully transition from secondary school to higher education. This article outlines the methodological and theoretical approach, purpose, and context surrounding the programme, as well as its significancewithin the contemporary Australian and international education systems. The strengthening momentum of alternate entry and enabling schemes within the context of equity and diversity in higher education is illuminated, highlighting the need for innovative approaches in this sector. Such a perspective invites the international education community to reframe how they approach attainment, admissions and success, shifting from a traditional focus on high-stakes, single-mark assessment, to a rich, layered and contextualised representation of a student's skills and, through this, revealing the often invisible potential of a student. This is timely within the global context of future-focused tertiary education and debate surrounding admissions processes across the Australian higher education sector. Its significance is underscored by potential to influence the landscape of university admissions on a broader scale. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We integrate John Rawls' concept of primary goods with self-determination theory, to examine the links between people's perceptions of primary goods (i.e., views of society as providing access to the necessities of a meaningful life), basic psychological needs, and well-being. In Study 1 (N = 762, countries = Australia, the United States, South Africa, India, and the Philippines) and Study 2 (N = 1479, groups = ethnic minority, sexual minority, political group, religious group), we used partial least squares structural equation modelling to assess associations between primary goods' perceptions and wellness, and the intermediary role of basic psychological needs. Across groups, primary goods' perceptions linked positively to well-being (average effect size = 0.48), and negatively to ill-being (average effect size = −0.46), mediated strongly by basic psychological needs (average percentage mediated: 53% Study 1, 68% Study 2). Results signify the importance of primary goods' perceptions to individuals' wellness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Globalization of markets and production networks has made it progressively harder for low income countries to industrialize. This article addresses a conundrum facing industrial firms and industrial policy in a low-income African country: how to achieve upgrading necessary for sustained competitiveness. Using data from a study of manufacturers of health products in Tanzania, we document the double 'squeeze' on firms' profits exerted by sharp price competition alongside competitive pressure for rising product quality within globalized markets. Drawing on Sutton's model of competing on capabilities, and the sectoral systems of innovation and production framework, we argue that 'dynamic industrial deepening', strengthening domestic inter-firm linkages, is a key requirement for sustainable development of these health industries. We present evidence that sectoral industrial support for the health industries can promote sustainable technological upgrading, and reflect on the challenge of building developmental linkages where external investment to support upgrading is transforming existing business structures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Technology is a driver of survival and profit for firms. For technology to create value, it should be implemented in products, processes and infrastructure. The impact of regulatory change on technology can be significant, but this topic has been less thoroughly explored than the impact of research and development and customer demands. Hence, researchers have struggled to explain why some firms are more successful than others in responding to regulatory change. The present study examines three major regulatory changes that occurred over a 25-year period in the Swedish life insurance industry, and how each change impacted technology. From these data, a picture of mitigation capabilities relative to regulatory change emerges. The complementary mitigation capabilities stand in contrast to the previous dyadic division between ordinary (or administrative) and dynamic (entrepreneurial) capabilities. Practical advice is offered on how to achieve business benefits from regulatory changes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The evolution of universities in Australia is nothing new; however, a range of social and economic pressures have been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. These pressures are leading to changes, for example greater use of electronic media for teaching, which will affect the delivery of teaching programs. Effects on those programs providing education for environmental professionals could well impact whether the graduates achieve the capabilities expected by the profession, and needed by society. These capabilities have much in common with those sought by a range of professions and disciplines, and the employability agenda promoted by universities. Hence, promotion of learning approaches associated with educating environmental professionals could be of value to universities generally. The review of these aspects indicates the need for the profession to formulate approaches to ensure that education of environmental professionals in Australia continues to achieve those capabilities that have been identified. Effort directed this way could assist in maintaining or enhancing, achieving capabilities of the graduates of environmental and sustainability programs. Such effort would also facilitate all graduates to develop the generic capabilities expected by employers and infuse sustainability across all disciplines with a sustainability leaning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Philosophical notions of humanitarianism – duties based in beneficence that apply to humanity generally – are largely focused on personal duty as opposed to official development assistance, or foreign aid, between nations. To rectify this gap in the literature, I argue that, from the point of view of donor nations, their humanitarian obligations are met when they have given enough of their fair share of resources, and from the point of view of recipient nations, they have received enough when they have reached a threshold of capabilities. I conclude that a future theory of humanitarian obligations ought to take into account the disparate, and often conflicting, interests of nations as benefactors or as recipients of aid. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Public institutions need to find solutions to various civic issues by stimulating the links between start-ups, innovation, and co-creation. They often turn to project management as a method of integrating various functional areas for planning and managing innovation. While the organisation and management literature recognise that identifying and managing stakeholders provides valuable resources necessary for the success of projects, little attention has been given to which capabilities are required to engage start-ups. Similarly neglected in the literature has been the development process of these capabilities. We propose that the context of sustainability-oriented innovation provides a theoretical foundation for identifying capabilities needed for engaging start-ups in a public procurement of innovation programme. We conduct a case study of a public procurement of innovation during a two-year period to examine capabilities: networking, competence mapping, relational, and desorptive. Utilising template analysis, the results indicate refinements to networking and competence mapping capabilities. The results provide a model explaining how projects in the innovation programme develop capabilities along the phases of initiation, execution, and closing. The findings suggest what public organisations can do to engage start-ups in their procurement for innovation process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recently, development has embraced the discourse of innovation. This has caused shifts in thinking about the roles the state, development institutions, and the poor themselves play in development. Innovation discourse calls on the poor to provide value for the market in the absence of the state, and by doing so contribute to the economic and social development of their communities. The poor are understood to have access to (non-financial) resources which can be leveraged to this end. However, it is rarely considered whether they possess the capabilities necessary to turn these resources into innovations. This article explores the implications of development's 'innovation turn' by analysing innovation-based development projects in light of the capabilities approach to development. We identify the innovation-based approach to development, provide a framework for assessing development projects and models against the Capabilities Approach, and assess innovation within that framework. We conclude that innovation does not necessarily lead to development. In certain cases, innovation may be a means by which development is achieved, but it is important to not confuse the means with the ends. Innovation is a different goal than development and achieving the former only advances the later when certain conditions are met. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Internationally, young people experiencing poverty and related disadvantages do least well in school. These inequalities tend to be concentrated in places with high levels of poverty and poor outcomes across multiple domains. Although place-based initiatives are sometimes used by policymakers as a vehicle to improve outcomes, such programmes often fail to engage meaningfully with local resources, further marginalising disadvantaged communities. This article considers what asset-based approaches, which seek to understand existing resources (assets) in disadvantaged places, might bring to such situations. Focused on a disadvantaged inner-city neighbourhood in England, it explores professionals' and young people's understandings of assets through an assets-mapping approach. During a two-year study, a university researcher was embedded in a secondary school, and 10 students (aged 13) were trained as co-researchers. Utilising visual mapping methods, they conducted 17 focus groups (45 minutes each) with around 225 of their peers in total. In addition, the researcher conducted 14 semi-structured interviews with a group of local multi-agency professionals and with the co-researchers. Data were analysed thematically. The analysis indicated that professionals and young people understood the neighbourhood's assets in relation to perceived 'lived territories'. Professionals described different residential groups as 'owning' different geographical 'territories', identifying professionally-led institutions as assets that could transcend these. Conversely, young people talked about 'territories' primarily in terms of power and control: they identified self-defined social spaces, away from professional scrutiny, as among the neighbourhood's most valuable assets. Exploring the students' and professionals' contrasting positions through Giddens' notion of regionalisation, which distinguishes front spaces (i.e. professional and public-facing) and back spaces (i.e. private and personally developed), suggests that the tangible nature of assets is perhaps less important than the different power relationships at play within them. The study highlights the necessity of working in partnership with young people throughout the development of place-based initiatives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The field of community health promotion encompasses a wide range of approaches, including bottom-up approaches that recognise and build on the agency and strengths of communities to define and pursue their health goals. Momentum towards agent-based approaches to community health promotion has grown in recent years, and several related but distinct conceptual and methodological bodies of work have developed largely in isolation from each other. The lack of a cohesive collection of research, practice, and policy has made it difficult to learn from the innovations, best practices, and shortcomings of these approaches, which is exacerbated by the imprecise and inconsistent use of related terms. This article provides a review of three agent-based approaches to promoting community health: asset-based approaches, capacity building, and capabilities approaches, noting the theoretical origins and fundamental concepts, applications and methodologies, and limitations and critiques of each. This article discusses their commonalities and differences in terms of how they conceptualise and approach the promotion of community health, including a critical consideration of their limitations and where they may prove to be counterproductive. This article argues that agent-based approaches to community health must be met with meaningful opportunities to disengage from the structures that constrain their health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]