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On 15 October 2020, in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic, Prof. Dr. Karl-Henrik Robèrt received a Radboud honorary doctorate in recognition of his work on strategic sustainable development. This edition includes honorary promotor Han van Krieken’s laudatio, Karl-Henrik Robèrt’s acceptance speech, and a detailed recollection of his professional history. Trained as an oncologist, Dr. Karl-Henrik Robèrt became aware in the last decades of the twentieth century that systematically increasing air, soil and water pollution in the environment were threatening global health. It became his goal to make people aware of the environmental problems and to develop a framework for sustainable development. In 1989, he founded 'The Natural Step', an organisation that initiated the development of the Framework for Strategic Sustainable Development, which later became a topic for further refinements through systematic international cooperation between scientists, and leaders from public and private sectors. The international hub for this work is Blekinge Technical Institute, where Dr Robèrt holds his chair. For his work, Robèrt received in 2000 the Blue Planet Prize - the 'Nobel Prize' for sustainability. Honorary promotor Han van Krieken: “It is for a variety of reasons that Radboud University wants to honour Professor Karl-Henrik Robèrt. Our university’s new Strategic Plan defines explicitly our ‘responsibility for the world in which we live’. It states as one of our goals that ‘we want to be in the vanguard when it comes to achieving the United Nations’ sustainable development goals and to make our own contribution to the changes needed in the world in the coming decades’. Professor Robèrt can show us ways in which we can translate these goals more effectively.”

While current economic theory focuses on prices and games, this book models economic settings where harmony is established through one of the following societal conventions: • A power relation according to which stronger agents are able to force weaker ones to do things against their will. • A norm that categorizes actions as permissible or forbidden. • A status relation over alternatives which limits each agent's choices. • Systematic biases in agents' preferences. These four conventions are analysed using simple and mathematically straightforward models, without any pretensions regarding direct applied usefulness. While we do not advocate for the adoption of any of these conventions specifically – we do advocate that when modelling an economic situation, alternative equilibrium notions should be considered, rather than automatically reaching for the familiar approaches of prices or games.

This book examines international aid in North Korea, in particular the ongoing policy of withholding aid, through the lens of the impact on the general population to present an argument for sustainable development. Focusing on the human rights of North Koreans and presenting a case for the use of aid as a provision for social change, it explores an alternative narrative to the existing long-drawn-out rhetoric of ‘denuclearisation-first’. The book’s scope includes evaluations of the causes of international sanctions and their impact, the Kim regime’s mitigation of sanctions through marketisation and a digital economy as well as barriers to aid monitoring and the reason for the absence of any mass anti-regime movement. It also posits that North Korea is a fragile state but cloaked by the image of a strong regime. The book succinctly demonstrates that the key to unlocking the potential of North Korea’s ‘cloaked society’ does not lie in sanctions, but is to be found in engagement with development aid. As such it will appeal to students of Korean Studies, Development Studies, Asian Politics and International Relations. The Open Access version of this book, available at http://www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons [Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND)] 4.0 license.

Co-operatives provide a different approach to organising business through their ideals of member ownership and democratic practice. Every co-operative member has an equal vote regardless of his or her own personal capital investment. They take a variety of different forms, including consumer co-operatives, agricultural co-operatives, worker co-operatives and financial co-operatives. Patmore, Balnave and Marjanovic provide a perspective on Australian co-operative development within a conceptual framework and international context since the 1820s by exploring the economic, political and social factors that explain their varying fortunes. Drawing upon the Visual Historical Atlas of Australian Co-operatives, a significant database of Australian co-operatives and a variety of historical sources, this book provides a detailed historical analysis of their development, from their inception in Australia to today. Australian co-operatives were heavily dependent on state sympathy for their growth and vulnerable to ideas that challenged collective organisation such as Neo-liberalism. Despite these challenges, the co-operative business model has persisted and since 2009, there has been resurgence of interest and organisation that may provide a platform for future growth. A useful resource for practitioners, students, educators, policy makers and researchers that highlights a significant alternative business model to the Investor-Owned Business and state enterprise. The Open Access version of this book, available at http://www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons [Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND)] 4.0 license.

This is an Open Access book. In 2015, Industry 4.0 was announced with the rise of industrialization by the European Parliament, supporting policy, research, and infrastructure funding. In 2020, Industry 5.0 was launched as an evolution of Industry 4.0, towards societal and ecological values in a sustainable, human-centric, and resilient transition. In 2023, the IN4ACT research project team completed 4 years of research on the impact on these initiatives. Presentations reviewing the progress of management practices and economics led to conversations about what’s next. The unanticipated rise in late 2022 of Generative AI technologies (e.g. ChatGPT, DALL-E) sparked dialogues with an extended circle of researchers on impacts not considered in 2015 or in 2020. This collection of chapters reflects multiple perspectives on research findings to 2023, prospects for 2024, and considerations on ways the techno-economic industrial revolutions may be reshaped into desirable futures respecting social and ecological concerns.

This open access book provides a comprehensive review of technological innovation in China, focusing on some existing challenges and the debate on the role of public policies in promoting innovation. Technological innovation has become a vital factor in promoting high-quality development in China. By examining the current state of and challenges confronting China's technological innovation from both the supply side (talent and R&D) and the demand side (domestic and international demand), this book offers a view on how to enhance the efficiency of industry chain while ensuring security through innovation. Public policy often plays a crucial role in shaping and improving the national innovation system when new challenges emerge. We put special emphasis on innovation in strategically important sectors, which include the digital, green, and biotech industries, as well as the manufacturing and logistics sectors that are fundamental to the working of the whole innovation system. This book explains academically rigorous content in a simple manner, and is therefore suitable for readers from the fields of public policy, economics, finance, and innovative sectors who seek to better understand China’s path of innovation. The book cites information from various credible sources, including academic journals, policy institutions, and a network of primary sources such as industry experts and renowned academics.

The creative industries – the place where art, business, and technology meet in economic activity – have been hugely affected by the relatively recent digitalisation (and often monetisation) of work, home, relationships, and leisure. Such trends were accelerated by the global COVID-19 pandemic. This edited collection examines how the creative industries can be supported to make best use of opportunities in digital technology and data-driven innovation. Since digital markets and platforms are now essential for revenue generation and audience engagement, there is a vital need for improved data and digital skills in the creative and cultural sectors. Taking a necessarily global perspective, this book explores the challenges and opportunities of data-driven approaches to creativity in different contexts across the arts, cultural, and heritage sectors. Chapters reach beyond the platforms and approaches provided by the technology sector to delve into the collaborative work that supports innovation around the interdisciplinary and cross-sectoral issues that emerge where data infrastructures and approaches meet creativity. A novel intervention that uniquely centres the role of data in the theory and practice of creative industries’ innovation, this book is valuable reading for those researching and studying the creative economy as well for those who drive investment for the creative industries in a digitalised society. The Open Access version of this book, available at www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 International license.

In the knowledge economy, teams play a central role in decisions made within and across organisations. The reason why teams with diverse compositions are often used is arguably their ability to develop solutions that none of their members could have produced alone. Systems design, strategy and policy development, risk management, and innovation are just a few of the areas that call for team decisions. Unfortunately, a considerable number of behavioural research studies show that teamwork is fraught with difficulties. Teams often underestimate their fallibility, struggle with conflict, or are unable to share and integrate critical information effectively. Indeed, the evidence shows that two out of three teams do not achieve their goals and half of organisational decisions – many of which are team decisions – fail. In this book, the authors draw from research in psychology, decision and systems sciences – as well as their own research and consulting work that spans more than 20 years – to show how designed interventions can enable team decision making to become rigorous, transparent, and defensible. They cover theory and practice regarding the design, delivery, and evaluation of interventions to support team decision making in situations of varied complexity. Written as an applied resource for researchers and advanced students in particular, this book offers a guide to proven interventions that enhance the process of making team decisions and increase the chances of superior team results.

The extant corpus of research on supply chain sustainability in the Arctic exhibits a conspicuous neglect of the social dimension, rendering it the most underprivileged among the three pillars of sustainability. A deep dive into the Arctic, this edited volume endeavors to fill this opulent lacuna by placing the unjustly forsaken concept of social sustainability at the forefront of supply chain management (SCM) research. By showcasing real-life case studies of supply chain operations, all in different industries and located in various Arctic regions, this book delves into the intricate interplay between business interests, political ambitions, and social issues. In response to the burgeoning demand for more in-depth empirical studies within the SCM landscape, it offers a compelling tapestry of experiences and candid views on the complexities of implementing socially sustainable and responsible policies in Arctic supply chains. Featuring contributions by 26 esteemed scholars worldwide, this collection proffers 13 thought-provoking and insightful chapters, arranged in a logical and coherent sequence that enables readers to follow a clear thread of argumentation. With abundant theoretical insights and empirical data, Supply Chain Operations in the Arctic: Implications for Social Sustainability will appeal to a wide range of readers keeping a close eye on Arctic operations and sustainable issues. It is a timely and essential resource for students and scholars of SCM and sustainability studies, as well as businesses, policymakers, Indigenous Peoples, and non-governmental organizations seeking to promote socially responsible supply chain practices in the Arctic.

This book exposes two inspiring research categories: digitization and trust. Digitization is a phenomenon that dynamically modifies the modern world in almost every area. Modern technologies, artificial intelligence and humanoid robots are instruments with an increasingly significant impact on the shape of the management process of modern organizations, including the way people are managed. Trust is a subtle concept, with a very different interpretation, influencing the behaviour of employees in a multifaceted way. A superficial look at the combination of both categories seems to see them as irrational. Upon closer examination, however, it exposes many interesting fields of scientific exploration. Trust, as a research category, has been included in three significant dimensions: in relation to co-workers, superiors and information technology, dominated by digitization. Each draws attention to different problems of priority importance for the organization. Asserting the idea that trust in the conditions of digitization becomes a category of timeless importance in the interdisciplinary dimension, this volume will be of interest to researchers, academics, practitioners and advanced students in the fields of management of technology and innovation, organizational studies and leadership.

This open access book is the first to provide an analysis of the Dutch paper industry over a period encompassing six centuries. Responding to a trend of renewed scholarly interest in paper industries and production, the book seeks to illuminate the factors behind this relatively small national industry’s centuries-long survival. Previous historical research has shown that sets of colonial, trade, merchant and family networks, tightly interwoven through a dense web of capital, were crucial for paper production and trade in early modern Europe. This book situates the Dutch paper industry within these overlapping contexts and their shifting dynamics over time, and historicizes the challenges and obstacles it had to overcome through four phases of capitalism: the rise of Dutch capitalism (1580–1815), Dutch monarchic liberalism (1815–1914), Fordism (1914–1980), and post-Fordism (1980 until now). Each chapter covers not only technological advancements in the industry, but its development alongside further determining dimensions, such as state-industry relations (industry policies), labour-capital relations (unions) and competition and cooperation, overall painting a picture of how the industry adapted to and endured changes in national and global networks surrounding the industry. This book will be of broad interest to scholars of economic and business history, as well as industrial history, political economy, and management studies.

This open access book provokes critical thinking regarding the most ambitious Chinese project since the founding of the People’s Republic of China, The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). The book presents extensive quality research and original insights in assessing the status of China’s outbound investment and construction projects under the BRI umbrella. Referring to case studies and projects of selected countries from Southeast Asia, Central Asia, and the Middle East, the author sheds new light on the issues and problems associated with the BRI's implementation and discusses both the readjustments and prospects for the BRI. Finally, this book demarcates the limits and potential of the world’s second largest economy in pushing for the BRI, which is challenged by enormous domestic tensions and external pressures. It also identifies and analyzes potential new collaboration areas between the Belt and Road countries and China under the BRI framework in the context of the post-COVID-19 era. It provides an outstanding reference for academics, students, policymakers, and the business community working in areas of international affairs and Asian economics and development, particularly those interested in Sino-relations and Chinese power dynamics in the global world order.

In an era of rapid change and increasing societal demands, the role of universities as knowledge producers and catalysts for change has come under scrutiny. This open access book offers a fresh perspective on the significance of universities in society, shedding light on how their knowledge can truly matter beyond academia. Drawing upon insightful inquiries from both the Swedish and international contexts, this volume delves into the multifaceted interactions between universities and various knowledge users, emphasizing the need for scholars to reflect on how their knowledge can become useful and applicable to wider society. Organized into three compelling themes, collaboration, engagement, and impact, this book explores the concept of "mattering". Together and jointly, they point at the fluid movement of scholars and scholarly knowledge across academic, political, and public spaces, and the intentional actions of scientists to leverage their expertise for real-worldimpact. Essential reading for social science and humanities scholars, university management professionals, and individuals keen on a critical understanding of the evolving role of universities, this volume offers a comprehensive examination of how universities have mattered, continue to matter, and can shape the future.

For a post-human hitchhiker, human life – with its anxiety, ageing, illness and constant need for problem-solving – may look unviable. Yet, for humans, the life struggle is softened by human touch, human emotion and human cooperation. The Global Encyclopaedia of Informality, Volume 3 continues the journey of the two previous volumes into the world’s open secrets, unwritten rules and hidden practices. It focuses on issues of emotional ambivalence and pressures of the digital age. The informal practices presented in this volume demonstrate the urgency of alleviating tensions between continuity and all-too-rapid change and the need to tackle the central problem of modern societies – uncertainty. The volume takes a reader on a ‘biographical’ journey through elusive, taken-for-granted or banal ways of getting things done from over 70 countries and world regions. It offers innovative understanding of the significance of fringes, and challenges the assumption that informality is associated exclusively with poverty, underdevelopment, the Global South, oppressive regimes or the former socialist countries of Eastern Europe and Central Asia. It also maps the patterns of informality around the globe; identifies specific informal practices in a context-sensitive way; and documents their ambivalent impact on people engaged in problem-solving, on societies in which these problems arise, and on humanity overall. Praise for The Global Encyclopaedia of Informality, Volume 3 ‘This book tells a story of human cooperation. It is not the narrative you’ll find in books teaching you how to solve problems. It is an assemblage of something much more endemic, fundamentally human, and much more pervasive than we tend to think of informality. It involves money and power, but also the alternative currencies of gaining advantage or gaming the system.’ Bruce Schneier, author of A Hacker's Mind ‘Alena Ledeneva’s latest database of rule bending is a goldmine for documentary makers and storytellers. Entries from 70 countries, covering a human lifespan from Chinese “anchor babies” to funeral feasts in Azerbaijan, offer remarkable insights into the way the world really works.’ Lucy Ash, journalist

The central task of contemporary strategic management is to look for sources of value and to achieve above- average firm performance. The effective implementation of a value creation strategy requires a comprehensive approach, including the creation of a systemic management structure aimed at increasing company value. The concept of value- based management involves consciously inspiring, undertaking, and implementing value- oriented actions. Value creation takes place at all levels of management and in all organisational units of the company; therefore, the implementation of all management functions should be assigned to this goal. Thus, the role of managers is gaining importance, especially those who are capital- linked to companies, who set goals and verify them by means of informed decisions aimed at maximising value in the long term. The book presents a multidimensional analysis of shareholders’ impact on company value creation. The authors chose the IT sector as the area of study; this sector, being one in which modern technologies are essential, acquires special significance for the global economy. The book features a review of notions and concepts related to the management of company value and methods of measuring it, the shareholder’s impact on the creation of company value, and factors affecting long- term value creation; an analysis of the places of occurrence, power and direction of a shareholder’s impact on building the long- term capacity of an IT sector company for creating the value thereof, as well as the conceptualisation and operationalisation of such impact; an analysis of the role of shareholders in IT sector companies, a profile of shareholder competence which makes the role of a shareholder unique to the company and fulfils the “value- creating owner” postulate; an analysis of the role of hired managers cooperating with the shareholders with an indication of the significance of mutual development and the supplementation of one’s own skills. The book is dedicated to scientists in the field of strategic management, valuebased management, and leadership; shareholders; students of EMBA and MBA programmes; practitioners in strategic management; and current shareholders of modern technology companies (in particular from the IT sector) and future investors, for all of whom it may offer a valuable outlook on the management principles and practices in the sectors, particularly with respect to the long- term creation of company value.

This book offers new transdisciplinary perspectives on luxury, exploring the topical phenomenon of digitally retouched (censored) and blockchain-secured (sensored) luxury watches and outlining implications that emerge for the field of luxury studies and managerial practice. Based on a cross-disciplinary approach, the book integrates theoretical and empirical perspectives to advance the readers’ understanding of luxury. With a particular focus on the Swiss luxury watch context, the book thereby draws on qualitative, quantitative, and archival data to shed new light on recent luxury trends, integrating literature on aesthetics of labour, conspicuous consumption, Gestalt theory, ethical theory, functional theories of attitudes, and surveillance studies. Eight chapters take the readers through a range of topical challenges arising with the display and changing moral perceptions of luxury and shifts that the luxury watch sector is facing in light of the digital transformation impacting luxury goods and the luxury management environment. This unique book will be of value for academics, scholars, and upper-level students across management studies with a particular interest in the luxury and fashion industries, luxury management, brand management, business ethics, and digital transformation. With a foreword by Thomaï Serdari, Leonard N. Stern School of Business, New York University.

The speed with which the various economies recover from the Covid-19 pandemic will significantly determine the economic pressure placed on the environment in the medium-to-long-term. Furthermore, the pandemic has highlighted the strong interrelations between natural and societal systems, with societal resilience depending on a resilient environmental support system. In this context, the book argues that the pandemic represents a wake-up call for financial systems to be better prepared for the climate crisis and social risk, and has provided a stimulus to scale down the reliance of the global economy on fossil fuels. The first part of the book provides a deep and creative discussion between leading international researchers and experts on the policy options and financial instruments which can help to catalyze the green finance transition in the post-Covid-19 era. The contributions show that sustainable finance is emerging as a powerful tool to advance the transition towards a more environmentally and socially sustainable economic model. Instruments such as sovereign green bonds, green securities, and other sustainability-related securities can play a significant role in the post-Covid-19 world to fund economic stimulus and to lead the way to new and more sustainable future. The second part of the book supports the debate by highlighting a number of selected case studies on financing transitions in different regional contexts including Africa, Asia, Europe, and Latin America. The book marks a significant contribution to the literature on environmental economics and finance, climate change, and sustainability transitions.

India has learned what to do and what not to do when it comes to implementing policy to address human suffering. The COVID-19 pandemic unified the international response in similar ways, and the world has a lot to learn about key initiatives in India that have been implemented since India's independence. This open-access book includes key learnings about the conceptualization, design, and impact of social welfare programs in India spanning more than a 75-year period. The Future of India's Social Safety Nets provides a comprehensive analysis of these systems by combining insights from a wealth of interdisciplinary scholarship on social protection, economic development, and social policy. It covers India’s social development in terms of three essential aspects of policy design: focus (intended beneficiaries), form (transfer modalities), and scope (developmental objectives). Highlighting the developmental achievements and shortcomings of the myriad of social welfare schemes, this book proposes a framework to foster human resilience through social protection. This is an open-access book.

This open access book raises some central questions: Do we need moonshot policies to spur innovation and economic growth? What are the risks associated with such policies? Economic turbulence, the COVID-19 pandemic, and mounting environmental concerns have paved the way for a renaissance of targeted industrial policy. In particular, the idea that society should be organized around large missions is gaining momentum among high-income economies. However, the authors and editors of this volume contend that this shift has occurred without much critical examination, especially as the European Union has adopted these ideas, and Western economies are now increasingly organizing toward the achievement of large, state-formulated goals. Recognizing the urgent need for continued scholarly attention to question notions of the mission economy, more than 20 scholars discuss the dangers of top-down/vertical approaches to industrial policy and draw attention to the progress of independent enterprise, entrepreneurialism, and market solutions in a sound economy and society. By critically examining mission-oriented innovation policies, using theoretical perspectives and empirical investigations, the book highlights both the mechanisms behind failed missions and alternative approaches. This is a must-read for policy researchers and policymakers alike.

This edited volume explores a variety of aspects of associative governance, providing detailed case studies of associations and associational governance in Scandinavia. Theoretically developing a concept and approach of associative governance, the book sheds light on a dynamic way of perceiving associative aspects of community and commercial life that has been hitherto underexplored and undertheorized. It shows how governance by associations may be conducted not only bottom‑up by self‑organized and voluntary participation, but also top‑down by authoritative incorporation through government, and – not least – in multifarious interstices in between. New section by exploring a vibrant panoply of dimensions of associative governance, empirically grounded in historical analyses of a wide range of organizational repertoires, the book may provide novel insights into the significant role of associative governance in Scandinavia over the past two centuries. Finally, it provides research‑based knowledge about how to maintain “good political and economic institutions” in the future and a more holistic and dynamic approach to the literature on The Nordic model. The book will be of key interest to scholars and students of Nordic and Scandinavian studies, history, sociology, political science, marketing, social policy, organization theory, and public management. The Open Access version of this book, available at www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution‑Non Commercial‑No Derivatives (CC‑BY‑NC‑ND) 4.0 license.

How do creative workers work? This book brings together insights from a range of relevant disciplines to help answer this significant research question. Featuring case studies from the European context, contributors tap into the experiences and practices from creative workers, demonstrating their attempts to navigate a changing environment which affects spaces, identities, and professional roles. As cross-disciplinary re-thinking of work, labour processes and management practices in the creative and cultural industries, the book offers perspectives on the importance of highlighting creative work as a phenomenon and practice beyond a particular industry, market, or public sector. Providing an opportunity to expand our conception of what creative work is, the book draws on studies of a range of activities, practices and sectors that are usually included in the cultural and creative industries as well as ones that are more untraditional. The result is a volume that will interest students, practictioners, and scholars with an interest in the creative industries. The Open Access version of this book, available at www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.

This second book in the EFMD Management Education series explores business schools’ increasing focus on, and search for, meaningful societal and economic research impact. This involves, in particular, co-operation and collaboration in both knowledge creation and implementation of the findings of academic research in practice. Business schools have a critical role to play in ‘rewiring’ our missions for research relevance, impact and reach, and in recognising needs and addressing real issues of society and economy. With cases from a range of international business schools, the book doesn’t simply highlight the need for the dominant research model in business schools to evolve, but illustrates how this can happen in practice. In so doing, it opens the discussion on how the business school can contribute in very real ways to solving global and complex challenges such as climate change, rising inequalities, international isolationism, eroding democratic systems, and the spread of fake news. These are goals that the EFMD has championed since its inception, and this book will be of value and interest to policy makers and business leaders seeking insight into how management education will be shaped to support business and wider society, as well as those working in business schools and higher education leaders. The Open Access version of this book, available at http://www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.

The contribution of Edgar H. Schein to the field of management, organisation studies and applied behavioural science is both extensive and deep. For almost 70 years, he has creatively and systematically shaped theory and practice in areas including organisation development and change, career dynamics, the cultural dynamics of complex systems, leadership, process consultation and the clinical inquiry/research paradigm. He has written extensively on the process of organisational change and framed the construct of the clinical approach to research. With such an extensive corpus over such a long period, Schein has been termed a “transcendent thought leader” and it is in this spirit that a volume exploring his work offers a contribution how scholars and practitioners can come to understand their engagement in organisations. This singular volume adopts a reflective perspective on the work of Edgar Schein as a social scientist and shows how he developed his craft as an engaged organisational scholar-practitioner through reflexive attention to his experience in working with managers and organisations and generating knowledge out of action. The intended contribution is both to present Schein’s work to students and scholars of organisation studies and to offer a reflexive methodological framework to engage scholar-practitioner in any field.

The speed with which the various economies recover from the Covid-19 pandemic will significantly determine the economic pressure placed on the environment in the medium-to-long-term. Furthermore, the pandemic has highlighted the strong interrelations between natural and societal systems, with societal resilience depending on a resilient environmental support system. In this context, the book argues that the pandemic represents a wake-up call for financial systems to be better prepared for the climate crisis and social risk, and has provided a stimulus to scale down the reliance of the global economy on fossil fuels. The first part of the book provides a deep and creative discussion between leading international researchers and experts on the policy options and financial instruments which can help to catalyze the green finance transition in the post-Covid-19 era. The contributions show that sustainable finance is emerging as a powerful tool to advance the transition towards a more environmentally and socially sustainable economic model. Instruments such as sovereign green bonds, green securities, and other sustainability-related securities can play a significant role in the post-Covid-19 world to fund economic stimulus and to lead the way to new and more sustainable future. The second part of the book supports the debate by highlighting a number of selected case studies on financing transitions in different regional contexts including Africa, Asia, Europe, and Latin America. The book marks a significant contribution to the literature on environmental economics and finance, climate change, and sustainability transitions.

In the past, sustainability was the doctrine of economics, which assumes a quality of lifeat the level allowed by the current development of civilisation. A sustainable economy(including industry) should balance economic growth, environmental protection, qualityof life, and human health. It is not only about the natural environment, but also theartificial—i.e., man-made (as in Chicago School’s work on human ecology). The doctrineof sustainable development strives for social justice by using environmental projectsfor higher efficiency. The priority is to set ecological standards for preserving thehomeostasis of the ecosystem.Modern business is becoming more digital and intelligent. Enterprises implement newtechnologies of the fourth industrial revolution in the sustainable environment. SustainableIndustry 4.0 is a new concept for discussion by scientists and business. This concept hasbeen gaining interest among scientists and practitioners in recent years because there isnew information about Industry 4.0. Factories are becoming smarter, more efficient, safer,and more environmentally friendly by linking and integrating production technologiesand devices, information and communication systems, and data and services in networkinfrastructures. New business models with cyber-physical systems (CPSs) are being built,but sustainability must not be forgotten in these models.Transitioning to Sustainable Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure is part of MDPI’s OpenAccess book series, Transitioning to Sustainability, which aims to add to the conversationabout regional and global sustainable development according to the 17 SDGs.

Expatriation has been a topic of much research recently. The important role expatriates play in the internationalisation of an organisation and the resultant effects of such a work experience on the expatriates themselves, have fuelled the interest in this domain. This edited volume serves to provide fresh and timely insights into four areas, covering the individual, over the organisational, to the macro-level. First, the career paths of the expatriates, which not only garners them the career capital they may be able to utilise later in their career but also, the impacts of such an experience on their longer-term career success are in focus. The second block concerns the expatriation phase itself. A critical look is taken into the expatriates’ identity and how it changes over time. Moreover, it discusses factors influencing the expatriates’ well-being, embeddedness, and socio-cultural integration during their time abroad. Third, some key global mobility management challenges that organisations face, when managing expatriation, are introduced —such as flexible language management and how to become an international employer. Finally, insights are provided into the role of the host country policies – more specifically hostile environment and migration policies – on expatriate attitudes and behaviour, which has received less attention in previous research. All four areas are finally brought together to present a rich overview of future research questions that shall stimulate researchers and practitioners in their further deliberations. The chapters are based on selected results from the respective research subprojects of the Early Stage Researchers of the Horizon 2020 Global Mobility of Employees (GLOMO) project. This project was funded under the European Union’s Research and Innovation Programme H2020 in the framework of the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Grant Agreement No 765355.

This is the first Open Access book introducing more than 20 of Japan’s leading innovative entrepreneurs from the 17th century to the present. The author outlines the innovative business models created by entrepreneurs including SoftBank’s Masayoshi Son, Fast Retailing (Uniqlo)’s Yanai Tadashi, Honda’s Soichiro Honda, Sony’s Akio Morita, Panasonic’s Konosuke Matsushita, and Toyota’s Kiichiro Toyoda, as well as their predecessors including Takatoshi Mitsui of Mitsui Zaibatsu, Shibusawa Eiichi of Daiichi Bank. While introducing the innovators, the author also raises three broader questions: 1. Why did Japan industrialize earlier than any other country outside Europe and the United States? 2. Why was Japan able to realize unsurpassed economic growth between the 1910s and the 1980s? 3. Why has Japan’s economy stagnated for more than 30 years since the 1990s? Drawing upon analytical concepts including Schumpeter’s breakthrough innovation, Kirzner’s incremental innovation, and Christensen’s disruptive innovation, the author contends that Japan’s successes were based on unique and systematic breakthrough innovation and an accumulation of incremental innovation, while it later fell victim to a combination of breakthrough innovation from advanced countries and disruptive innovation by developing nations.

This book puts Indian garment workers and their organisations at the centre of the analysis. Taking the Bangalore export-garment cluster as a case study, the book explores the conditions that enable but also constrain the capacities of garment workers’ unions to build collective power vis-à-vis employers and thereby improve their conditions. Drawing on theoretical concepts from labour geography, relational economic geography, and Global Production Network (GPN) analysis, the book highlights, on the one hand, how the complex labour control regime in the Bangalore export-garment cluster poses manifold challenges and constraints for workers’ and unions’ collective agency. On the other hand, the book illustrates the various networked agency strategies that local garment unions in Bangalore have developed over the years to overcome these constraints by tapping into coalitional power resources from worker, consumer and labour rights organisations in the Global North. This book is therefore highly relevant for economic geographers and other scholars interested in dynamics of labour and development in GPNs as well as for unionists and labour rights activists committed to improving working conditions in the global garment industry. This is an open access book.

In this work a process simulation model identifies the most profitable German biogas plant types and sizes. Small manure and large-scale biowaste plants are currently the most economically attractive installations whereas the valorization of energy crops turns out to be unprofitable. Future developments are assessed with the help of a regional optimization model under constraints. Capacity expansion concerns small-scale manure and biowaste installations rather than plants based on energy crops.

The Case Against Intervention - the fourth venture of the author Quah, Chee Heong, dwells upon contemporary social and economic issues. His previous books Optimal Currency Areas in East Asia, Eccentric Views on Money and Banking, and Austrian Economics in One Lesson lay stress on money, banking, and economics. This title concentrates on societal issues that currently define and affect our day-to-day lives which would certainly complement the curricula at colleges and universities. The objective of this work is to break the status quo and defy the fallacious reasoning in mainstream thinking, as Ronald Reagan once said, "Government is not the solution to our problem, government is the problem.

Thinking with an Accent casts accent as a powerfully coded yet underexplored mode of perception shaping our global cultural economy. Theorizing accent as a mediatized object, an interdisciplinary method, and an embodied practice, this volume invites readers to think with an accent—to practice a dialogical, multisensorial inquiry that can yield transformative modalities of knowledge, action, and care. “There is no such thing as a voice without an accent, yet theories of voice still treat accents as the exception. Thinking with an Accent teaches us how to begin from accented voices and provides a panoply of tools for imagining, working with, building on, analyzing, and desiring accents.” — JONATHAN STERNE, author of Diminished Faculties: A Political Phenomenology of Impairment “This creative and ambitious collection encourages us to reconsider our own accented lives and how they structure our social, digital, and literary worlds. An essential book.” — DOLORES INÉS CASILLAS, author of Sounds of Belonging: U.S. Spanish-Language Radio and Public Advocacy “This book teaches us that the accent must be understood not as an ontological reality but as a co-constituted happening. The result is that accent becomes something to think with, not just to study. Straightforward, well argued, and a pleasure to read.” — KAREEM KHUBCHANDANI, author of Ishtyle: Accenting Gay Indian Nightlife"

This open access book provides a cross-sectoral, multi-scale assessment of marine litter in Africa with a focus on plastics. From distribution, to impacts on environmental and human health, this book looks at what is known scientifically. It includes a policy analysis of the instruments that currently exist, and what is needed to help Africa tackle marine litter—including local and transboundary sources. Across 5 chapters, experts from Africa and beyond have put together a summary of the scientific knowledge currently known about marine litter in Africa. The context of the African continent and future projections form a backdrop on which the scientific knowledge is built. This scientific knowledge incorporates quantities, distributions, and pathways of litter into the marine environment, highlighting where the impacts of marine litter are most felt in Africa. These impacts have widespread effects, with ecological, social, economic, and human health repercussions. While containing detailed scientific information, this book provides a sound knowledge base for policymakers, NGOs and the broader public.

Made in France examines the long history of the branding of the French nation, from the political imprint of Prime Minister Jean-Baptiste Colbert to the present day. The politics of Made in France were articulated at several levels of power, which was centralised by the French state, but also exercised locally, as in Paris and in the wine producing regions. The French government has consistently fostered production that advertised its country-of-origin as a symbol of quality on domestic and international markets. This chapter discusses the luxury industries, especially haute couture. The experiences of this industry, and other luxury industries show that is possible to relocate production outside France, which has resulted in the massification of luxury-item production.

This chapter delineates an evolutionary approach to the comparative analysis of economic systems and illustrates its usefulness via an exemplary application to recent developments in the European Union. The first part of the chapter describes the meta-theoretical foundations of the approach, i.e. its particular ontological and epistemological vantage points. This allows for an easier comparison (and, potentially, triangulation) with other approaches to comparative analyses, and already provides for some practical guidelines for applied work. The second part applies the approach and studies polarization patterns in the European Union. While this application is not meant as a fully self-contained analysis, it not only illustrates how the concepts of the approach can be operationalized and applied in practice, but also the application of several empirical methods that can be used fruitfully within such an evolutionary analysis. The chapter concludes with a non-exhaustive list of concepts and topics that are particularly insightful to consider when conducting an analysis in the spirit of an evolutionary approach to the comparative analysis of economic systems.

This chapter, being halfway between abstract economic theory and policy analysis, addresses one of the most contested issues in comparative economic studies, namely the role of human deliberation versus spontaneity at the macroeconomic level. To arrive at new insights. It adopts a cross-regional perspective and speculates, if the counter-intuitive practices of China, based on pragmatism and experimentation, trial and error, has indeed been superior to social engineering, as practiced in various forms across Europe. It also highlights the limitations to theoretical generalizations, i.e., making claims that remain valid at any time and any place, as mainstream economics suggests of its own insights.

Der vorliegende Open-Access-Band analysiert die relevanten ökonomischen Zusammenhänge der Inflation in Bezug auf die Entstehung und die Folgen von nachhaltigen Steigerungen des Preisniveaus einer Volkswirtschaft. Nach einer langen Periode stabiler Preise ist die Gefahr einer dauerhaften Inflation unerwartet wieder in den Blickpunkt von Wirtschaft und Politik geraten. Begleitend werden die Messkonzepte der Inflation sowie die Möglichkeiten und Grenzen zur Wiederherstellung der Geldwertstabilität durch eine Zentralbank beschrieben.

Access to the radio spectrum is vital for modern digital communication. It is an essential component for smartphone capabilities, the Cloud, the Internet of Things, autonomous vehicles, and multiple other new technologies. Governments use spectrum auctions to decide which companies should use what parts of the radio spectrum. Successful auctions can fuel rapid innovation in products and services, unlock substantial economic benefits, build comparative advantage across all regions, and create billions of dollars of government revenues. Poor auction strategies can leave bandwidth unsold and delay innovation, sell national assets to firms too cheaply, or create uncompetitive markets with high mobile prices and patchy coverage that stifles economic growth. Corporate bidders regularly complain that auctions raise their costs, while government critics argue that insufficient revenues are raised. The cross-national record shows many examples of both highly successful auctions and miserable failures. Drawing on experience from the UK and other countries, senior regulator Geoffrey Myers explains how to optimise the regulatory design of auctions, from initial planning to final implementation. Spectrum Auctions offers unrivalled expertise for regulators and economists engaged in practical auction design or company executives planning bidding strategies. For applied economists, teachers, and advanced students this book provides unrivalled insights in market design and public management. Providing clear analytical frameworks, case studies of auctions, and stage-by-stage advice, it is essential reading for anyone interested in designing public-interested and successful spectrum auctions.

This open access book explores the field of life science business from a multidisciplinary perspective. Applying statistical, mathematical, game-theoretic, and data science tools to pharmaceutical and biotechnology business endeavors, the book describes value creation, value maintenance, and value realization in the life sciences as a sequence of processes using the quantitative language of applied mathematics. Written by experts from a variety of fields, the contributions illustrate the shift from a deterministic to a stochastic view of the processes involved, offering a new perspective on life sciences economics. The book covers topics such as valuing and managing intellectual property in life science, licensing in the pharmaceutical business, outsourcing pharmaceutical R&D, and stochastic modelling of a pharmaceutical supply chain. The book will appeal to scholars of economics and the life sciences, as well as to professionals in chemical and pharmaceutical industries.

Provincializing Empire explores the global history of Japanese expansion through a regional lens. It rethinks the nation-centered geography and chronology of empire by uncovering the pivotal role of expeditionary merchants from Ōmi (present-day Shiga Prefecture) and their modern successors. Tracing their lives from the early modern era, and writing them into the global histories of empire, diaspora, and capitalism, Jun Uchida offers an innovative analysis of expansion through a story previously untold: how the nation’s provincials built on their traditions to create a transpacific diaspora that stretched from Seoul to Vancouver, while helping shape the modern world of transoceanic exchange. “Provincializing Empire offers a stimulating and persuasive account of the longue durée of Japanese capitalist development, connecting Japanese historiography to important conversations on the history of racial capitalism and geographies of space, place, and scale.” — DAVID AMBARAS, author of Japan’s Imperial Underworlds: Intimate Encounters at the Borders of Empire “Wide-ranging yet richly documented, Provincializing Empire offers a powerful new transregional history of Japanese capitalism, challenging claims about the developmental state. It tells the fascinating story of a merchant diaspora whose growth was entwined with Japanese imperialism, and of the invented traditions that sustained provincial identity amid global commercial expansion.” — JORDAN SAND, author of Tokyo Vernacular: Common Spaces, Local Histories, Found Objects ""A tour de force! Jun Uchida's lucid narrative illuminates the multidirectional movements of settler-migrant merchants from peripheral Japan that cut across the prescribed borders of empires and nation-states. Empirically rich and theoretically sophisticated, Provincializing Empire calls into question many assumptions about Japanese imperialism and offers a less spatially bounded story of grassroots expansionism."" — EIICHIRO AZUMA, author of In Search of Our Frontier: Japanese America and Settler Colonialism in the Construction of Japan's Borderless Empire ""Provincializing Empire is a wonderfully creative model for connecting local and global history. Uchida frames her stimulating account of Japanese overseas commercial expansion, colonialism, and diaspora not as the top-down story of state policy but as the local history of a mercantile community."" — DAVID L. HOWELL, Robert K. and Dale J. Weary Professor of Japanese History, Harvard University"

This open access book seeks effective strategy to realize a rice Green Revolution in sub-Saharan Africa based on more than ten years of research team’s inquiries into determinants and consequences of new technology adoption in rice farming in seven countries in this region. Rigorous statistical analyses are carried out by using valuable household data of rice farmers. The book is actually sequel to the two earlier books on the same subject published by Springer and edited by K. Otsuka and D.F. Larson, An African Green Revolution published in 2013 and In Pursuit of an African Green Revolution in 2016. The main message of the first book was that rice is the most promising cereal crop in SSA because of the high transferability of Asian rice technology, whereas that of the second book was that rice cultivation training programs are effective in significantly increasing rice yield in SSA. This third book has wider coverage in terms of topics, study periods, and study sites. It continues to show the significant impacts of rice cultivation training on productivity and newly demonstrates the high sustainability of the productivity impact of the training and the existence of spillover effects from trainees to other farmers by using panel data. We newly assess the important role of mechanization in intensification of rice farming, high returns to large-scale irrigation schemes, and the critical role of rice millers in improving the quality of milled rice. Based on these studies, this book provides clear pathways toward full-fledged Green Revolution in rice farming in sub-Saharan Africa.

The 2020 pandemic and likely even more the renewed East-West clash epitomized by the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the West’s reaction to it. The handbook is divided into five parts. Each part deals with an issue of relevance for the discipline. The first and second parts look at the subject, content and approach of the discipline and its comparative method. The third part looks at the idiosyncratic nature of different economic systems and their constituent elements. The fourth part considers the outcomes that different economic systems generate and how these outcomes change following the evolution and transformation of economic systems. The last part takes stock and looks ahead at the challenges, from a theoretical and applied perspective, and the exogenous and endogenous factors promoting the advancement of the discipline, including the interaction between and competition among varied approaches and opposing paradigms.

This open access book explores the role of innovation in technological convergence processes in the EU regional space and shifts the focus from absolute and conditional income convergence to technological convergence and its determinants. Presenting new theoretical and empirical evidence on the determinants and trajectory of the EU region’s development and convergence, this book will appeal to scholars of economics and regional science, as well as practitioners and policymakers interested in the policy implications of regional technological convergence. The presented findings will also contribute to the development of the knowledge-based economy paradigm in the regional context. This is an open access book.

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) recognize the increasingly complex, interdependent nature of societal and environmental issues for governments and business. Tackling such "grand challenges" requires the concerted action of a multitude of organizations and multiple stakeholders at different levels in the public, private, and non-profit sector. Organizing for Sustainable Development provides an integrated and comparative overview of the successes and failures of organizational efforts to tackle global societal issues and achieve sustainable development. Summarizing years of study by an interdisciplinary board of authors and contributors, this book provides readers with an in-depth understanding of how existing businesses and new hybrid organizations can achieve sustainable development to bring about an improved society, marking a key contribution to the literature in this field. Combining theoretical views with empirical approaches, the chapters in this book are highly relevant to graduate and undergraduate (multidisciplinary) programs in sustainable development, organization studies, development economics, development studies, international management, and social entrepreneurship.

The world’s people and their leaders face a complex and multifaceted set of ‘eco-social questions’. As the productivity of humanity increases, the negative external environmental effects of production and consumption patterns become increasingly problematic and threaten the human welfare. As the regulating power of national and international governments is limited, this challenge has generated a strong interest in the corporate social responsibility (CSR) of companies. Firms find it increasingly important to meet the expectations of stakeholders with respect to the company’s contribution to profit, planet, and people. The primary aim of this book is to introduce the reader to the impacts and drivers of CSR, with a special focus on small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Research into the social and environmental impacts of CSR is rare. This is a serious gap because if CSR were to fail to have favourable social and environmental impacts on society, the whole concept may become redundant. If societal impacts of CSR are substantial, it is important to know the drivers of CSR. This book considers (1) factors internal to the company, (2) the competitive environment of the company, (3) institutions external to the company, and (4) how the impacts of institutions are mediated or moderated by company internal factors. This book will fill this gap by estimating various types of models that integrate external and internal factors driving CSR and its impacts on environment, innovation, and reputation, making it a valuable resource for researchers, academics, and students in the fields of business management and CSR.

This book endeavours to outline case studies that promote sustainable Local Economic Development (LED) initiatives. It is generally believed that local governments are the foot soldiers of LED. However, this seems to be a myth, as local governments in South Africa and elsewhere have not yet fulfilled this mandate and have been struggling for several years to implement LED initiatives. The distinctive merit of this book lies in the way it combines the South African context with the wider international development context in ways that there is a flow of information and ideas both ways. The book is an essential part of this sequence of ideas development and action at a critical time for strategic action directed at a sustainable future. It showcases case studies and responses to the impacts of globalisation as a bridge between urban/rural and institutional action and reveals avenues for local government leadership in communities, research, student engagement and wider interactions.

COVID-19 led to an economic downturn not only in Kenya but also in the rest of the world. It put these countries into a recession as a result of the measures taken by trading partners to prevent the spread of the virus. This meant that the Kenyan needed to come up with monetary and fiscal policies and strategies to maintain macroeconomic and fiscal stability, as well as accelerate the pace of economic growth by achieving resilience and sustainability of economic growth and development. This book uses both descriptive and econometric methodologies that can easily be understood by scholars, using quality data from credible sources such as the Kenyan National Bureau of Statistics, the Ministry of Health, World Bank, World Trade Organization and the International Monetary Fund. The book can be used as reference material for both post and undergraduate students interested in international trade. The policies and strategies proposed can be used by scholars in researching ways to deal with not only the current pandemic but also future pandemics.

This open access book evaluates research quality, quality of teaching and the relationship between the two through sound statistical methods, and in a comparative perspective with other European countries. In so doing, it covers an increasingly important topic for universities that affects university funding. It discusses whether university evaluation should be limited to a single factor or consider multiple dimensions of research, since academic careers, teaching and awarding degrees are intertwined. The chapters included in the book evaluate teaching and research, also taking the gender dimension into account, in order to understand where and when gender discrimination occurs in assessment. Divided into five sections, the book analyses the administrative data on the determinants of career completion of university students; increasing precariousness of academic careers, especially of young researchers; methods designed to assess research productivity when co-authorship and team production are becoming the standard practice; and interrelations between students’ achievements and teachers’ careers driven by research assessment. It brings together contributions from a large group of economists, statisticians and social scientists working under a project sponsored by ANVUR, the Italian agency for the evaluation of teaching and research of academic institutions. From an international perspective, the findings in this book are particularly interesting because despite low tuition costs, tertiary education in Italy has relatively low enrolment rates and even lower completion rates compared to those in other European and American countries. This book is of interest to researchers of the sociology of education, education policy, public administration, economics and statistics of education, and to administrators and policy makers working in the area of higher education.

New, Green, Deal, Routledge, handbook, Robinson, Tienhaara

This book explores the role of agriculture in long-term economic growth. With a particular focus on Ethiopia, the role of the state in igniting agricultural growth and in sustaining economic growth is highlighted as essential for low-income countries. Taking ideas from both economic history and development economics, the ability of Ethiopia and the rest of Africa to sustain recent rapid growth into something that can tackle the development agenda is discussed, alongside policy suggestions. This book overall presents an optimistic account of Africa and its economic prospects. It will be relevant to students and researchers interested in economic development and agricultural economics. This is an open access book.

This open access book demonstrates how data quality issues affect all surveys and proposes methods that can be utilised to deal with the observable components of survey error in a statistically sound manner. This book begins by profiling the post-Apartheid period in South Africa's history when the sampling frame and survey methodology for household surveys was undergoing periodic changes due to the changing geopolitical landscape in the country. This book profiles how different components of error had disproportionate magnitudes in different survey years, including coverage error, sampling error, nonresponse error, measurement error, processing error and adjustment error. The parameters of interest concern the earnings distribution, but despite this outcome of interest, the discussion is generalizable to any question in a random sample survey of households or firms. This book then investigates questionnaire design and item nonresponse by building a response propensity model for the employee income question in two South African labour market surveys: the October Household Survey (OHS, 1997-1999) and the Labour Force Survey (LFS, 2000-2003). This time period isolates a period of changing questionnaire design for the income question. Finally, this book is concerned with how to employee income data with a mixture of continuous data, bounded response data and nonresponse. A variable with this mixture of data types is called coarse data. Because the income question consists of two parts -- an initial, exact income question and a bounded income follow-up question -- the resulting statistical distribution of employee income is both continuous and discrete. The book shows researchers how to appropriately deal with coarse income data using multiple imputation. The take-home message from this book is that researchers have a responsibility to treat data quality concerns in a statistically sound manner, rather than making adjustments to public-use data in arbitrary ways, often underpinned by undefensible assumptions about an implicit unobservable loss function in the data. The demonstration of how this can be done provides a replicable concept map with applicable methods that can be utilised in any sample survey.