New Roles for Business

Author(s):  
Christian Voegtlin ◽  
Andreas Georg Scherer

This chapter discusses the new role of businesses as responsible innovators. The world is facing “grand challenges” of sustainability, and business will play a crucial role in contributing to a sustainable future by providing innovative solutions that avoid further harm and actively do good. Particular challenges and opportunities are highlighted across the spectrum of economic sectors and firm-specific capabilities for corporate governance and responsible leadership that are conducive to responsible innovation are addressed. The chapter concludes with an agenda for future research into this new role for business firms.

2013 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 20-25 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lee Humphreys

This article explores the future research opportunities and challenges of mobile social media. First, I problematize what constitutes the boundaries of mobile social media. Distinctions between location-based mobile social networks and non-location-based mobile social networks are established to suggest that the mobility of social media is in fact much broader than location alone. Second, several key theoretical questions are identified for future exploration, including micro, meso, and macro-level theories. Lastly, methodological challenges and opportunities are reflected upon and culminate in the call for multi-disciplinary programs of research to fully understand the role of mobile social media in the world today.


Water ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 407
Author(s):  
Ling Li ◽  
Yong-Jiang Zhang ◽  
Abigayl Novak ◽  
Yingchao Yang ◽  
Jinwu Wang

In recent years, plants in sandy soils have been impacted by increased climate variability due to weak water holding and temperature buffering capacities of the parent material. The projected impact spreads all over the world, including New England, USA. Many regions of the world may experience an increase in frequency and severity of drought, which can be attributed to an increased variability in precipitation and enhanced water loss due to warming. The overall benefits of biochar in environmental management have been extensively investigated. This review aims to discuss the water holding capacity of biochar from the points of view of fluid mechanics and propose several prioritized future research topics. To understand the impacts of biochar on sandy soils in-depth, sandy soil properties (surface area, pore size, water properties, and characteristics) and how biochar could improve the soil quality as well as plant growth, development, and yield are reviewed. Incorporating biochar into sandy soils could result in a net increase in the surface area, a stronger hydrophobicity at a lower temperature, and an increase in the micropores to maximize gap spaces. The capability of biochar in reducing fertilizer drainage through increasing water retention can improve crop productivity and reduce the nutrient leaching rate in agricultural practices. To advance research in biochar products and address the impacts of increasing climate variability, future research may focus on the role of biochar in enhancing soil water retention, plant water use efficiency, crop resistance to drought, and crop productivity.


2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-17
Author(s):  
Kojo Fenyi ◽  
◽  
Georgina Afeafa Sapaty ◽  

This study sets out to investigate, examine and understand the hidden ideologies and ideological structures/devices in the 2013 State of the Nation Address of President John Dramani Mahama. The study specifically aimed to (i) ascertain the ideologies embedded in the speech and (ii) investigate linguistic expressions and devices which carry these ideological colourations in the speech under review. It uses Critical Discourse Analysis as the theoretical framework to examine the role of language in creating ideology as well as the ideological structures in the speech. These hidden ideologies are created, enacted and legitimated by the application of certain linguistic devices. The researchers deem a study of this nature important as it will expose hidden motives that Ghanaian presidents cloth in language in order to manipulate their audience through their speeches in order to win and/or sustain political power. Through thematic analysis, it was revealed that Mahama projected these ideologies in his speech: ideology of positive self-representation, ideology of human value, ideology of economic difficulty, ideology of power relations and ideology of urgency. It also revealed that Mahama projects his ideologies through the following ideological discursive structures: pronouns, biblical allusion and metaphor. The study has shown that language plays a crucial role in human existence as a means of socialisation. Language has been revealed as a means of communicating ideologies and events of the world. In the tradition of CDA, this study has confirmed that text and talk have social and cultural character and that discourse functions ideologically.


Author(s):  
Ali Abbas ◽  
Bilal Bilal ◽  
Ye Chengang ◽  
Shahid Manzoor ◽  
Irfan Ullah ◽  
...  

The world is looking towards organizations for social responsibility to contribute to a sustainable environment. Employees’ organizational citizenship behavior for the environment (OCBE) is a voluntary environmental-oriented behavior that is important for organizations’ environmental performance. Based on social learning theory, the study examined the effects of responsible leadership in connection with OCBE by using a sample of 520 employees of manufacturing and service sector including engine manufacturing, petroleum plants banking and insurance sector organizations of China. Further, the role of psychological ownership and employee environmental commitment were used as mediators and moderators simultaneously. The direct, mediation, and moderation model results exposed a positive relationship between responsible leadership and OCBE via employee psychological ownership and employee environmental commitment. The study also revealed that the indirect effect is stronger when employees hold higher employee environmental commitment. The theoretical and practical implications for environmental sustainability in respect of organizations as well as future research directions are discussed.


2013 ◽  
pp. 1476-1501 ◽  
Author(s):  
Khan R. Rahaman ◽  
Júlia M. Lourenço

Virtually every city and region is engaged in activities to improve their relative global competitiveness. The Geographic Information System (GIS) is one of the powerful tools of information storage and information access, providing spatial data to different stakeholders and cities across the world. This chapter will highlight the role of GIS technology in empirical assessment of the competition among cities or regions, using a variety of data assembled by many different individuals, businesses, and institutions. This valuable information can be used in decision-making by stakeholders who are taking part in the competition and can be disseminated, accessed, and updated in a dynamic way. This chapter discusses the origins of urban competitiveness, dynamics and functions of competition, and current and future research possibilities made possible by GIS.


Author(s):  
Vlasios Sarantinos

The chapter explores the impact globalization has created for the higher education sector, looking at how the landscape evolved across the world and how the role of universities has been transformed. Extending the analysis further, there is an investigation of how institutions have tried to respond to the emerging challenges and opportunities presented as a consequence of the shifting field. The focus then moves to the African continent and peruses the particular development of higher education under the influence of colonial legacy and globalization, examining how institutions have endeavored to adapt. The chapter draws to an end with a reflection of the main issues, inherent limitations, and how the research agenda could be taken further.


Author(s):  
Catherine Wilson

‘The Epicurean legacy’ begins by reviewing the Epicurean philosophy outlined in this VSI. It concludes that the Epicurean depiction of the world was both inspiration for and anathema to generations of later philosophers and their readers. The moral, political, and theological ideas associated with it stimulated metaphysics, science, and social thought, arousing at times furious resistance. Epicureanism is not a fatalistic philosophy. It lays great weight on human choices and preferences, and on the role of chance in presenting challenges and opportunities that call on our powers of invention as well as our rationality. It is also the most compassionate of the ancient ethical systems.


2019 ◽  
Vol 39 (1) ◽  
pp. 75-91
Author(s):  
Elisa Bacchi

Abstract This article aims to investigate the representative strategies of Moriae Encomium by taking into account the link between Erasmus’ Moria and Thomas More’s portrait as it emerges both from the Encomium Moriae and from the Utopia. Specifically, I will focus on the crucial role of Erasmus’ concept of omnium horarum homo as an ethical and aesthetic model applied to the definition of More’s nature. This approach, which explores the intertextual construction of Morus-Moria’s identity, shall allow me to stress the relevance of the metaphor of mundane masking in Erasmus’ Encomium and More’s Utopia. By considering Erasmus and More’s paradoxical combination of Plato, Cicero and Lucian of Samosata, I will show how the image of the world theatre becomes the symbol of Erasmus’ philosophia civilior based on the rhetorical and moral idea of decorum.


2018 ◽  
Vol 28 (1) ◽  
pp. 74-81 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brett Q. Ford ◽  
James J. Gross

The world is complicated, and we hold a large number of beliefs about how it works. These beliefs are important because they shape how we interact with the world. One particularly impactful set of beliefs centers on emotion, and a small but growing literature has begun to document the links between emotion beliefs and a wide range of emotional, interpersonal, and clinical outcomes. Here, we review the literature that has begun to examine beliefs about emotion, focusing on two fundamental beliefs, namely whether emotions are good or bad and whether emotions are controllable or uncontrollable. We then consider one underlying mechanism that we think may link these emotion beliefs with downstream outcomes, namely emotion regulation. Finally, we highlight the role of beliefs about emotion across various psychological disciplines and outline several promising directions for future research.


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