My Wardrobe in the Cloud

In response to the 2008 global financial crisis, a range of disruptive business model innovations emerged. The fashion industry saw the introduction of fashion rental platforms, aimed at appealing to price-conscious consumers still hungry for the latest styles. While these new business models filled a gap in the market and saw, in some cases, profit in the millions, the phenomenon remained rather niche. The recent pandemic, alongside other isomorphic pressures, have put further constraints on these fashion rental businesses and their entrepreneurs, leaving them struggling in the current economic climate. This chapter explores the entrepreneurial motivations behind rental platforms, the different platform models in operation, and the challenges these businesses face in the 21st century, including increased technological developments, environmental sustainability, and external pressures, such as the most recent pandemic, which saw economies shutting down. Empirically, the authors draw upon a novel dataset comprising six international case studies.

Leading Institutions Through Change to Improve Learning

Student success in higher education depends on a complex set of services that must be integrated seamlessly and delivered to students. This chapter looks at the complex, and often competing, interests of students, faculty, administration, and external stakeholders as they seek to improve student success in higher education. Administrators, mid-level managers, change agents, faculty and ancillary student support services all need to understand the importance of their role in working together to make the changes necessary to improve teaching and learning. The great challenge is managing the change that this will require. Educational institutions in the 21st century need to become agile and able to manage change imposed by both internal and external pressures.

TRANSFORMATION OF FREE AND OPEN SOURCE SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT PROJECTS: GOVERNANCE BETWEEN THE CATHEDRAL AND BAZAAR

ABSTRACT It is common for community-based free software projects to be associated with an organizational scenario that resembles “a bazaar more than a cathedral,” and to differ from the traditional, or ‘bureaucratic’ way of organizing work. This paper analyzes the governance of these organizations from the perspective of their structure and control, considering the development trajectory of three community-based free software projects in Brazil. Results show that the constant need to produce modern technologies gives rise to external pressures that promote change - albeit temporary - in the governance of these projects, making them resemble a cathedral more than a bazaar. Governance does not follow a cycle of sequential improvement; it changes depending on the external organizational actors present, such as sponsors. This suggests the need for strategic and flexible governance to deal with the acquisition and allocation of organizational resources. Governance of the projects described here varies along a spectrum of (in)formality that allows both production models - cathedral or bazaar - to exist in the same organization at different periods.

Hexagon Fraud: Detection of Fraudulent Financial Reporting in State-Owned Enterprises Indonesia

This study aims to detect fraudulent financial reporting using hexagon fraud analysis, including seven factors: financial stability, external pressures, ineffective monitoring, auditor changes, change in director, arrogance, and collusion. The subject of this research is a public company consolidated audit report of state-owned enterprises. The existence of conflicting results, the phenomenon of fraudulent financial reporting, and limited research using the hexagon of fraud theory prompted this research to examine the factors that influence fraudulent financial reporting. The sample was selected using a sampling technique, with the criteria of state-owned enterprises listed on the Indonesia Stock Exchange in 2016–2020. The method used is quantitative, and the analytical method used is logistic regression analysis. The sampling technique used was purposeful sampling, so the number of samples was 125. The results of this study indicate that financial stability and external pressures have a positive effect on fraudulent financial reporting. However, ineffective monitoring, auditor changes, change in director, arrogance, and collusion do not affect fraudulent financial reporting.

How to survive in the age of artificial intelligence? Exploring the intelligent transformations of SMEs in central China

PurposeThe purpose of the research is to explore how small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in central China achieve intelligent transformation through the use of artificial intelligence (AI). Because of unequal resource allocation, constraints on the intelligent transformation of SMEs in central China are different from those in economically and technologically well-developed coastal provinces. Hence, the authors focus on SMEs in central China to identify drivers of and barriers to intelligent transformation.Design/methodology/approachThe interview data were collected from 66 SMEs across 20 industries in central China. To verify the validity of the data collection method, the authors used two methods to control for retrospective bias: multi-level informants and enterprises' AI project application materials (Wei and Clegg, 2020). The final data were validated without conflicts. Next, the authors cautiously followed a two-step approach recommended by Venkatesh et al. (2010) and used NVivo 11.0 to analyze the collected text data.FindingsSMEs in central China are enthusiastic about intelligent transformation while facing both internal and external pressures. SMEs need to pay attention to both internal (enterprise development needs, implementation cost, human resources and top management involvement) and external factors (external market pressure, convenience of AI technology and policy support) and their different impacts on intelligent transformation. However, constrained by limited resources, SMEs in central China have been forced to take a step-by-step intelligent transformation strategy based on their actual needs with the technological flexibility method in the short term.Originality/valueConsidering the large number of SMEs and their importance in promoting China's economic development and job creation (SME Bureau of MIIT, 2020), more research on SMEs with limited resources is needed. In the study, the authors confirmed that enterprises should handle “social responsibility” carefully because over-emphasizing it will hinder intelligent transformation. However, firms should pay attention to the role of executives in promoting intelligent transformation and make full use of policy support to access more resources.

Behavioural Competition in the Intertidal Shore Crab, Petrolisthes elongatus

<p>Competition is a well-documented ecological interaction that underpins community structures and much of population ecology. Physical characteristics such as size, age, sex and weaponry all have an important part to play in how an organism competes, and for many animals, competition is mediated by behavioural patterns. Outcomes of these competitive interactions are not only driven by these characteristics, but by the environmental conditions and external pressures that influence them. The focal species of my study is Petrolisthes elongatus (H. Milne Edwards, 1837), a porcellanid crab that aggregates in high densities among cobblestone beaches along the intertidal shores of New Zealand and Tasmania. They utilize rocks and crevices as shelter spaces to protect themselves from environmental and predation pressures, displaying variation in physical characteristics, such as sexual dimorphism and autotomy, as well as high levels of behavioural complexity. I used laboratory experiments with crabs collected from the field and placed them in shelter-limited tanks under the following comparisons; 1) adult and juvenile males, 2) males and females, 3) ovigerous and non-ovigerous females, and 4) autotomized and non-autotomized males. For each of these experiments I used three different environmental conditions; 1) a control high tide, 2) a low tide treatment (where water was drained from the experimental tank), and 3) with the presence of a predator, a juvenile spiny rock lobster (Jasus edwarsii). Each experiment was recorded for 8 hours, where time spent under shelter and shoving interactions among individuals were counted. In the adult vs. juvenile and male vs. female experiments, smaller individuals spent a significantly more time under shelter than larger conspecifics, but increasing size resulted in more time spent under shelter in the autotomized vs. non-autotomized experiment. In all experiments, smaller individuals initiated the least amount of competitive interactions, and each size class was more likely to displace a smaller individual from a shelter, than a larger one. There was no significant difference in the time spent under shelter between males and females, but ovigerous females and autotomized males spent significantly more time under shelter than their respective competitors. Males also engaged in more shoving interactions than females, with smaller classes of males displacing larger classes of females from shelter spaces. Ovigerous females also outcompeted non-ovigerous conspecifics in the large majority of competitive interactions, and autotomized individuals engaged in significantly more contests than non-autotomized conspecifics. In all experiments, the presence of a predator had no effect on the number of shoving interactions and only resulted in an increase in time spent under shelter for individuals in the male vs. female and ovigerous vs. non-ovigerous experiments. A field survey on body to cheliped size ratios, autotomy and claw punctures counts was also conducted in support of the shelter-competition experiments. Crabs were collected over a one-month period in November 2018, brought back to the lab to be sexed, measured (Carapace Width, BW; and Cheliped Length, CL) and then surveyed for autotomy and claw puncture wounds. Juveniles of both sex (BW =</p>

Behavioural Competition in the Intertidal Shore Crab, Petrolisthes elongatus

<p>Competition is a well-documented ecological interaction that underpins community structures and much of population ecology. Physical characteristics such as size, age, sex and weaponry all have an important part to play in how an organism competes, and for many animals, competition is mediated by behavioural patterns. Outcomes of these competitive interactions are not only driven by these characteristics, but by the environmental conditions and external pressures that influence them. The focal species of my study is Petrolisthes elongatus (H. Milne Edwards, 1837), a porcellanid crab that aggregates in high densities among cobblestone beaches along the intertidal shores of New Zealand and Tasmania. They utilize rocks and crevices as shelter spaces to protect themselves from environmental and predation pressures, displaying variation in physical characteristics, such as sexual dimorphism and autotomy, as well as high levels of behavioural complexity. I used laboratory experiments with crabs collected from the field and placed them in shelter-limited tanks under the following comparisons; 1) adult and juvenile males, 2) males and females, 3) ovigerous and non-ovigerous females, and 4) autotomized and non-autotomized males. For each of these experiments I used three different environmental conditions; 1) a control high tide, 2) a low tide treatment (where water was drained from the experimental tank), and 3) with the presence of a predator, a juvenile spiny rock lobster (Jasus edwarsii). Each experiment was recorded for 8 hours, where time spent under shelter and shoving interactions among individuals were counted. In the adult vs. juvenile and male vs. female experiments, smaller individuals spent a significantly more time under shelter than larger conspecifics, but increasing size resulted in more time spent under shelter in the autotomized vs. non-autotomized experiment. In all experiments, smaller individuals initiated the least amount of competitive interactions, and each size class was more likely to displace a smaller individual from a shelter, than a larger one. There was no significant difference in the time spent under shelter between males and females, but ovigerous females and autotomized males spent significantly more time under shelter than their respective competitors. Males also engaged in more shoving interactions than females, with smaller classes of males displacing larger classes of females from shelter spaces. Ovigerous females also outcompeted non-ovigerous conspecifics in the large majority of competitive interactions, and autotomized individuals engaged in significantly more contests than non-autotomized conspecifics. In all experiments, the presence of a predator had no effect on the number of shoving interactions and only resulted in an increase in time spent under shelter for individuals in the male vs. female and ovigerous vs. non-ovigerous experiments. A field survey on body to cheliped size ratios, autotomy and claw punctures counts was also conducted in support of the shelter-competition experiments. Crabs were collected over a one-month period in November 2018, brought back to the lab to be sexed, measured (Carapace Width, BW; and Cheliped Length, CL) and then surveyed for autotomy and claw puncture wounds. Juveniles of both sex (BW =</p>

Fair Trade for Whom? The Contribution of Fair Trade to Combatting Trade Inequities Faced by East Timorese Coffee Producers

<p>Fair trade aims to empower smallholder agricultural producers in the global South to gain more power over their industries by the formation of transparent and democratically representative cooperatives. However, critiques of the fair trade system have emerged in ethical consumption literature, and pockets suggest that individual producer contexts have more of a role to play in determining the benefits of fair trade than had been previously understood or addressed. This work constitutes a case study designed to examine implementation and practice anomalies within the Timorese fair trade certified coffee industry, and the ways in which they impact on producers’ livelihoods and development. A mixed methods approach is deployed to analyse the coffee cooperative Cooperativa Café Timor, and the producers who sell to it. It finds the cooperative to be subject to a number of external pressures that prevent it from passing on the benefits of fair trade certification to farmers. Governance practices in terms of transparency and grassroots representation are found to be significantly hindered by reliance on outside organisations for market access. Also, producers are found to remain superficially represented within commodity chains; having little or no access to value-added income. The involvement of American private enterprise within the East Timorese fair trade system has served to distance the fair trade cooperative from its grassroots, and acts as somewhat of a barrier to democratic management, participatory decision-making, and the realisation of the objectives of fair trade.</p>

Fair Trade for Whom? The Contribution of Fair Trade to Combatting Trade Inequities Faced by East Timorese Coffee Producers

<p>Fair trade aims to empower smallholder agricultural producers in the global South to gain more power over their industries by the formation of transparent and democratically representative cooperatives. However, critiques of the fair trade system have emerged in ethical consumption literature, and pockets suggest that individual producer contexts have more of a role to play in determining the benefits of fair trade than had been previously understood or addressed. This work constitutes a case study designed to examine implementation and practice anomalies within the Timorese fair trade certified coffee industry, and the ways in which they impact on producers’ livelihoods and development. A mixed methods approach is deployed to analyse the coffee cooperative Cooperativa Café Timor, and the producers who sell to it. It finds the cooperative to be subject to a number of external pressures that prevent it from passing on the benefits of fair trade certification to farmers. Governance practices in terms of transparency and grassroots representation are found to be significantly hindered by reliance on outside organisations for market access. Also, producers are found to remain superficially represented within commodity chains; having little or no access to value-added income. The involvement of American private enterprise within the East Timorese fair trade system has served to distance the fair trade cooperative from its grassroots, and acts as somewhat of a barrier to democratic management, participatory decision-making, and the realisation of the objectives of fair trade.</p>