How social entrepreneurship can contribute to upscale social innovation practices?

In this paper, we address the research question of to what extent is it possible to discern theories of change being built into the business practices of nascent social enterprises in ways that lay foundations for the subsequent upscaling of their social innovations? We argue that social enterprises that are ‘ready-to-upscale’ are those that clearly produce a solution to an underlying problem, and where their activities are clearly derived from the underlying problem, and also those activities clearly connect forward to deliver consistent solutions. We apply a Theories of Change approach to the concept of social entrepreneurship as a means of setting a criterion for ‘ready-to-upscale’, studying six Sri Lankan micro-social enterprises in which we can trace stories of impact. This provides a means to develop a model of the ways that social entrepreneurship creates the foundations for structural changes that reduce systematic inequalities, and offers social enterprise funders a framework to better stimulate emergence of social enterprises ready-to-upscale and deliver social innovation.

Online Synchronous Teaching during a Pandemic

As the novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) spread rapidly across the globe, most educational institutions tried to address major challenges of engaging students in a productive way and disseminating knowledge through online learning. Given this consideration, the present study qualitatively explores the observations and experiences of a private university and giant strides taken by the institution in adapting and delivering value to all the stakeholders through educational transformation during the pandemic. The data was collected using observations and in depth interviews. The findings of the study revealed that the university went through certain structural changes and modified teaching pedagogy for virtual delivery like providing support and training to the faculty before shifting completely to online mode and delivering the sessions online in both synchronous and asynchronous mode. The results of the study are likely to help transform and address the major challenges of engaging students in a productive way and disseminating knowledge through online learning during a pandemic.

Social Network Evolution: The Case of UK Companies Before and After Brexit

The Brexit referendum has impacted both the UK and the EU economies in several ways. The uncertainty around Brexit highlighted the importance of a relationships network between directors of companies to access information and resources that are necessary for optimal decision making. It is difficult to develop informed business and economy policies without a deep understanding of the magnitude of Brexit on business-to-business relationships with EU-based firms. This study aims to analyze the impact of the passage of the Brexit referendum on the evolution of board interlock networks. The study uses network analysis to measure the evolution of UK-EU directors’ relationships over the Brexit period, predominantly between the 2010 and 2020 period. The study models the structural changes in dynamic networks by converting this evolving network into static graphs on yearly basis. The analysis indicates that links formation in the UK is affected negatively by the Brexit referendum. It also has a negative impact on forming a new link with potential companies’ directors in the EU, but it shows a rising tendency for shared affiliation bias analysis. Interestingly, the contradicted trend in 2007, the number of directors’ connection in consumer service and food & drug sectors was decreasing in the UK while rocketing in the EU. Doi: 10.28991/ESJ-2022-06-01-01 Full Text: PDF

The Regulation Mechanisms and Clinical Application of MicroRNAs in Myocardial Infarction: A Review of the Recent 5 Years

Myocardial infarction (MI) is the most frequent end-point of cardiovascular pathology, leading to higher mortality worldwide. Due to the particularity of the heart tissue, patients who experience ischemic infarction of the heart, still suffered irreversible damage to the heart even if the vascular reflow by treatment, and severe ones can lead to heart failure or even death. In recent years, several studies have shown that microRNAs (miRNAs), playing a regulatory role in damaged hearts, bring light for patients to alleviate MI. In this review, we summarized the effect of miRNAs on MI with some mechanisms, such as apoptosis, autophagy, proliferation, inflammatory; the regulation of miRNAs on cardiac structural changes after MI, including angiogenesis, myocardial remodeling, fibrosis; the application of miRNAs in stem cell therapy and clinical diagnosis; other non-coding RNAs related to miRNAs in MI during the past 5 years.