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The purpose of this paper is to present an optimisation of four-point star-shaped structures produced through additive manufacturing (AM) polylactic acid (PLA). The study also aims to investigate the compression failure mechanism of the structure.

A Taguchi L₉ orthogonal array design of the experiment is adopted in which the input parameters are resolution (0.06, 0.15 and 0.30 mm), print speed (60, 70 and 80 mm/s) and bed temperature (55°C, 60°C, 65°C). The response parameters considered were printing time, material usage, compression yield strength, compression modulus and dimensional stability. Empirical observations during compression tests were used to evaluate the load–response mechanism of the structures.

The printing resolution is the most significant input parameter. Material length is not influenced by the printing speed and bed temperature. The compression stress–strain curve exhibits elastic, plateau and densification regions. All the samples exhibit negative Poisson’s ratio values within the elastic and plateau regions. At the beginning of densification, the Poisson’s ratios change to positive values. The metamaterial printed at a resolution of 0.3 mm, 80 mm/s and 60°C exhibits the best mechanical properties (yield strength and modulus of 2.02 and 58.87 MPa, respectively). The failure of the structure occurs through bending and torsion of the unit cells.

The optimisation study is significant for decision-making during the 3D printing and the empirical failure model shall complement the existing techniques for the mechanical analysis of the metamaterials.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, for the first time, a new empirical model, based on the uniaxial load response and “static truss concept”, for failure mechanisms of the unit cell is presented.

This paper aims to consider the potential implications of the layering of regulation in relation to hydraulic fracturing (fracking) at the borders between the nations of the UK.

This paper uses a qualitative research method grounded in particular in legal geography to examine the existing approaches to regulating hydraulic fracturing and identify the places and their features that are constructed as a result of their intersection at the borders of the nations comprising the UK.

The current regulatory framework concerning hydraulic fracturing risks restricts the places in which the practice can occur in such a manner as to potentially cause greater environmental harm should the process be used. The regulations governing the process are not aligned in relation to the surface and subsurface aspects of the process to enable their management, once operational, as a singularly constructed place of extraction. Strong regulation at the surface can have the effect of influencing placement of the site only in relation to the place at which the resource sought reaches the surface, whilst having little to no impact on the environmental harms, which will result at the subsurface or relative to other potential surface site positions, and potentially even increasing them.

This paper is limited by uncertainty as to the future use of hydraulic fracturing to extract oil and gas within the UK. The issues raised within it would also be applicable to other extractive industries where a surface site might be placed within a radius of the subsurface point of extraction, rather than having to be located at a fixed point relative to that in the subsurface. This paper therefore raises concerns that might be explored more generally in relation to the regulation of the place of resource extraction, particularly at legal borders between jurisdictions, and the impact of regulation, which does not account for the misalignment of regulation of spaces above and below the surface that form a single place at which extraction occurs.

This paper considers the potential impacts of misaligned positions held by nations in the UK in relation to environmentally harmful practices undertaken by extractive industries, which are highlighted by an analysis of the extant regulatory framework for hydraulic fracturing.

Whilst the potential for cross internal border extraction of gas within the UK via hydraulic fracturing and the regulatory consequences of this has been highlighted in academic literature, this paper examines the implications of regulation for the least environmentally harmful placement of the process.

This study aims to explore the evolutionary trajectory of American corporations and their governance over the past few centuries, using a multidisciplinary investigative approach. The research focuses on the American business landscape because it has played a pivotal role in shaping the field of corporate governance theory and practice.

The author thoroughly investigates archival records, legal documents, academic publications, reputable databases and pertinent literature to unearth valuable insights into the key events that have influenced the evolutionary path of American corporations and their governance throughout history.

Delving into the evolutionary journey of American corporations and their governance reveals a multifaceted narrative, enhancing our comprehension of the impact of the external socio-economic environment, and the effectiveness and limitations of established corporate governance paradigms in addressing such transformations. This introspection establishes the groundwork for ongoing discussions concerning how corporate governance should adapt to meet the evolving needs and expectations of stakeholders and society as a whole, with a specific focus on the pivotal role that boardrooms could play in this regard.

The insights gained from this analysis offer practitioners a foundational resource to understand corporate governance in a complex business landscape. Armed with this understanding, practitioners can better align governance strategies with both historical context and contemporary requirements.

The research has significant social implications in the sense that history highlights the importance of the society in influencing corporate governance practices. It specifically emphasizes the need for the board of directors to consider both shareholder value and social responsibility, while also fostering public trust and confidence.

Many corporate governance concepts are often used with limited understanding of their initial intent, resulting in their unquestioned adoption. In this paper, the author offers a contextual exploration of historical events that have contributed to the development of these diverse corporate perspectives. To the best of the author’s knowledge, there are exceedingly few, if any, papers that present comparably insightful and multidisciplinary insights into the evolutionary path of corporations and their governance, especially within a dynamic and influential market like that of the USA.

A charity’s core purpose is legally mandated and delivery thereof is not a corporate social responsibility (CSR) activity which, by definition, is voluntary in nature. Any CSR activity not required by law should be “incidental” and be an outcome of a core purpose/object and not a focus of activity. The purpose of this study, therefore, is to address the lack of research into voluntary CSR activities conducted by charities so that charities might have a clearer operating platform and do not involuntarily contravene legislation.

This was an exploratory investigation using purposive sampling of senior leaders in UK charities. This study uses a case study approach to identify pragmatic areas of concern and also identify practical actions.

The conventional hierarchical ordering of Carroll’s CSR pyramid (1991) for profit-focussed organisations were found to be inconsistent with those for charitable organisations which were: ethical, legal, economic and philanthropic/voluntary/incidental.

This was an exploratory study and would benefit from further investigation.

Corporate social responsibility actions undertaken by charities need to be carefully evaluated to ensure that they comply with the core charitable purpose or are incidental.

Many employees in charities are motivated by social justice; however, they need to be cautious that they do not exceed the core purpose of the charity.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, no research was identified which has addressed the fundamental issue of charities’ core purposes and the extent to which charities might legally undertake CSR activities.

This study aims to focus on public policy concerning the implementation of public procurement policies in Nigeria and Ghana toward achieving value for money in the procurement of goods, services and works. It specifically analyzes some major administrative challenges Nigeria and Ghana are faced with in the administration/implementation of public procurement policies toward achieving value for money. It looks at the relationship between the state (regulatory authorities) and substate (procurement entities) in the public sectors of Nigeria and Ghana.

A comparative case study approach is adopted, where the two countries are compared in terms of achieving value for money. Data was collected from multiple sources, including in-depth interviews. The use of official documents and direct observations at the procurement regulatory authorities and entities’ premises.

This study found Nigeria often used the four Es – economy, efficiency, effectiveness and equity while Ghana mainly used the traditional five rights (right quantity, right quality, right price, right place and right time) as their criteria for ensuring value for money. The major administrative challenges found include corruption, low capacity of procurement personnel and poor knowledge of the procurement laws.

It recommends effective collaboration between government and civil society groups in the fight against corruption in procurement-related activities, with the implication that there is a need for periodic training for public procurement officials.

It adds to the field of public procurement in terms of value for money in the procurement of goods, services and works in developing countries context.

The circular economy (CE) represents an industry-wide transition from linear to circular processes. There has been a proliferation of literature on CE in the last decade. However, the existing studies on the adaption of CE in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are scarce. This study aims to develop a research agenda and the way forward for future researchers focusing on the adoption of CE.

This article analyses the CE concepts through a Systematic Literature Review (SLR). Coding and content analysis are performed to generate emergent themes with the help of “Atlas.ti” software.

The authors uncovered the contemporary significance of adopting CE and the state-of-the-art literature on CE. The study's findings fall into four broad themes: Technical know-how, resource and process optimization, reverse practices and technology and innovation. Ten thought-provoking questions were identified in the four themes that researchers can explore further in embracing CE to achieve sustainability in SMEs.

The study has highlighted the importance of CE adoption and CE's benefits to stakeholders across all three dimensions, i.e. social, economic and ecological. Practitioners can use the agenda in four themes to strengthen the practitioners' existing practices in SMEs to promote CE.

The study's uniqueness is the supply of current knowledge from diverse literature and practical consequences for SMEs. This study opens new lines of inquiry to adopt CE in SMEs, streamlining the existing literature into four themes to focus future research.

The broad aim of this paper is to use Noddings' theory of ethical care to analyse mentors' caring experiences. More specifically, it aims to analyse how physical education (PE) mentors provide care, how they are cared for and how this impacts their role within the context of secondary PE initial teacher training (ITT).

Semi-structured interviews were used to generate data from 17 secondary PE mentors within the same university ITT partnership in the north-west of England. Questions focused on the mentors' experiences of care and the impact this had on their wellbeing and professional practice. A process of thematic analysis was used to identify, analyse and report patterns in the data.

The participants reflected established definitions of mentoring by prioritising the aim of developing the associate teachers' (ATs) teaching rather than explicitly providing support for their wellbeing. This aim could be challenging for mentors who face personal and professional difficulties while supporting the training of an AT. Mentors frequently referred to the support of their departmental colleagues in overcoming these difficulties and the importance of developing interdependent caring relationships. Receiving care did not impede mentors from providing support for others; it heightened awareness and increased their desire to develop caring habits.

Teacher wellbeing has drawn greater attention in recent years and is increasingly prioritised in public policy. These findings highlight the value of mentor wellbeing and how caring professional relationships can mitigate the pressures associated with performativity and managing a demanding workload.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between CEOs' inside debt holdings (pension benefits and deferred compensation) and the operating leverage of the firms they manage, with the aim to examine whether CEO incentives play a role in corporate risk-taking.

The authors investigate the relation between CEO inside debt holdings (CIDH) (pension benefits and deferred compensation) and the operating leverage (DOL) of the firms they manage. Using a sample of 11,145 US firm-year observations over the period 2006–2017, the authors find a strong negative association between CIDH and DOL. Additional analyses reveal that the relationship between CIDH and DOL is more pronounced in firms with heightened agency issues, powerful CEOs and for CEOs with stronger professional networks. The results are robust to various sensitivity and endogeneity tests.

The authors find strong evidence confirming the expected negative association between CEO inside debt and DOL suggesting that firms with higher inside debt tend to maintain lower levels of operating leverage. These findings continue to hold with the alternative measure for the inside debt and operating leverage, and across a range of tests designed to rule out the possibility that the primary findings are in any way driven by potential endogeneity. In addition, the findings demonstrate that the presence of manager-shareholder agency conflicts can strengthen the inside debt–DOL relationship suggesting the strong role of inside debt in reducing firm risk.

Findings in this paper have implications for design of compensation structures so that corporate boards can establish incentives as a tool for risk management. A limitation of this study is that it is focused on one market, i.e. US listed companies, so the findings may not be applicable on a global scale.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study that links firm-level management of operating leverage through design of CEO inside debt incentives (two obvious choices for risk-reduction at the CEOs’ disposal include reducing financial risk through reduction of firm leverage and reducing operating risk through reduction of operating leverage). While use of firm leverage as an instrument of choice has been explored in the past, use of operating leverage to achieve risk reduction when CEO possess high inside holding, has received very little attention.

This study aims to examine the relationship between tool adoption and information literacy within smallholder farmers (SHFs).

A structured questionnaire was used to gather data for this quantitative study from 225 SHFs. Structural equation modelling was done to test the hypotheses.

The findings established that tool adoption dimensions (Information and communication technologies (ICT) acceptance, language use and information culture) positively and significantly influenced information literacy. Information culture had the strongest impact.

The study enriches the situated learning theory (SLT) literature by introducing tool adoption as a predictor of information literacy in a new context of SHFs. Use of tools as independent variables is a positive deviation from previous studies that have used them as mediating variables. Despite the contributions, the cross-sectional design study undermines the ability to solicit more detailed perspectives from the lived in experience of the respondents.

Managers should promote usage of context-specific tools like local radio stations and mobile phones, but also use language tailored to farmer contexts when disseminating information. Policymakers should leverage on social and cultural settings when designing information interventions.

The study highlights critical factors that significantly promote information use for improved productivity for SHFs, cumulatively increasing the country’s gross domestic product (GDP). Socially, findings may reduce on their poverty levels of farmers.

This study offers a novel perspective in information literacy domain by using the SLT to delineate contextual tools that are paramount in predicting of information literacy in an under research informal context of SHFs.

Previous studies have postulated that an advance payment system (APS) positively impacts the contractor's working capital and is paramount to ensuring an efficient and effective project cash flow process. However, scant research has been undertaken to empirically establish the cash flow performance and domino effect of APS on project and organisational performance.

The epistemological design adopted a positivist philosophical stance augmented by deductive reasoning to explore the phenomena under investigation. Primary quantitative data were collected from 504 Construction Industry Development Board (CIDB) registered contractors (within the grade bandings 1–9) in South Africa. A five-point Likert scale was utilised, and subsequent data accrued were analysed using structural equation modelling (SEM).

Emergent findings reveal that the mandatory use of an APS does not guarantee a positive project cash flow, an improvement in organisational performance or an improvement in project performance.

The ensuing discussion reveals the contributory influence of APS on positive cash flow and organisational performance, although APS implementation alone will not achieve these objectives. Practically, the research accentuates the need for various measures to be concurrently adopted (including APS) towards ensuring a positive project cash flow and improved organisational and project performance.

There is limited empirical research on cash flow performance and the domino effect of APS on project and organisational performance in South Africa, nor indeed, the wider geographical location of Africa as a continent. This study addresses this gap in the prevailing body of knowledge.