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Transaction cost economics sees a broad spectrum of governance structures spanned by two types of economic adaptation: autonomous and cooperative. Stakeholder theorists have drawn much inspiration from transaction cost economics but have not paid explicit attention to the centrality of the idea of adaptation in this literature. This study aims to address this gap.

The authors develop a novel conceptual framework applying the distinction between the two types of economic adaptation to stakeholder theory.

The authors argue that the idea of cooperative adaptation is particularly useful for describing the firm’s collaboration with primary stakeholders in the joint value creation process. In contrast, autonomous adaptation is more relevant for firms interacting with secondary stakeholders who are not directly engaged in joint value creation and may not have formal contractual relationships with the firm. Accordingly, cooperative adaptation can be seen as vital for resolving team production problems affecting joint value creation, whereas autonomous adaptation addresses how the firm maintains legitimacy within the larger stakeholder environment.

Similar to its significance for transaction cost economics, the distinction between the two types of adaptation equips stakeholder theory with a new systematic understanding of a potentially broad spectrum of firm–stakeholder collaboration forms.

This study aims to identify the current state of the art and the gaps in the application of computable general equilibrium (CGE) models on studying climate change adaptation.

A systematic review is conducted to select, classify and analyze relevant studies from two databases of Web of Science and Scopus.

Totally, 170 articles based on selected keywords were found from both databases, where 56 articles were duplicates. The authors further excluded 17 articles owing to preliminary exclusion criteria. Hence, 97 papers were selected for full-text review and more detailed assessment. Only a few of the studies explicitly have addressed the role of autonomous adaptation embodied in the CGE models. Over one-third of the studies have focused on planned adaptation without explicitly mentioning autonomous adaptation. Agriculture was the most addressed sector, and country-level models are the most adopted. Only one article has focused on South America.

The review suggests that autonomous adaptation embodied in CGE models was not well addressed in the literature. As the limited studies have shown that autonomous adaptation can dramatically mitigate direct climate change impacts, further studies are needed to examine the importance of the autonomous adaptation for better understanding of climate change impacts. Furthermore, CGE models can provide a joint assessment considering both mitigation and adaptation strategies and management measures as such models have also been widely used to address effects of mitigation measures in the literature.

The studies on climate change adaptation based on CGE models have been systematically reviewed, and state-of-the-art knowledge and research gaps have been identified.

This chapter delves into adaptation options broadly classified as structural/physical, institutional and social. Building upon these, it focusses on adaptation forms: autonomous versus planned, reactive versus proactive, short run versus long run, private versus public and incremental versus transformational. In doing so, it draws attention to the complexity of climate change adaptation.

Sustainability has long been known to present an epistemic challenge. In the corporate setting, this challenge translates into the difficulties experienced by managers not only in devising solutions to corporate sustainability problems, but even in developing the awareness of the latter. The paper explores how these difficulties may be overcome by corporate stakeholder management policies.

The paper develops a conceptual framework that reconstructs the Hayekian theory of market process in the context of Williamson's (1996) distinction between autonomous and cooperative adaptation.

Applying the Hayekian theory of market process to the process of engagement and collaboration of corporate stakeholders, the paper shows how the latter process may address the epistemic challenge of corporate sustainability and derives implications for the design of business models for sustainability.

The paper informs stakeholder theory in two ways: first, stakeholder theory is given a novel justification in terms of reflecting the growing prominence of cooperative adaptation and second, corporate stakeholder management is shown to be crucial for maximizing not only economic but also sustainability performance.

According to TCE, different forms of economic organization – markets, hierarchies, hybrid forms of various kinds, etc. – are characterized by different “syndromes of attributes,” or coherent sets of features (Williamson, 1991). Because each form of organization implements a distinctive set of governance features, each is efficient for a different type of transaction, implying trade-offs among the forms. The two key categories of features are the allocation of decision-making authority among and within firms and the intensity of the incentives facing firms and members of them. By concentrating decision-making authority, hierarchies have the benefit of facilitating “cooperative adaptation”; that is, coordinated change among two or more parties. Adaptation to new economic circumstances is, after all, the main function of an economic system (Hayek, 1945). Hierarchies are said to facilitate cooperative adaptation better than markets because unlike for markets, courts will not intervene in internal disputes and fiat is available as a last resort. This leaves more scope for the management hierarchy to use its authority to promote cooperative adaptation to unanticipated circumstances (Williamson, 1975, 1991). On the other hand, hierarchies feature weaker incentive intensity, that is, weaker links between individual or unit performance and individual or unit reward. This is because market-like levels of incentive intensity would inhibit cooperative adaptation by stimulating “autonomous adaptation” instead. Autonomous adaptation refers to adaptation by individual firms or organizational members that occurs without regard to its effects on other parties. Williamson (1985) also argues that market-like incentives lack credibility within hierarchies due to the ultimate availability of fiat. Thus, for TCE, the most fundamental trade-off between various forms of internal organization is between cooperative adaptation and incentive intensity.

The purpose of this paper is to synthesise lessons from research on adaptation to demonstrate that African countries can explore the opportunities and challenges inherent in climate variability and change.

The paper is a review work which synthesises lessons from relevant journal articles and other related documents. The literature was retrieved from Google and Google Scholar using search terms such as climate change, climate change and mitigation, climate change and mitigation in Africa, climate change adaptation and mitigation in Africa, climate change vulnerability, climate change impacts, among others. Various combinations of the search terms were also deployed. The journals were subjected to critical review and key lessons synthesised from them and reflections on their future implications in relation to climate risks and vulnerability presented.

Key lessons were synthesised and reflections on their future implications in relation to climate risks and vulnerability were presented. The evidence seems to suggest that countries in Africa recognise that it is time for them to take action on the impacts of climate change. The key lessons which emerge, going forward, are that climate change adaptation should be mainstreamed into development plans of nations. All efforts should be geared towards sustaining livelihoods of people. Key stakeholders also have a role to play in adaptation. The paper has indicated that although a lot has happened, there are areas that require strengthening and that should be the focus and priority of change and policy makers for the future.

The paper is a synthesis and reflection of existing literature and it is possible that some of the dynamics may have changed since the paper was published.

The dynamics of climate change adaptation is understood. The approaches to adaptation are also explored. Areas worth prioritising in the discourse of adaptation studies have also been indicated.

The syntheses provided are the reflections of the author. The views of the researcher provide insights and understanding into the current adaptation debate.

Ever since human society developed, environmental and social changes have led to major challenges that must be dealt with. Some of these major challenges are seen as “disasters,” for which a definition that is frequently used is similar to “A serious disruption of the functioning of a community or a society causing widespread human, material, economic or environmental losses which exceed the ability of the affected community or society to cope using its own resources” (UNISDR, 2004; see, e.g., Quarantelli, 1998, and Furedi, 2007, for discussions on the meaning(s) of “disaster”). From witnessing disasters and being forced to work through the aftermath, humanity has been shifting toward trying to reduce disasters’ impacts or to avert them entirely. This field has the modern-day interpretation of “disaster risk reduction,” defined as “The conceptual framework of elements considered with the possibilities to minimize vulnerabilities and disaster risks throughout a society, to avoid (prevention) or to limit (mitigation and preparedness) the adverse impacts of hazards, within the broad context of sustainable development” (UNISDR, 2004).

This paper aims to argue that to address the consequences of climate change and variability a greater focus on pre‐emergency planning that engages a wider stakeholder group must be adopted.

The paper discusses UK emergency management and approaches to climate change and climate variability risk.

The internal focus of UK emergency management inhibits the contribution that it can make to societal resilience and public preparedness. Effective risk reduction requires that all actors, including the public, are engaged in the social learning process. From a UK emergency management perspective this requires a culture shift to an outward proactive focus.

This paper offers insights into emergency preparedness in the UK.

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) comprises 10 countries namely Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam (Fig. 1). The ASEAN region has a total land area of 4.5 million square kilometers (3.3% of the world total) and a coastline of 173,252 km (third longest in the world). It is a region that boasts of a wealth of biodiversity including 20 percent of all known plant, animal, and marine species and one-third or 284,000 km² of all coral reefs. Four biodiversity hotspots identified by Conservation International cut across a wide area of the region that includes Indo-Burma, the Philippines, Sundaland, and Wallacea.

This paper aims to investigate the strategies used by Swedish citizens to adapt to changing climate variability and extremes. There is an increasing consensus that individual adaptive capacities are critical to successfully adapt to climate change and achieve sustainable development. However, little is known about individual adaptive practices, particularly in developed countries.

The study covered a variety of geographical areas and included single-case studies of specific locations, cross-case studies and country-wide studies. Data were collected through literature review, interviews with at-risk people, observation and group discussions with municipal staff.

The paper provides an overview of Swedish citizens’ adaptive practices and highlights how institutional development efforts affect individuals and their activities, including the equitable distribution of adaptation needs and resources. The paper concludes that individual adaptive capacities do not necessarily translate into adaptation.

The results show that planned interventions are required. They emphasise the importance of more people-oriented adaptation planning that fosters the sustainable transformation of cities, together with the role that South-North knowledge transfer can play in this context.

The paper offers critical insights into the positive and negative effects of citizens’ adaptation strategies (based on criteria such as effectiveness, sustainability and equity), and it discusses their relevance in the formulation of development policies and programmes.