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This chapter aims to further conversations around child-centred practice by considering the potential role of pupil voice within education. It explores the impacts of creating space for authentic pupil consultation in my own primary classroom upon my understanding – as teacher-researcher – of my class' experiences of teaching and learning. It outlines my use of pupil views templates (PVTs) (Wall & Higgins, 2006) to gain insight into children's thoughts, feelings and spoken interactions, and how this informed my professional practice as an educator, in order to move beyond pupil consultation as mere ‘lip-service’, and towards developing more meaningful engagement based on an acknowledgement of children's perspectives, as well as their right to express these views freely in all matters pertaining to them (UNCRC, 1989). As such, this chapter provides an exemplar of the reflections that can be gained through using PVTs to ‘listen’ to children, and the impacts this had upon the co-construction of our classroom culture, with implications for pupils' metacognition, the role of educator as a metacognitive role model and ultimately for children's agency and control over their own learning. Whilst my own use of PVTs is situated within an education context, the description of the ways in which this approach can be used has relevance for professionals in other fields who wish to gain greater insight into children's perceptions and experiences.

This paper aims to evaluate the outcome effectiveness of the global reporting initiatives (GRI) transitions by understanding how companies have responded to the changes from G3.1 to G4 and finally to the GRI Standards.

A quality disclosure score is developed that incorporates assessments of both the quality of disclosures and the materiality of Australian companies. To analyse materiality, survey data were collected from 187 companies. Disclosure scores are based on a content analysis of the sustainability reports of 12 mining and metals companies and 12 financial services companies that used the GRI Standards from 2011 to 2019 (a total of 213 reports).

The study found that the GRI transitions have not led to companies improving the quality of their disclosures on areas considered important for them to achieve their social and environmental goals. Instead, the companies tended to use a greenwashing strategy, where the quality of disclosure of material issues declined or fluctuated over time.

From a practical perspective, the disclosure score developed in this paper enables managers of companies to recognize a threshold of completeness and to summarize the areas that are not materially relevant to their business.

The results are potentially helpful for investors, shareholders and other stakeholders, enabling them to better understand sustainability reports.

This study contributes to the body of research in sustainability reporting by providing evidence on the outcome effectiveness of the latest updates in the GRI framework.

The purpose of this introductory paper is to outline the theme of – and introduces the papers comprising – this special issue on post-Covid place marketing.

A brief literature review outlines some of the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on places and also for place-bound and spatially oriented industry sectors (particularly retailing and tourism and hospitality, which are often the focus of place marketing initiatives) before describing the papers constituting the special issue.

The impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on places are identified, relating to both economic and more phenomenologically oriented impacts, and the implications for place resilience are considered. The papers comprising the special issue are grouped into two main themes relating to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on retailing and the impact of the pandemic on place marketing processes.

Notwithstanding the burgeoning literature on the COVID-19 pandemic and its impacts, the papers comprising this special issue focus on specific place-oriented marketing (and retailing) implications, providing potential avenues for future research.

The overall aim of this research is to interpret Ikenga and Ofo creativity as it is revered in Igbo societies. Igbo creativity, especially interpreted through material culture, suffers the threat of extinction resulting from the forces of modernity. Forces of modernisation, which appear in the personae of Christianity, education, urbanisation and industrialisation, denigrated indigenous creativity, brandishing them as devious, fetish and primitive. Ironically, in most cases, the drivers of such narratives keep these “fetish” items in their museums and will give a lot to preserve them.

This study centred mostly on several communities in the Nsukka area of Igboland, Nigeria. It relied on both primary and secondary sources of historical enquiry. This qualitative research discussed the nuances of the subject matter as it relates to Igbo cosmos. These approaches involved visiting the study area and conducting personal interviews.

Archaeologists do often rely on material culture to study, periodise and date past human societies. In this study, it is found that material culture, an expression of indigenous creativity, best interprets how society survived or related with their environment. This paper examined two Igbo sculpted artefacts – Ikenga and Ofo – while unearthing the intricacies in Igbo cosmology as regards creativity, spirituality and society.

The shapes, motifs, patterns and designs depict an imaginary history, the intellectualism of the past and even the present. This serves as an objective alternative to the twisted colonial narrative on Igbo material culture and consequently contribute to ongoing efforts to preserve, protect and promote cultural heritage resources in this part of the world.

Having the right intent, aspiration, ability and attitude to become an entrepreneur has become the mantra in the extant literature to be driver of entrepreneurship and small and medium enterprise (SME) growth. Why would zealous and ambitious individuals with all rightful attributes so required of entrepreneurs have to fizzle out few years after venturing into business or SMEs? Perhaps these same individuals may relocate to other jurisdictions and would establish successful firms even beyond their imaginations. Beyond the individual’s entrepreneurial attributes, there are other external countervailing forces which either “enable” or “impede” entrepreneurial drive and SME growth processes. Adopting the theory of planned behavior, this study conceptualizes a systems framework to analyze how SMEs either flourish or fail in developing countries.

The study relies on secondary sources of data. It adopts a critical stage review of secondary data.

The study argues that the interplay of “internal factors” and “external factors” of prospective entrepreneurs provides a useful framework to explain the general SME outlook of an economy. The study postulates that many internally driven prospective SME entrants (with entrepreneurial attitudes, abilities and aspirations) mostly in the developing economies may have their dreams shattered because of obstructive external ecological elements which tend to frustrate new business entrants as well as existing ones.

With the aid of a framework, this study conceptualizes a comprehensive framework to analyze how SMEs either flourish or fail in developing countries.

This is a conceptual paper, intended to link the constructs self-initiated expatriation (SIE) and career. The author suggests that regarding SIE as an episode in a career allows one to use ideas from the careers literature to suggest novel areas for research on SIE, thereby contributing to the SIE literature. The author employs a particular perspective on career – the social chronology framework (SCF) – to show how the framework can suggest these novel areas of research on self-initiated expatriation. The SCF views careers through three perspectives related to the space within which the career takes place, the career actor who “has” the career, and the time over which the career plays out. By looking at SIEs through each of these perspectives in turn a number of research questions are suggested that have the potential to enrich the SIE literature.

The paper first considers the construct of career and shows how self-initiated expatriation fits with it. Next, it introduces the SCF, and finally shows how it can be used to derive ideas for research on self-initiated expatriation.

There are none, given that this is a conceptual paper.

The paper suggests future directions for research on SIEs.

The author believes that the application of the SCF to the study of self-initiated expatriation is novel.