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The Symposium on “The Legacy of Ludwig Lachmann: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Institutions, Agency and Uncertainty” stood out also because of a plenary session organized as a roundtable discussion on “Reminiscences of Lachmann” with the participation of Martin Fransman, Peter Lewin, Jochen Runde and Christopher Torr, and Giampaolo Garzarelli as moderator. The text that follows reports the interesting views about Lachmann’s public as well as private persona that emerged from the roundtable.

Contemporary literature reveals that, to date, the poultry livestock sector has not received sufficient research attention. This particular industry suffers from unstructured supply chain practices, lack of awareness of the implications of the sustainability concept and failure to recycle poultry wastes. The current research thus attempts to develop an integrated supply chain model in the context of poultry industry in Bangladesh. The study considers both sustainability and supply chain issues in order to incorporate them in the poultry supply chain. By placing the forward and reverse supply chains in a single framework, existing problems can be resolved to gain economic, social and environmental benefits, which will be more sustainable than the present practices.

The theoretical underpinning of this research is ‘sustainability’ and the ‘supply chain processes’ in order to examine possible improvements in the poultry production process along with waste management. The research adopts the positivist paradigm and ‘design science’ methods with the support of system dynamics (SD) and the case study methods. Initially, a mental model is developed followed by the causal loop diagram based on in-depth interviews, focus group discussions and observation techniques. The causal model helps to understand the linkages between the associated variables for each issue. Finally, the causal loop diagram is transformed into a stock and flow (quantitative) model, which is a prerequisite for SD-based simulation modelling. A decision support system (DSS) is then developed to analyse the complex decision-making process along the supply chains.

The findings reveal that integration of the supply chain can bring economic, social and environmental sustainability along with a structured production process. It is also observed that the poultry industry can apply the model outcomes in the real-life practices with minor adjustments. This present research has both theoretical and practical implications. The proposed model’s unique characteristics in mitigating the existing problems are supported by the sustainability and supply chain theories. As for practical implications, the poultry industry in Bangladesh can follow the proposed supply chain structure (as par the research model) and test various policies via simulation prior to its application. Positive outcomes of the simulation study may provide enough confidence to implement the desired changes within the industry and their supply chain networks.

In this chapter, we draw on social science theoretical and empirical literatures to discuss the factors that influence buying and using an electric vehicle (EV), as well as how adopting an EV can impact on other travel choices or broader sustainability behaviours. We provide an overview of theories of technology adoption, which expose the interplay of individual, technological, and societal factors that dictate how rapidly a technology will spread throughout society. From the empirical literature, we show that far from being a purely economic or pragmatic decision, choosing an EV is also deeply grounded in social, moral and personality factors, such as self-presentation, norms and values, and appetite for risking the novel. Furthermore, since running an EV is not the same as running an internal combustion engine vehicle (ICEV), we explore how adopters adjust their behaviour to the technology, and also how EV ownership may trigger or undermine broader shifts in lifestyle required to achieve climate change and other sustainability goals. We therefore provide a critical reflection on the drivers, barriers, and behavioural implications of choosing an EV.

As [Alexander Graham] Bell raced to perfect his telephone, he was also writing up specifications to be filed with the United States Patent Office in Washington. On March 7, 1876, he was issued patent number 174,465. Meanwhile, Bell had discovered that a wire vibrated by the voice while partially immersed in a conducting liquid, like mercury, could be made to vary its resistance and produce an undulating current. In other words, human speech could be transmitted over a wire. On March 10, 1876, as he and Mr. Watson set out to test this finding, Bell knocked over what they were using as a transmitting liquid – battery acid. Reacting to the spilled acid, Mr. Bell is alleged to have shouted, “Mr. Watson, come here. I want you!” (PBS, 2003)

We show political divisions in perceptions of police officers even before the divisive political and social events of 2016. We do so using respondents' interpretations of surprising and ambiguous headlines involving police officers (e.g., assumptions about what happened or who was involved).

We use affect control theory's ABO event structure and derivations of this structure to construct a set of headlines that describe ostensibly good people (A) doing bad things (B) to other good people (O) or are ambiguous on one or more of these components. We present 517 MTurk respondents with a set of seven headlines and collect quantitative and qualitative data on their reactions to, and interpretations of, these headline events.

Police headlines generate interest among readers. When interpreting events, respondents are less likely to modify or redefine police officers compared to other actors. However, assumptions related to ambiguous events involving police differ by political orientation. Liberals view police more negatively than conservatives, in part because they imagine them doing worse things to slightly better people. Qualitative analyses support and shed light on the mechanisms underlying this and other partisan effects.

The research was designed to examine interest in headline structure, not specific actors. Thus, the patterns unique to police and political differences were not an original focus. We believe these inductive results are informative, but a study expressly designed to test hypotheses regarding perceptions of events with police officers is recommended for future work.

Understanding the political divide in perceptions of police and the potential of media coverage for exacerbating these effects is essential and related to ACTs growing interest in meaning divergence.