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Sir Julian Huxley (1887‐1975) was one of those rare scientists who, beyond professional training and contribution in biology, was very much concerned with the future of man and humanity. As a social thinker, he strongly believed in eugenics, that science which, in his view, should investigate analytically and practically how to improve the quality of the human race by careful selection of parents. On the other hand, he was aware that practically the attainment of such a goal requires full powers to control social and economic development. He knew that such an attitude may come in conflict with the existing political arrangement in the West but he persisted. As a philosopher he shared a more flexible conception about a better world of tomorrow, leaving room also for the unexpected. He believed that a “New Man” will come from the East, but the judgment of history up to now was not on his side.

The origins of the Chinese Cultural Revolution are to be found in the means used to restore growth in the Chinese economy in the aftermath of the Great Leap Forward. Between 1962 and 1965, according to Maurice Meisner, “while the policies of Liu Shao‐ch'i brought economic recovery and renewed growth, the social and ideological results were less salutary. There was a social price to be paid for economic progress and the price was the emergence of new forms of inequality.” For Mao Tse‐tung and his followers this was “the road back to capitalism”(l). It was the desire to reverse this tendency which gave rise to the upheavals of the late 1960s.

Extensions/applications/revisions of the Marxian vision of socialism can broadly be categorized into two polar strands: the centralized and the decentralized strands of socialist economic systems. Explores the main postulates of a decentralized version of a socialist economic system as provided by Kautsky, Luxembourg, Bernstein, Bukharin and Lange. The centralized strand of socialist economic systems has been elaborated drawing mainly from the writings of Lenin, Trotsky, Dobb, Sweezy and Baran.

The purpose of this study is to develop a holistic optimization model for an integrated sustainable fleet planning and closed-loop supply chain (CLSC) network design problem under uncertainty.

A novel mixed-integer programming model that is able to consider interactions between vehicle fleet planning and CLSC network design problems is first developed. Uncertainties of the product demand and return fractions of the end-of-life products are handled by a chance-constrained stochastic program. Several Pareto optimal solutions are generated for the conflicting sustainability objectives via compromise and fuzzy goal programming (FGP) approaches.

The proposed model is tested on a real-life lead/acid battery recovery system. By using the proposed model, sustainable fleet plans that provide a smaller fleet size, fewer empty vehicle repositions, minimal CO₂ emissions, maximal vehicle safety ratings and minimal injury/illness incidence rate of transport accidents are generated. Furthermore, an environmentally and socially conscious CLSC network with maximal job creation in the less developed regions, minimal lost days resulting from the work's damages during manufacturing/recycling operations and maximal collection/recovery of end-of-life products is also designed.

Unlike the classical network design models, vehicle fleet planning decisions such as fleet sizing/composition, fleet assignment, vehicle inventory control, empty repositioning, etc. are also considered while designing a sustainable CLSC network. In addition to sustainability indicators in the network design, sustainability factors in fleet management are also handled. To the best of the authors' knowledge, there is no similar paper in the literature that proposes such a holistic optimization model for integrated sustainable fleet planning and CLSC network design.

Nobody concerned with political economy can neglect the history of economic doctrines. Structural changes in the economy and society influence economic thinking and, conversely, innovative thought structures and attitudes have almost always forced economic institutions and modes of behaviour to adjust. We learn from the history of economic doctrines how a particular theory emerged and whether, and in which environment, it could take root. We can see how a school evolves out of a common methodological perception and similar techniques of analysis, and how it has to establish itself. The interaction between unresolved problems on the one hand, and the search for better solutions or explanations on the other, leads to a change in paradigma and to the formation of new lines of reasoning. As long as the real world is subject to progress and change scientific search for explanation must out of necessity continue.

Society is considered as a large system and, therefore, the inevitable planning of its development as a whole must be such that the focus is on the interaction: nature — man — society. The following topics will be discussed: The participation and coordination of natural and social sciences in the formation of the future of the human society, in general, and of various given social systems in particular; the most important reasons favouring the systems approach to socio‐economic planning; the consideration of the whole planning — action feedback cycle, i.e. the simultaneous planning of both large wholes and their parts alongside the continuous coordination of interests and goals at various levels of management in the economy as well as in the whole society (the so‐called convergence planning); three levels of the development plan of any economic system (the technical, the economic and the social plan of development and their unity. Technical, economic and social proportions in the process of development); the relationship of development policy planning and the technology of planning (development policy planning as a general social activity. Optimality of the planning system).

This paper aims to examine the effectiveness of organizational information technology (IT)-based and non-IT-based knowledge transfer mechanisms (KTMs) for the retention of different types of knowledge from mobile experts. It differentiates among four types of knowledge loss (KL), namely, conscious knowledge (i.e. individual explicit knowledge that can be codified); codified knowledge (i.e. explicit knowledge captured at the social level); automatic knowledge (i.e. implicit individual knowledge); and collective knowledge (i.e. implicit knowledge embedded in the organization).

A research framework connecting the organizational knowledge retention (KR) cycle to KL is developed and an exploratory analysis is conducted using data from two case studies in the Canadian federal public service. Findings are confirmed using a third government agency.

Without the right processes in place for organizational knowledge retrieval and reuse, the KR cycle is not complete, leading to KL. The lack of available social KTMs for the conversion of individual to social objectified knowledge leads to KL. KTMs shortcomings increase the risk of automatic and objectified KL.

Exploratory results demonstrate that KL does not always equate to lack of KR. Implementing knowledge-specific organizational KTMs is important to encourage the retention of individual knowledge at the social level. Propositions and a framework are developed for future research.

Mobile experts hold valuable knowledge at high risk of being lost by organizations. This paper provides managers with a set of guidelines to develop a knowledge-specific strategy focused on KTMs that increase KR and mitigate KL.

This paper challenges the assumption that KL only results from poor retention and studies both retention and loss to identify additional types of unintentional loss that occur when individual knowledge is not converted to social knowledge.

This study examines the role of the big five personality traits: conscientiousness, openness, extroversion, neuroticism and agreeableness in financial planning.

The research design is a quantitative approach. The study has used structured questionnaires to collect data from 403 business students. The hypotheses were tested through structural equation modeling using AMOS.

The findings revealed that extroversion of personality traits have a significant negative influence on financial planning, neuroticism and conscious personalities have a significant positive effect on financial planning. However, two personality traits, namely openness and agreeableness, have no significant influence on financial planning. The study confirmed that out of five, three personality traits have significant impact on financial planning.

The results suggest that all personality traits do not influence financial planning among students. Financial planning is deemed an essential decision in life. Although some people are very conscious about their future expenditures, others are not much concerned. Based on the findings, this study recommends that policymakers may conduct workshops and arrange seminars and conferences for the promotion of financial planning and individual's financial well-being. The government needs to promote financial education that can directly and indirectly enhance the saving planning capabilities of the people.

The results suggest that not all personality traits facilitate financial planning. Financial planning is deemed as a crucial decision in life. Some students are very conscious about their future expenditures, while others are not much concerned. This study recommends that policymakers conduct workshops and arrange seminars and conferences to promote financial planning and individuals' financial well-being. The government of Pakistan needs to promote financial education that can, directly and indirectly, enhance the savings and planning capabilities of the students.

This research contributes to the personality literature, the theory of planned behavior and the life cycle theory by testing the model based on empirical evidence. The current study is the first to focus on the role of the big five personality traits in financial planning among students in Pakistan, an emerging economy.