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This chapter examines the potential of public–private partnerships (PPPs) to contribute to the achievement of rural transformation objectives in the agriculture sector of developing countries. The chapter draws on the findings from a recent publication by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO, 2016) that analysed 70 case studies of agri-PPP projects from 15 developing countries in Africa, Latin America and Asia. A typology of four common project types was identified: (i) partnerships that aim to develop agricultural value chains; (ii) partnerships for joint agricultural research, innovation and technology transfer (ITT); (iii) partnerships for building and upgrading market infrastructure; and (iv) partnerships for the delivery of business development services (BDS) to farmers and small enterprises. Findings suggest that while positive contributions to agricultural transformation objectives exist, there remain several outstanding issues associated with the impact of agri-PPPs on poverty reduction and inclusion which still need to be addressed. Weaknesses were also identified in the governance mechanisms that support these partnerships, with limited assessment of value-for-money versus opportunity cost when considering the public benefits delivered. Interest in and support of agri-PPPs is growing in many developing countries, however, there remain many unanswered questions about the practicalities of designing and implementing such projects. The findings from this study make a contribution towards closing this knowledge gap by documenting useful insights for policy-makers on the potential benefits and limitations of agri-PPPs and differences in approach when compared to traditional PPPs.

This chapter highlights how implementing circular economy principles can help companies working with sustainability to move from a reductionist and waste management approach to marketing competitive circular value propositions that intentionally design out waste (e.g. emissions and pollution) by rethinking, reinventing and redesigning the value chain. Schijvens, a Dutch family-owned corporate fashion textile company, acts as a case for exemplifying successful implementation of circular economy principles as a marketing strategy in a sector that struggles with finding solutions to the ethical challenges of producing and marketing textile fashion. The textile industry has, for many years, been accused of production that is based on environmentally harmful processes and conditions that are not socially fair. Circular economy principles provide a range of suggestions to address the ethical challenges occurring from covering the human needs of having clothes to wear. Yet, implementing circular economy principles is not a panacea. It is not only a question of delivering a technological quick fix but also a question of managing the new processes and human mindset guiding the actions in the value chain. This chapter, therefore, outlines reasons for a different perspective on the traditional linear value chain and related implications managers face when undertaking a journey from sustainability based on a reductionist approach to a closed-loop approach. It is argued that implementing circular economy principles by pro-actively managing the value chain processes based on eco-centric dynamic capabilities can provide even more radical changes than the incremental reductionist approach often associated with being a green sustainable company.

This research aims at examining public parks as a complex, interrelated system in which a public park’s natural system and its man-made system can work together within an ecocentric approach. It will create a framework that can support the design and management of public parks.

The article first introduces previous research and justifies the need for a new approach. It then uses conceptual analysis to examine the concepts that construct a park’s system through previous theoretical research. Finally, the public park system is constructed by synthesising its components and showing the interrelations between them. These components are defined based on previous theoretical and empirical research.

A public park system is defined as consisting of a natural system and a man-made system with multiple components that interact to offer the overall experience in a park. The defined system can be a useful tool for decision-makers, managers and designers in the analysis and evaluation of existing and potential projects to achieve multifunctional parks that are better utilised and have a wider influence.

The research offers an alternative approach for framing public parks that do not deal with their components in isolation from each other. This view of public parks brings together perspectives from different literature into one coherent framework that emphasises mutual dependencies and interactions in one integrated whole.

This study aims to analyze the management and marketing literature on food buying and consumption behavior during the COVID-19 pandemic to shed light on how consumers reacted to this global crisis, to help interpret consumer reactions to possible future crises and to identify future research avenues.

This study adopts a systematic literature review as research methodology.

This study's outcomes reveal that, during the pandemic, people have deeply changed their food buying and consumption habits. The analysis identifies four main themes: food purchasing channel choice and buying behavior; food choices and consumption habits; food and “food-related” waste; and country influence on food buying and consumption.

This review uses only one database of records (Scopus). The Boolean modifiers chosen for extracting the papers may have influenced the type and number of retrieved publications. The analysis was limited to articles published in peer-reviewed academic journals.

While most examined investigations do not provide a comprehensive picture of consumers’ food-related responses to the pandemic and individually offer only a partial view focusing on one or just a few aspects of food consumer behavior, this study offers an overall description of consumers’ responses to the crisis and identifies important research issues to be addressed in the future.

An emerging scholarly critique has claimed that entrepreneurial education triggers more neoliberalism in education, leading to increased inequality, neglect of civic values and an unjust blame of poor citizens for their misfortunes. The purpose of this paper is to develop a deeper understanding of this potentially problematic relationship between entrepreneurial education and neoliberalism.

A Hegelian dialectic method is used consisting of three steps. First, a thesis is articulated based on emerging literature, stating that entrepreneurial education triggers more neoliberalism in education. Then an antithesis is developed representing a logical opposite to the thesis. Finally, the resulting tensions are embraced in a synthesis that triggers deeper understanding.

The synthesis indicates that entrepreneurial education based on a self-oriented search for own happiness leads to more neoliberalism in education, and entrepreneurial education based on an others-oriented search for a meaningful impact on others mitigates some of the already strong neoliberal tendencies in education.

Due to an overlap between the two constructs, happiness and meaningfulness, it is difficult to fully disentangle doing well from doing good. How these two opposites interact is a topic that requires more research.

A “students-as-givers” kind of entrepreneurial education could represent a way to reach teachers currently skeptical of entrepreneurial education due to its perceived connection to capitalism. This could also make entrepreneurial education relevant to a wider student audience.

The paper represents a rare attempt to reconcile critical and praising perspectives on entrepreneurial education.

This study aims to address two relatively unexplored issues in banking service literature. The first relates to the impact of co-creation behaviors of frontline employees (FLEs) on their well-being. The second is the impact of FLEs' adaptability on their performance of co-creation behaviors and their well-being in the workplace.

A structural model was built and tested using survey data collected from 366 FLEs offering financial consulting services to customers at banks.

FLE co-creation behaviors have positive impacts on FLEs’ well-being, including well-being in the workplace (job satisfaction) and general well-being (quality of life). Moreover, FLEs with a high level of interpersonal and service-offering adaptability perform co-creation behaviors better than those with lower adaptability and have higher job satisfaction. Between service-offering adaptability and interpersonal adaptability, the former has stronger effects than the latter.

The findings suggest that banks develop and enhance FLEs’ adaptability and co-creation behaviors to enhance their well-being and customer value.

Prior research on FLEs' co-creation mainly focuses on customer-related transformative outcomes, leaving their own well-being less examined. This study fills this gap by providing evidence to suggest that although active co-creation behaviors require FLEs to have more skills and put in more effort, they do bring about transformative impacts in terms of better job satisfaction and quality of life. Additionally, a high level of adaptability helps FLEs to comfortably perform their co-creation behavior, thereby reducing stress and improving well-being.

The purpose of this paper is to test the performance of two generic scales designed to evaluate employee well‐being against a new well‐being scale constructed for a specific sector; call centres.

The method to develop the new scale is based on well‐established clinical models used to evaluate the well‐being of patients. Potential variables were confirmed using an item selection method known as impact analysis which places keen emphasis on the frequency and importance of variables according to employees themselves.

From a potential pool of 102 items, impact analysis confirmed 43 variables most strongly associated with adverse well‐being. These were distributed across eight separate dimensions. Content validity and internal reliability were satisfactory. The results showed that existing scales were substantially insensitive to aspects of work that were perceived to be important and troubling to call centre employees and could therefore provide incomplete accounts of employee well‐being.

Confirmation of the assessment's measurement properties will be the subject of future studies. The generalisability of the findings to other call centres will also be investigated.

For employers and researchers wishing to evaluate and act on well‐being within a particular sector, this approach to measurement may offer a practical, parsimonious alternative to existing, generic options. Impact analysis also addresses criticisms of factor analysis when used in well‐being scale construction.

The findings suggest support for a new approach to measuring the well‐being of sector specific workers that is based on clinical evaluation practices.