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The main purpose of this study is to explain the combined effects of host country weak network ties and absorptive capacity on the innovative foreign knowledge inflows of international high-tech small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

Data are drawn from the two largest and most authoritative German Federal Government census-databases of biotech and nanotech SMEs. A structured survey questionnaire was administered and regression analysis adopted.

This study demonstrates weak network ties in the host country and developing absorptive capacity produce a combined effect that positively influences international high-tech SMEs innovative foreign knowledge inflows. Also, host country weak network ties and absorptive capacity when considered separately, each respectively, positively influence innovative foreign knowledge inflows.

The results help inform key personnel in international high-tech SMEs about the relevance of host country weak network ties and absorptive capacity for foreign knowledge inflows. In addition, the results help policymakers and think-tanks to promote tailored advice and guidance e.g. those policymakers implementing the EU Entrepreneurship 2020 Action Plan.

There is a recent call in the literature to combine network theory and absorptive capacity theory to better explain knowledge creation in the context of international high-tech SMEs knowledge sourcing. By addressing this call, the study provides a more refined and comprehensive account of international high-tech SMEs innovative foreign knowledge inflows.

Purpose: This literature review aims to answer the calls for further exploration of scaling challenges and opportunities for social entrepreneurs (SEs). We address the scaling issue of social entrepreneurship through the theoretical lens of sustainable business models. Methodology: This paper investigates, on a multilevel approach, 340 journal articles published in one of the 20 peer-reviewed journals in management, entrepreneurship, CSR, organizational behavior, and nonprofit. It also considers influential articles due to their relatively high citation count (i.e., more than 150 times) outside of those selected journals. This paper furthermore analyses in-depth 32 scaling articles. Findings: This study positions the topics of social entrepreneurship over the last decades, together with the six types of scaling strategies: scaling up, scaling down, scaling across, scaling deep, scaling out, and diversification. It also discusses 15 challenges related to the scaling efforts by SEs. It furthermore elaborates on potential leads for research and practice regarding scaling social impact. Social Implications: There are many pathways for SEs to increase their impact on society, even though it remains quite challenging to achieve for most. Understanding what possibilities or limitations apply to individual SEs is but a first step in developing the full potential of social entrepreneurship. Originality: This paper approaches scaling from three complementary levels of analysis, i.e., individual, organizational, and institutional. Thus we provide more clarity and a nuanced perspective on past and future research regarding scaling challenges and opportunities.

Purpose: This chapter proposes narrative allyship across ability as a practice in which nondisabled researchers work with disabled nonresearchers to co-construct a process that centers and acts on the knowledge contained in and expressed by the lived experience of the disabled nonresearchers. This chapter situates narrative allyship across ability in the landscape of other participatory research practices, with a particular focus on oral history as a social justice praxis.

Approach: In order to explore the potential of this practice, the author outlines and reflects on both the methodology of her oral history graduate thesis work, a narrative project with self-advocates with Down syndrome, and includes and analyzes reflections about narrative allyship from a self-advocate with Down syndrome.

Findings: The author proposes three guiding principles for research as narrative allyship across ability, namely that such research further the interests of narrators as the narrators define them, optimize the autonomy of narrators, and tell stories with, instead of about, narrators.

Implications: This chapter suggests the promise of research praxis as a form of allyship: redressing inequality by addressing power, acknowledging expertise in subjugated knowledges, and connecting research practices to desires for social change or political outcomes. The author models methods by which others might include in their research narrative work across ability and demonstrates the particular value of knowledge produced when researchers attend to the lived expertise of those with disabilities. The practice of narrative allyship across ability has the potential to bring a wide range of experiences and modes of expression into the domains of research, history, policy, and culture that would otherwise exclude them.

The Equal Pay Act 1970 (which came into operation on 29 December 1975) provides for an “equality clause” to be written into all contracts of employment. S.1(2) (a) of the 1970 Act (which has been amended by the Sex Discrimination Act 1975) provides:

In order to succeed in an action under the Equal Pay Act 1970, should the woman and the man be employed by the same employer on like work at the same time or would the woman still be covered by the Act if she were employed on like work in succession to the man? This is the question which had to be solved in Macarthys Ltd v. Smith. Unfortunately it was not. Their Lordships interpreted the relevant section in different ways and since Article 119 of the Treaty of Rome was also subject to different interpretations, the case has been referred to the European Court of Justice.

This essay offers a subjective literary exploration of personal events relevant to understanding an assault on academic freedom in a two-year college. The critically qualitative inquiry focuses on two events: (a) the questioning by faculty of dual credit policies and (b) an administratively engineered disciplinary action that functioned to have a chilling effect on free speech and to, thereby, quell academic freedom. The dual credit story comes in the form of an embedded narrative essay previously published as a Facebook note. That embedded essay presents the tale of the author and a colleague, the advisor for their community college newspaper, exercising their academic freedom to critically engage a community college administration’s violations of Illinois State dual credit laws. The embedded essay serves also to reveal an administrative response to the professors’ decision to report the violation of state law to the Higher Learning Commission and the Illinois Community College Board. Following that, the essay provides a qualitative examination of the administrative response and explains how the response served to quell academic freedom.

The purpose of this chapter is to combine research findings around gender bias and the challenges women face in academia, and to present a unified conceptual framework. Ample research indicates that the issue is far from sufficiently addressed. Even in cases where policies are in place, mediocre outcomes are observed. Fewer women climb the ladder of academic progression all the way up to senior positions, especially in certain institutions and certain disciplines.

After thoroughly reviewing the literature, the authors integrate and organize the different multifaceted causes that appear to obstruct women in academia. They propose a scheme that divides between contextual and non-contextual factors, emphasizing their interplay.

Even when policies are in place, they appear to have limited results, because they mainly address isolated factors rather than taking a multifaceted, integrative approach.

Future research should further examine the interplay of contextual and non-contextual factors by combining multiple variables that contribute to gender bias in academia.

Policy-making should consider both contextual and non-contextual factors, thus providing more integrative solutions and taking a broader perspective on the issue.

Despite the ample and rising amount of research findings, there is no coherent framework to adequately include all the factors that contribute to gender bias in academia. By integrating and organizing the different, multifaceted causes already pointed out by previous findings, the authors hope to contribute to future research with specific variables to test and correlate, as well as to the formulation of more sophisticated policies.

Although ethical custom has long recognized man’s responsibility to the environment, the contribution of traditional economic entrepreneurship to the sustainability challenge has been limited. Indeed, it can be shown to have had a negative impact at times and although new business models have been introduced, addressing environmental, humane and social issues, questions have been raised about whether entrepreneurship and sustainability are compatible. Accordingly, this chapter proposes a new business model that integrates or harmonizes these four more traditional entrepreneurship models currently applied independently. The model is founded on general systems thinking and the principle of harmony. It is based on a case study of real-life commercial startup operation, SEKEM Holding in Egypt. The case, which is based on secondary data and non-participant observation, is discussed in detail as is the resultant proposed Harmonious Entrepreneurship model. A definition is provided together with three further case examples that exemplify and demonstrate the model in different geographical and sectoral contexts. Each is based on a “bleeding edge,” innovative technological solution to the problem being addressed and the study concludes that:

• for entrepreneurship to address the sustainability challenge successfully a new entrepreneurship paradigm is needed that abandons the Friedman doctrine of being about making as much money as possible;

• the paradigm should incorporate systems thinking and operate both ethically and in accordance with the harmony principle, ensuring that profit, people and planet are harmonized; and

• the model can be implemented simultaneously, and not incrementally as previous research has suggested.

for entrepreneurship to address the sustainability challenge successfully a new entrepreneurship paradigm is needed that abandons the Friedman doctrine of being about making as much money as possible;

the paradigm should incorporate systems thinking and operate both ethically and in accordance with the harmony principle, ensuring that profit, people and planet are harmonized; and

the model can be implemented simultaneously, and not incrementally as previous research has suggested.

This chapter is about helping you provide a solid platform for your organisation to engage with impact, by shining a light on what sits behind the decisions you make. This chapter will firstly set out why focussing on societal impact, whilst historically relevant, is really not a natural thing for today's organisations – in a sense, it goes against everything we have told ourselves about business for the past number of decades. At the same time, uniting the energy of an organisation to drive positive wellbeing impact is where the heart of the current revolution to address our multifaceted sustainability crises lies. It is a challenge we must rise to.

Many useful frameworks of sustainability/corporate responsibility maturity exist that can help us think about impact (e.g., Schaltegger, Hansen, & Lüdeke-Freund, 2015; Baumgartner & Ebner, 2010; Ainsbury & Grayson, 2014). This chapter extends this by delving deeper into the underlying economic mental models that structure existing organisational decision-making logics regarding impact. It outlines three archetypes of impact logic and the level of impact you would expect to be able to achieve if you operate from each one. All three sit within a ‘capitalist’ approach. Two of them are tightly bounded with neo-classical economic assumptions that have dominated business, the third marks a seismic break with these assumptions. In clarifying these archetypes, this chapter sets a trajectory that leaders can follow if they want to move towards delivering greater impact. The leadership lesson is that when it comes to delivering impact, if you want to go far, you have to go deep.

Business enterprises…are organs of society. They do not exist for their own sake, but to fulfil a specific social purpose and to satisfy a specific need of a society, a community or individuals.

Drucker (1974, p. 39).

Business enterprises…are organs of society. They do not exist for their own sake, but to fulfil a specific social purpose and to satisfy a specific need of a society, a community or individuals.