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The following is an introductory profile of the fastest growing firms over the three-year period of the study listed by corporate reputation ranking order. The business activities in which the firms are engaged are outlined to provide background information for the reader.

To examines strategies that have locked the Australian wine industry into a price‐sensitive, commodity wine market. The paper seeks to explain the inherent weakness of these strategies and their inability to address current challenges and opportunities.

The paper uses empirical research data gathered from 100 SME wine firms. These firms were selected using a stratified random sampling technique. Four states were covered – New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia, and Western Australia – with all major wine regions in these states equally represented. There was careful sampling according to size, so that boutique, and small‐ and medium‐sized firms were represented. Non‐exporting firms were excluded. In each case either the CEO or the marketing manager was interviewed.

The findings confirm the paper's hypothesis, that increasingly the Australian wine industry has become risk‐averse and locked into paradigms and organizational frameworks that are disconnecting from users and their requirements. The findings concur that greater differentiation of place, product, supply chains, and markets is required if the industry is to operate effectively within a multi‐dimensional landscape and continue to attract sustainable returns.

The paper was based largely upon user perceptions about current and future industry developments. It would be extremely valuable if future research could align these perceptions with performance data at industry and firm level to provide a more convincing map of R&D activity.

This paper has significant implications and policy advice for future industry organization. The most immediate and important of these is a strategy of emphasizing differentiated, regionally‐identified products that target higher price‐points in major markets. The industry has already indicated that it intends moving in this direction.

The original aspect of the paper is its organization ecology approach to the industry, in which national parameters are replaced by a perception of global operating landscapes. In this sense, users are not only participants, but also spectators and interpreters. The paper should be of value to researchers, policy‐makers and all industry stakeholders.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the preventable harm created by the adoption of austerity measures in 2010, added to the welfare reforms introduced in 2008 which, collectively, have negative implications for population mental health in the UK.

A critical reflection of published research papers and key policy documents in this area.

Negative mental health consequences of the combined impact of welfare reforms and austerity measures in the UK since 2010 are identified when relating to disability benefit assessments, and to the increased punitive conditionality applied to disability benefit claimants, as those in greatest need now live in fear of making a claim for financial support from the state or of losing benefits to which they are entitled.

This paper identifies the creation of preventable harm by social policy reforms, commonly known as “welfare reforms”. The implications for social scientists are the disregard of academic peer-reviewed social policy research by policymakers, and the adoption of critically challenged policy-based research as used to justify political objectives.

The negative mental health impact of UK government social policy reforms has been identified and highlights the human consequences of the adoption of the biopsychosocial model of assessment.

Reducing the numbers of sick and disabled people claiming long-term disability benefit has increased the numbers claiming unemployment benefit, with no notable increase in the numbers of disabled people in paid employment and with many service users in greatest need living in fear of the next enforced disability assessment.

This paper demonstrates the preventable harm created by the use of a flawed disability assessment model, together with the adoption of punitive conditionality and the increased suicides linked to UK welfare reforms which are influenced by American social policies.

This case is about Kija Kim, a Korean born founder and CEO of Harvard Design and Mapping Inc. (HDM). Founded in 1988, HDM is a cutting-edge GIS firm with $5 million in revenue and 35 employees in their Cambridge, MA and Washington D.C. offices. Through Kija Kim's leadership, HDM has become a significant niche player in homeland security and disaster relief. The case ends in fall 2005 just after HDM provided Hurricane Katrina mapping support, and Kija is nominated for the SBA Small Business Person of the Year. This case explores the intersection between cultural heritage, leadership effectiveness and organizational behavior. It particularly notes Kija's ability to turn her immigrant female minority status into a business advantage. This strength coupled with her ethos of care and ability to network in all walks of her life contributes to her distinctive and integrated leadership style. Definitions of leadership success and implications for decision making are also highlighted.

In response, the purpose of this paper is to provide theoretical frameworks about the organizational uncertainty behind what and when to adopt blockchain technology and their implications on transaction costs. The immature nature and the absence of standards in blockchain technology lead to uncertainty in government organizations concerning the adoption (“what to adopt”) and the identification of the right time (“when to start”).

Using transaction cost theory and path dependency theory, this paper proposes two frameworks: to assess transaction cost risks and opportunities costs; and to depict four different types of transaction costs outcomes regarding blockchain adoption.

This paper identifies various theoretical concepts that influence blockchain adoption and combine the two critical constructs of “bounded rationality” and the “lock-in effect” to categorize the multiple transaction costs outcomes for blockchain adoption.

Although existing research in blockchain highlights mainly the potential benefits of blockchain applications, only a little attention has been given to frameworks that categorize potential transaction costs outcomes under uncertainty, in particular from organizational theorists.

Both frameworks advance the understanding of the decision-making behind blockchain adoption and synthesize the current literature to offer conceptual clarity regarding the varied implications and outcomes linked to the uncertainty regarding transactions costs stemming from blockchain technology.

Adopting an EU policy lens, this chapter primarily addresses the proposed pivotal role of firm-level innovation capability (FLIC) in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) as a stimulant of sustainable development (SD) and green growth in Ireland/Wales. The chapter specifically examines the scale and scope of the green economy (GE), and considers the importance of organizational inherent “green” innovation capabilities (GICs) to achieve it. Underpinning the study is the methodology and concept of utilizing a facilitated cross-border multi-stakeholder learning network to enable knowledge transfer and exchange practices to flourish between partners, acting as a significant predictor of the development of SME GICs structures. Specifically, against the backdrop of the Green Innovation and Future Technologies (“GIFT” hereafter) INTERREG 4A Project, the research assesses how academic–industry partner exchange and inter-group learning and cooperation facilitates the development of GICs in smaller enterprises to realize a sustainable smart green economy in Ireland.

SIR DAVID ECCLES Minister of Education, in a Circular sent to all LEA's, suggests ways in which the education service can co‐operate with industry in providing increased opportunities for young people to train for skilled employment.

The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the debate on the spatial organisation of the open innovation model in the wine industry in Canada.

The paper employs a micro‐firm level survey among 146 wine firms in Canada. Descriptive and non‐parametric tests are used in the analysis.

The results on the occurrence of collaborations depict modest collaborative activities with external sources. Most of the collaborations and information are sourced locally because the local climate and growing conditions are so specific that alternative sources and collaborations are less relevant. The results also show that the firm's openness strategy has a weak influence on innovation capacity but firms that introduce more innovations are those that embrace an open innovation strategy to a greater extent than the less innovative.

The number of respondents is still limited (i.e. about 150). Moreover, only the relationship between some firm‐specific factors related to innovation and the degree of openness is studied.

The paper provides managerial implications because it suggests that firms adopting an open innovation strategy through collaborations have a higher impact on innovation development by means of introducing new types of innovation and on R&D activities.

The paper introduces the spatial dimension of the open innovation strategy in the wine industry in order to understand the link between the geographically‐dispersed open innovation networks and their impacts on innovation capacities and innovation development of winery firms.