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The article attempts to determine whether academic research in the area of finance has a direct link to the practitioners in the field.

This paper used a survey of over 50 finance practitioners to ask their opinion on the relevance of academic finance journals to their respective jobs.

The results suggest that most business practitioners are more interested in proprietary research than in generally distributed academic research, the academic peer‐review process seems to reduce the interest of practitioners in academic research due to the time lag between the findings of research and their publication, and the statistical significance of academic research results does not interest practitioners as much as the immediate relevance of the research findings to their respective jobs.

A review of the literature suggests this might be one of the first papers to actually test the hypothesis that academic finance research has a direct transference to the finance industry.

The globalisation of supply chains has contributed to modern slavery by degrading labour standards and work practices. The inherent difficulties involved in monitoring extremely fragmented production processes also render workers in and from developing countries vulnerable to labour exploitation. This research adopts a benchmark methodology that will help examine the inherent modern slavery challenges.

This study examines how the benchmark model, including governance, risk assessment, purchasing practice, recruitment and remedy of victims, addresses supply chain modern slavery challenges. The proposed hypotheses are tested based on the reoccurring issues of modern slavery in global supply chains.

Estimations suggest that modern slavery is a growing and increasingly prominent international problem, indicating that it is the second largest and fastest growing criminal enterprise worldwide except for narcotics trafficking. These social issues in global supply chains have drawn attention to the importance of verifying, monitoring and mapping supply chains, especially in lengthy and complex supply chains. However, the advent of digital technologies and benchmarking methodologies has become one of the existing key performance indicators (KPIs) for measuring the effectiveness of modern slavery initiatives in supply chains.

This review provides an understanding of the current situation of global supply chains concerning the growing social issue of modern slavery. However, this includes various individual specialities relating to global supply chains, modern slavery, socially sustainable supply chain management (SCM), logistic social responsibility, corporate social responsibility and digitalisation. Furthermore, the review provided important implications for researchers examining the activities on benchmarking the effectiveness of the existing initiatives to prevent modern slavery in the supply chains.

The purpose of this paper is to highlight the social responsibility of universities and other higher education institutes in meeting the challenges faced by biotechnology and human resource development.

The challenges faced by biotechnology are discussed under three broad heads – exponential growth in biotechnology knowledge, commercialization and industrialization of the biotechnologies, and knowledge integration by various stakeholders of biotechnology.

The emergence of the knowledge society warrants that universities ensure that overall work of the academy is more relevant to the nation's most pressing civic, social, economic and moral problems and that there is an urgent need to have a fresh look at the approaches followed in biotechnology education and training, particularly with reference to developing countries. It is necessary to see how the different players (industries, university, society, government) concerned with biotechnology can act in unison and in a mutually beneficial way. An integrated approach to the field of biotechnology combining different subject areas is necessary and the courses and approach should reflect this.

Career counselors and those engaged in educational guidance are flooded with inquiries about biotechnology courses and their scope. It is observed, on the one hand, that the biotechnology field is starved of talent and, on the other hand, that there are several universities/colleges, particularly in developing countries, producing large numbers of unemployable graduates. Some serious thinking needs to be done urgently to overcome this problem.

Lean manufacturing has the potential for simultaneously improving the competitiveness and the social sustainability of the apparel industry in developing countries. However, there is limited research on the ways to a successful lean implementation in developing countries and with an emphasis on occupational health and safety (OHS) improvement.

The paper investigates four cases of lean implementation in garment factories and uses the design science research strategy, building on the context-intervention-mechanism-outcome (CIMO) framework to identify explanatory mechanisms that can be used for designing future action.

The study identifies tangible mechanisms that can lead to successful lean implementation. The most important mechanisms relate to practical top management support, worker involvement, application of lean tools and training.

The findings of this study can guide better lean implementation for the many garment factories in developing countries.

While the lean literature provides general recommendations for lean implementation, knowledge about the transfer mechanisms in developing countries as well as the connections between lean and OHS is limited. This paper contributes to lean implementation theory and to the discourse of positive lean by integrating efficiency and working conditions. In addition, the paper identifies transfer mechanisms for lean implementation in the garment industry in a developing country.

This paper presents an analysis of how health intersects with the experience of housing insecurity and homelessness, specifically for migrant women. The authors argue that it is important to understand the specificities of the interplay of these different factors to continue the advancement of our understanding and practice as advocates for health and housing security.

An exploratory, qualitative, methodological approach was adopted, using a broad definition of housing insecurity: from absolute homelessness (e.g. residing rough) to invisible homelessness (e.g. couch surfing) to those at risk of homelessness. In total, 26 newcomer (foreign-born women who came to live in Canada during the previous ten years, regardless of their immigration status) women were recruited in Montreal, Canada. Participants were recruited directly through advertisements in public places and in collaboration with community organizations (women’s centers, homeless shelters, crisis centers, domestic violence shelters, immigrant settlement agencies and ethnic associations) and they self-identified as having experienced housing insecurity. Efforts were made to include a diversity of immigrant statuses as well as diversity in ethnicity, race, country of origin, family composition, sexual orientation, age and range of physical and mental ability. Women were engaged in semi-structured, open-ended interviews lasting approximately 1 h. Interviews were conducted in English or French in a location and time of participants’ choosing.

The findings are presented around three themes: how health problems instigate and maintain migrant women’s housing insecurity and homelessness; ways in which women’s immigration trajectories and legal status may influence their health experiences; and particular coping strategies that migrant women employ in efforts to maintain or manage their health. The authors conclude with implications of these findings for both policy and practice in relation to migrant women who experience or are at risk of housing insecurity and homelessness.

Intersections of women experiencing migration and housing insecurity in Canadian contexts have rarely been examined. This paper addresses a gap in the literature in terms of topic and context, but also in terms of sharing the voices of migrant women with direct experience with housing insecurity.

The purpose of this qualitative, interpretive, study is to help us better understand how a small group of Hmong immigrant adolescents conceptualize their political and civic citizenship in the United States. Three focus groups including a total of 18 Hmong middle/junior high school adolescents were carried out in order to garner data. Upon data analysis and interpretation, it was determined that study participants consider rights and responsibilities important to citizenship in a democracy and participate in various social, political, academic, and environmental activities. Study participants emphasize the community good over personal self-interests. As Hmong culture tends to be more collectivist in nature, this value orientation may be incompatible with the curriculum, instruction, and philosophy that students experience in public schools: Hmong youth may experience educational disadvantage. Adolescents in this study are developing their conceptions of citizenship within a racialized, hierarchical society and they explained their experiences with racialization and how they understand white privilege.

This paper aims to examine the effect of government support on the innovation performance of firms in the Chinese context.

We divided government support into vertical support and horizontal support, and adopted an empirical research approach in this study. We collected the data of 343 enterprises in China that had been identified as innovative enterprises, including their characteristic data, government support data and patent data. Negative binomial regression was used to quantitatively examine the relationship between government support and the innovation performance of firms.

Both vertical support in the form of direct research and development (R&D) subsidies and horizontal support in the form of regional innovation policy positively influence the innovation performance of firms. In addition, direct R&D subsidies are more likely to experience the enhanced benefits of carrying out tax credit policy on the innovation performance of firms.

This study contributed to the innovation literature by distinguishing two types of government support, namely, vertical support and horizontal support, and assessing the effects of government support on firm innovation in the Chinese context.

The purpose of this paper is to describe the current status of the knowledge-based economy (KBE) in Iran in comparison to Turkey, the challenges encountered and the appropriate policies toward Iran’s Outlook 2025 based on which the country is expected to be ranked first in science and technology within the Middle East region.

This study is a descriptive research. The methodology used for this study is qualitative/quantitative secondary research. The method will be used for two main goals. First, we used the World Bank’s Knowledge Assessment Methodology, and the data are mostly collected from secondary sources such as the World Bank’s Development Indicators for Iran and Turkey. Second, desktop research will be used to summarize and synthesize available studies on the consideration of policy-making toward KBE, especially among developing economies.

The paper provides policy considerations around four pillars: information and communications technology (ICT), innovation system, education and human resources development and economic incentives and institutional regime. It suggests that regarding ICT indicators, Iran has to join international programs to attract senior public authorities’ involvement and accountability. Regarding its innovation system, lessons for policymakers are implementing development plans and coordinating science and technology policies in the country. Moreover, the quality of education, in-company training, post-secondary technical education and scientific and technological workforce need to be improved. Finally, considering the weak macroeconomic circumstances, legislative measures are needed in addition to, establishing a promotion agency for foreign direct investment to coordinate the inflow and to grant incentives for attracting more investment.

Because of the chosen research approach, the research results have not been confirmed by an experts group. Therefore, using some group decision-making methods, such as panel of experts, could be proposed to further test the findings.

The paper includes implications for public policymakers, especially in developing countries, and for moving toward a KBE.

This paper fulfills an identified need to learn from similar countries experiences in policymaking about the same problem.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of organisational business acumen and social network structure on the earnings and labour precarity experienced by creative industry workers.

Results from a survey that collected data from a random sample of 289 creative workers are analysed using structural equation modelling. Mediating effects of social network structure are explored.

Results support the qualitative findings of Crombie and Hagoort (2010) who claim that organisational business acumen is a significant enabler for creative workers. Further, social network structure has a partial mediating effect in mitigating labour precarity.

This exploratory study is novel in its use of a quantitative approach to understand the relationship between labour and social network dynamics of the creative industries. For this reason, developed scales, while robust in exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis, warrant further application and maturity.

The organisational business acumen of creative workers is found to mitigate labour precarity and increase perceived earnings.

The results from this study call for policy and management shifts, to focus attention on developing business proficiency of creative workers, in an effort to curb labour precarity in the creative industries, and enhance positive spillovers into other sectors.

The paper fills a gap in knowledge regarding the impact of organisational business acumen and social network structure on the pay and working conditions of people working in a sector that is dominated by self-employed and freelance arrangements.

This study aims to probe the ambiguity of posthuman heroism by revisiting the remarkable story of the children's literature icon Pippi Longstocking. The purpose is to explore with Pippi a non-anthropocentric living in the more-than-human world.

The study’s critical posthumanist analysis is empirically based on the American English translation of the Pippi book trilogy from the 1950s, as well as the Swedish TV series produced in 1969.

Pippi's posthuman power serves to conceptualize a move beyond the anthropocentric savior complex. The analysis exhibits a power used to defy, mock and resist authority, but always with the purpose of securing agency for Pippi and her community. This power to, rather than power over, becomes a creative force that builds a posthuman community between inorganic matter, human and nonhuman animals.

Instead of showcasing a heroism to save our planet, Pippi animates how to relate differently to the more-than-human world. She is a productive fantasy, an idea materialized – a posthuman figuration – that extends the notion of community, opens up the demos and forcefully challenges anthropocentric normativity.