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This chapter provides a survey of alternative methodologies for measuring and comparing productivity and efficiency of airlines, and reviews representative empirical studies. The survey shows the apparent shift from index procedures and traditional OLS estimation of production and cost functions to stochastic frontier methods and Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) methods over the past three decades. Most of the airline productivity and efficiency studies over the last decade adopt some variant of DEA methods. Researchers in the 1980s and 1990s were mostly interested in the effects of deregulation and liberalization on airline productivity and efficiency as well as the effects of ownership and governance structure. Since the 2000s, however, studies tend to focus on how business models and management strategies affect the performance of airlines. Environmental efficiency now becomes an important area of airline productivity and efficiency studies, focusing on CO₂ emission as a negative or undesirable output. Despite the fact that quality of service is an important aspect of airline business, limited attempts have been made to incorporate quality of service in productivity and efficiency analysis.

This paper tries to provide a theoretical explanation from case studies in which I analyzed the impact of firms’ behavior on negotiation processes. Particularly, it concentrates on the impact of the power‐dependence relationship on negotiation behavior choice in joint ventures and (nonhostile) acquisitions. Previous studies have found that negotiation behavior is a key factor in determining the results of negotiations and the subsequent implementation and performance of the strategy. Drawing on interview material from six cases, three acquisition negotiations and three joint venture negotiations, the empirical analysis allowed me to consider that the equilibrium situation of power‐dependence is more associated with integrative negotiation behaviors adopted by all the parties. This situation facilitates win/win agreements (negotiation success). However, the value‐creation basis appears as a key factor to be analyzed because its influence on (1) the perception of dependence and (2) the possible use of a power disequilibrium situation. This factor seems to be especially important in acquisition negotiations. Based upon my analysis, I recommend some issues to be studied and contrasted empirically in future research.

This chapter analyses the efficiency of African airlines using a two-stage network DEA (Data Envelopment Analysis) model. Network DEA models usually take into account the production process with intermediate inputs derived from the first stage and a second stage that departs from it. This fundamental feature enables one to view the airline production process as a carry-over activity. The analysis covers the 2010–2013 period. The relative efficiency ranks are presented and policy implications are derived.

This is a two-voice autoethnographic dialogue about Rousseau's Confessions and their relevance for the contemporary autoethnograpy. The paper examines the possibility that Rousseau was not only the creator of modern autobiography but also a forerunner of autoethnography. Many features of the Rousseau's masterpiece are analyzed and systematically compared to our contemporary autoethnographic sensibility: the purposes which brought him to write an outstandingly detailed description of his life; the fact that he acknowledges autobiography as the only source of true knowledge; his obsession for sincerity and his strong will to disclose all the truth about his own life to his readers (included the dreadful things that he did); the authority that he assigned to the readers in deciding about the truthfulness of his tale; his concern for the ethical issues and the care of the others; and the therapeutic value that he recognized to the practice of writing about themselves. In the end, Jean-Jacques was not only extraordinarily able to use his emotions to analyze human nature, but also he was a radical autobiographer at the limits of intransigence. His considerations on the value of autobiography can help us greatly to legitimize contemporary autoethnographic practice.

We present a computable general equilibrium model of the interface between the Great Salt Lake (GSL) ecosystem and both the international and regional economy that impacts the ecosystem. International trade is accounted for in the simplest of terms, involving the export of each of the ecosystem's main commodities and importation of a composite good, as well as equilibrium balances in the savings-investment and current accounts. With respect to the ecosystem, the model treats the various representative species as net energy maximizers and bases population dynamics on the period-by-period sizes of surplus net energy. Energy markets – where predators and prey exchange biomass – determine equilibrium energy prices. With respect to the regional economy, we model five production sectors (at the aggregate industry level) – brine cyst harvesters, the mineral-extraction industry, agriculture, recreation, and a composite-good industry – as well as the household sector. By performing dynamic simulations of the joint ecosystem–regional economy model, we isolate the effects of period-by-period stochastic changes in salinity levels and an initial shock to species-population levels on the ecological and economic variables of the model.

Social entrepreneurship is an area that has been extensively researched from a variety of angles and across a broad range of academic disciplines. Parallel to this, practitioners have applied social entrepreneurship ideas to a variety of industries and at varying degrees of complexity. The purpose of this study is to understand how the social capital of an entrepreneur drives the growth of social enterprises by contributing to the social entrepreneur skills. A systematic assessment of available literature was carried out based on searches of major academic databases (Web of Science, EBSCO and CAPES Portal de Periódicos), with an initial list of 3,106 publications being narrowed down to 472 articles that were subjected to content analysis after being narrowed down. Further, a theoretical proposal and research propositions were developed, highlighting the relationship between social capital and the activities of social entrepreneurs, as well as their relationships with the collective actors and institutions that make up social entrepreneurship in its totality. The conclusion of the chapter is that the interface between social entrepreneurship and social capital is a latent field for research. Further contributions of the chapter are a theoretical model to help researchers consolidate their efforts by identifying three key themes identified by intensive literature: creation of social capital by the social entrepreneur, relationships between institutions and the formation of groups and social capital as a formation of groups. In these words, a future agenda for discussing these topics is outlined for discussion.