Search results

The purpose of this paper is to provide answers regarding the factors that motivate or discourage the quadruple helix (QH) stakeholders and the wider public in citizen science (CS) activities. The research reveals a current overview of the perceptions, attitudes, concerns and motivation with regard to development of CS ecosystem in four countries: Greece, Lithuania, the Netherlands and Spain.

The researchers deploy a mixed methodology, entailing an in-depth literature review and a large-scale quantitative survey (approximately 2,000 citizens) targeting QH stakeholders and general public from the local national ecosystems. The results contain both descriptive statistics and statistical analysis per country. After the comprehensive overview of drivers and barriers regarding the participation in CS activities in general, the focus is narrowed down on the engagement motivation of different QH stakeholders and the differences in enabling/hindering factors at the local ecosystems.

Depending on the country and the pre-existing level of CS maturity, the results provide a complicated network of factors that unlock or block participation in CS activities. These factors include, to name a few, political maturity, civic engagement, technological infrastructures, economic growth, culture of stakeholder collaboration, psychological stimulus and surplus of resources. The implications of the findings necessitate the alignment of the envisioned CS ecosystem with the local dynamics in each country.

The quantitative nature of the survey method, limited sample size and only four countries context are noted as limitations of the study and offer future research potential for longitudinal settings and mixed-methods studies.

The results contribute to the wider literature on CS that focuses on perspectives, possibilities and differences in local contexts with respect to the public engagement by developing CS ecosystem. At the same time, its added value lies in the overall practical proposition, and how the latter can effectively and efficiently attract and retain different stakeholder groups and citizens, under a collaborative approach.

This paper aims to examine how CEO talk of sustainability in CEO letters evolves in a period of increased expectations from society for companies to increase their transition towards becoming more sustainable and to better account for progress and performance within the sustainability areas.

By adopting an interpretive textual approach, the paper provides a careful analysis of how CEO talk of sustainability in CEO letters of large listed Swedish companies developed during 2008–2017.

The talk of sustainability is successively becoming more elaborated, proactive and multidimensional. CEOs frame their talk by adopting different perspectives: the distinct environmental, the performance and meso, the product-market-oriented and the sustainability embeddedness and value creation. The shift towards an embeddedness and value-creation perspective in the later letters implies that the alleged capitalistic and short-sighted focus on shareholder value maximisation might be changing towards a greater focus on sustainability embeddedness as an important goal for succeeding with the transition towards a sustainable business.

The findings are relevant for policymakers and government bodies when developing policies and regulations aimed at improving the positive impact of companies on global sustainable development. Findings are also useful for management teams when structuring their sustainability talk as a response to external pressure.

The findings provide relevant input on how social norms, values and expectations are shaping the corporate discourse on sustainability.

The findings of this study contribute to an increased understanding of the rhetorical response in influential CEO letters to the surrounding sustainability context, including new national and international policies as well as sociopolitical events and discourses related to sustainability. This offers a unique frame of reference for further interpretational work on how CEOs frame, engage in and shape the sustainability discourse.

The COVID19 crisis has thrown wide open the debate on Europe’s Economic and Monetary Union’s (EMU) future. Next Generation EU (NGEU) has broken the stalemate over a central fiscal capacity. The open question is whether NGEU is a one-off or a first step. The suspension of the Stability and Growth Pact has given new urgency to the debate on reforming EMU’s fiscal rules.

There is no debate as yet about how these two prospects relate to each other. This paper argues that a permanent fiscal capacity and revised rules should be seen as alternatives.

This study makes two claims: first, a fiscal capacity renders a reformed pact unnecessary and second, that is an optimal solution politically. A fiscal capacity would provide an efficient asymmetric shock absorber and therefore reduce the need for pre-emptive action against negative cross-border externalities. It would also provide an abundant supply of an EU-wide safe asset around which to structure the EU’s financial system, thus rendering unnecessary the backstopping of member states' debts.

This would restore democratic accountability while eliminating moral hazard and enforcement problems.