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This chapter focuses on the international development of Société Lyonnaise d’Appareillage Téléphonique, an independent small- and medium-sized enterprise (SME) which develops, produces and markets solutions of secured alimentations. Located in France, the company has more than 70 employees. The SME has mainly developed in international markets through export activities: in 2016, it realised 21.2% of its total sales abroad and its products were marketed in 37 countries. In 2011, the company decided to implement a sales subsidiary in Germany to strengthen its presence in international markets. In this process, the company was accompanied by a promotion agency which helps companies from the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region to expand into foreign markets. The authors of this chapter explain the role played by the agency in the establishment of the foreign subsidiary and the influence of a successful accompaniment experience on the internationalisation process.

Economic activity is typically provided by three distinct sectors. For-profit entities seek to maximize owner profit by providing various goods and services. The not-for-profit sector consists of private or quasi-public entities that provide goods and services without regard to making an explicit profit. Government entities extract resources from the economy and redistribute them to achieve certain public goods.

Recently a fourth or gray sector has developed that combines elements of the other three. As a corporate form that explicitly sacrifices profit maximization to advance some predetermined social good, benefit corporations are one example of this gray sector. Owners are aware of this dual mission but still invest as the social objectives are consistent with their personal goals. Thus, the benefit corporation can be viewed as a for-profit entity subject to an explicit social welfare constraint.

Since the late 1960s governments have spent trillions of dollars on a wide variety of social welfare programs. Nevertheless, poverty persists and government altruism may have made poverty more intractable in some respects. Economic logic suggests that providing social welfare transfer payments with few work or training requirements can make recipients dependent and enable dysfunctional behavior. Over time this may rob recipients of opportunities for labor and self-sufficiency.

Benefit corporations are typically viewed as a form of socially responsible investment that leverages the economic advantages of market-based systems. To date, however, little has been written about the benefit corporation’s potential ethical dimensions. The purpose of this paper is to provide a moral argument based in Catholic Social Teaching to support the use of benefit corporations as a substitute for some government service programs. Our arguments are centered on the primary principle of Human Dignity and will include, but not be limited to: Work, Solidarity and there role social and economic society as well as the Role of Government or Subsidiarity (including the Welfare State).

In this paper, I explore what shapes the identities of digital nomads (DNs), a class of remote workers who travel and work concurrently. Through extensive fieldwork and interviews with 50 digital nomads conducted in seven coworking hostels in Mexico in 2022, I construct a theory of DN identity. I base this upon the frequent transformations they undergo in their Circumstances, which regularly change their worker identity.

DNs relinquish traditional social determinants of identity, such as nationality and religion. They define their personal identities by their passions and interests, which are influenced by the people they meet. DNs exist in inherently transitive social spaces and, without rigid social roles to fulfil, they represent themselves authentically. They form close relationships with other long-term travellers to combat loneliness and homesickness. Digital nomads define their worker identities around their location independence. This study shows that DNs value their nomadic lifestyle above promotions and financial gain. They define themselves by productivity and professionalism to ensure the sustainability of their lifestyle. Furthermore, digital nomad coworking hubs serve focused, individual work, leaving workplace politics and strict ‘office image’ norms behind. Without fixed social and professional roles to play, digital nomads define themselves personally according to their ever-evolving passions and the sustainability of their nomadic life. Based on these findings, I present a cyclical framework for DN identity evolution which demonstrates how relational, logistical, and socio-personal flux evolves DN’s worker identities.

The archives of François Perroux deposited at IMEC bear witness to the fact that he has devoted, beyond his scientific production, great energy to the most material aspects of research: setting up and maintaining networks to publicize his work and that of other economists, either directly or through the institutes and the journals he headed; organize seminars and symposiums; take care of relations with colleagues and the press; create collections and journals; and so on.

In this chapter, we concentrate our attention on the archives relating to the management of the institutes, those attesting to the lines and themes of the producer’s research, and those concerning his important correspondence.

Thanks to the archives deposited at IMEC, it is possible to follow the development of the theoretical work of François Perroux by contextualizing it. They also show the itinerary of a Christian intellectual, whose attachment to social Catholicism constitutes a guiding thread and is reflected in all his activities. Finally, the archives illuminate his substantial role in the institutionalization of research in economics in the France of the twentieth century.

In the fifteenth and the seventeenth centuries, the administrative organisation of the French state was based on the offices. Significant modifications took place during this period, from the transformation of offices as lifetime ownership in 1467 to the constitution of the casual parties in 1522 and to the ratification of the edict of annual right in 1604. Because of the state's need for financing, in particular the wars in which it is involved, the nature of offices is changed during that period of time. One of the most important impacts of those modifications is the occurrence of a commodification process of the state apparatuses. This paper highlights also the fact that the state's finances are being financialised along with the development of the state. The French case is thus characterised by a unique symbiotic relationship between the commodification of state apparatuses, the financialisation of the state's finances, and the institutional changes. This relationship is grasped through the theoretical framework of the regulation school of thoughts and is analysed based on archival work.

This chapter offers a speculative essay regarding how religion may foster intellectual humility in public life, drawing on case studies from faith-based community organizing in the United States. and liberation theology in Latin America. Despite a plethora of religious teaching about the virtue of humility across a variety of traditions, I do not think there is anything inherent in religious belief – in any tradition – that predisposes believers toward authentic humility in their personal or public lives. I argue instead that religious conviction – when embodied in particular kinds of religious practice – does help drive us toward the balance of confidence and intellectual humility required for vigorous engagement in democratic public life. My argument draws on the concept of focal practices and insights from philosophy, theology, and social theory as I consider religious practices, religious conversion, and the nature of human passions as they relate to democratic life.

After nearly 12,000 years living in the Holocene geological age we have now arrived in the Anthropocene. Now, instead of an integral ecology that considers the world as having its ecology, economy, and justice systematically linked, we are confronted by an ecology dominated by a profit-driven economy.

Since its very first beginnings, Western philosophy has reflected on humanity’s relationship with nature. Is the history of Western philosophy, then, merely a reflection of the evolution of humanity from the Holocene to the Anthropocene? Or did Western philosophical thought, along with industrialization and economic development, play a far bigger part and was it, indeed, the regulator of this evolution?

Our spontaneous care for nature – not at any price or exclusively – has led to an elegy. However rereading Western philosophy can help us to discover that the evolution toward the Anthropocene could challenge man to descry meaning behind nature. The way man regulates nature can be oriented toward rediscovering meaning behind nature. And the question of transcendence cannot be avoided.