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The purpose of this study is to present ANTi-microhistory of social innovation in education within Robert Owen’s communal experiment at New Harmony, Indiana. The authors zoom out in the historical context of social innovation before zooming into the New Harmony case.

The authors used ANTi-microhistory approach to unpack the controversy around social innovation using the five-step procedure recently proposed by Mills et al. (2022), a version of the five-step procedure originally proposed by Tureta et al. (2021).

The authors found that the educational leaders of the New Harmony community preceded proponents of innovation, such as Drucker (1957) and Fairweather (1967), who viewed education as a form of social innovation.

The authors contribute to the history of social innovation in education by exploring the New Harmony community’s education society to uncover the enactment of sustainable social innovation and the origin story of humanistic management education.

This paper aims to study historical intercultural transfer by examining the case of the Mouvement Desjardins, a Quebec, Canada-based cooperative bank founded in 1900 by Alphonse Desjardins. The aim of the cooperative was to support the hitherto marginalized French–Canadian population and to initiate their economic and entrepreneurial activities.

The authors focus on a historical single-case analysis. This conducts them to analyse primary data from letters exchanged between Alphonse Desjardins and European actors, as well as company documents of the Groupe Desjardins.

The intercultural transfer of the cooperative bank model and its implementation in North America as a successful, self-sustaining model is owing to recontextualization and strategic decisions of the social entrepreneur Alphonse Desjardins based on intensive written correspondence with European bank directors who promoted the cooperative system.

This research instigates an impulse to extend our knowledge of intercultural transfer by looking into other historical cases to provide validation or add subtleties to our understanding of intercultural transfer dynamics.

This paper expands the current understanding of intercultural transfer and its powerful influence, namely, how an implemented cooperative bank system can contribute through successful recontextualization to institutional change and societal improvements. It also provides new insights into the creation and growth of social enterprises based on shared values within communities and coordinated strategic intentions across communities.

Ahmet Kuru replies to two important and critical reviews of his book, Islam, Authoritarianism, and Underdevelopment: A Global and Historical Comparison (Cambridge University Press, 2019), in this volume. He explains why he disagrees with certain points in Knut Vikør's and Roel Meijer's reviews. He particularly reiterates the ulema's negative roles in contemporary Muslim societies. From Egypt's Al-Azhar to Turkey's Diyanet, from Iran's mullahs to Pakistan's sharia courts, the ulema hold the power to shape the public discourse in many ways, such as controlling Islamic education, issuing fatwas, and imposing blasphemy laws, in partnership with the state. The ulema have been the main ally of the rulers in marginalizing intellectuals and economic entrepreneurs, and thus, they share the responsibility with the rulers in problems of authoritarianism and underdevelopment.

Spirituality refers to the relationship that individuals have with something greater than themselves. It is an inner experience that includes a sense of transcendence, a connection to a higher power, or a sense of purpose or meaning. Nonprofit organizations can be defined as a unique category of organizations whose primary goal is not to make a profit. They represent a wide range of collective action and have long been collaborators with public governance systems in both developed and developing economies.

In the current socioeconomic structure, nonprofit organizations have become prominent policy actors, responsible for producing and distributing goods and services. To fulfill their responsibilities, these organizations rely on spirituality as a means of obtaining resources.

While contemporary nonprofit organizations have evolved from religious charities of the past, it would be incorrect to suggest that religious influences have disappeared completely. In fact, today's nonprofit organizations and charity sector exist on a spectrum that can be defined along a religious – secular axis, under the influence at different levels.

As modern nonprofit organizations are directly affected by contemporary organizational processes and principles, it is essential to examine spirituality in such organizations, regardless of whether they are religiously affiliated or not. This chapter examines the relationship between spirituality and nonprofit organizations, while also assessing their organizational effectiveness, career opportunities, leadership approaches, teamwork, job satisfaction and job dedication, in terms of spirituality and spiritual intelligence not only from a religious and cultural perspective, but also from an organizational one.

Stein Rokkan (1921–1979) gave this lecture in Paris, 4th December 1976. Comparative Social Research here publishes the first English language translation of Rokkan's manuscript for the lecture, which was given in French. The lecture was earlier only available in German (published 1980) and Norwegian (published 1921) translations. The lecture presents the sequence of models that Rokkan developed for his Europe-project aiming to explain the variations between 16 Western European democracies with reference to rights, party systems and systems alternatives. It is the only extensive intellectual autobiography that Rokkan ever wrote.

Shortly before the Second World War, a woman who had never accepted her orphan status, Gabrielle Bonheur Chanel, nicknamed ‘Little Coco’ by her father and known as ‘Coco’ to her relatives, became the first women in history to build a world-class industrial empire. By 1935, Coco, a fashion designer and industry captain, was employing more than 4,000 workers and had sold more than 28,000 dresses, tailored jackets and women's suits. Born into a poor family and raised in an orphanage, she enjoyed an intense social life in Paris in the 1920s, rubbing shoulders with artists, creators and the rising stars of her time.

Thanks to her entrepreneurial skills, she was able to innovate in her methods and in her trendsetting approach to fashion design and promotion. Coco Chanel was committed and creative, had the soul of an entrepreneur and went on to become a world leader in a brand new sector combining fashion, accessories and perfumes that she would help shape. By the end of her life, she had redefined French elegance and revolutionized the way people dressed.