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The purpose of this paper is to offer a political perspective on modifications in corporate governance regulation. In the wake of the financial crisis, the investment rationale of institutional investors is being pushed away from a focus on financial market liquidity and short-term trading. From a political perspective, this modification entails consideration both of investment horizon and of the definition of corporate value.

The paper narrates the historical policy debate on institutional investors as corporate governors. Building on this point, a conceptual framework is developed to further the understanding of the current shifts in policy debate of institutional investors as governors.

The authors find a strong policy impetus to move away from certain liberal market assumptions of efficient financial markets and the positive effects of privatization, toward viewing markets as institutionally embedded. Based on their knowledge of corporate governance regimes’ political economy, the authors argue that this shift brings intensified engagement of institutional investors in corporate affairs. The reasons for why and how this might be politically contested are specified. In conclusion, propositions regarding the outcome of such contestation in different national corporate governance regimes are offered.

Pointing to the predominantly European stakeholder value versus shareholder value discussion, the authors claim that the corporate governance policy debate related to intensified engagement of institutional investors in corporate affairs is still in its infancy. Their political perspective, including propositions for further elaboration, offers a contribution to further academic debate.

This paper discusses the history of outdoor education at a university in the South West England, starting in 1840.

This research uses secondary sources of data; original unpublished work from the university archive is used alongside published works on the university founders and first principals, as well as sources on the developments of outdoor education in the UK.

Both founding principals were driven by their strong values of social justice and their own experiences of poverty and inequality, to establish a means for everyone to access high-quality education regardless of background or means. They saw education as key to providing a pathway out of poverty and towards opportunity and achievement for all. Kay-Shuttleworth, founder of St John's, wrote that “the best book is Nature, with an intelligent interpreter”, whilst Derwent Coleridge, St Mark's first principal, had a profound love of nature and reverence for his father's poetic circle. His father, the famous English Romantic poet Samuel Taylor–Coleridge, made the first recorded use of the verb “mountaineering”. Coleridge was using a new word for a new activity; the ascending of mountains for pleasure, rather than for economic or military purposes.

The Romantic influence on outdoor education, the early appreciation of nature and the outdoors for physical and psychological well-being and the drive for social justice have not been told in any case study before.

Using Lundy's model (2007), this chapter adopts a child-centred approach to discuss decision-making in relation to designing a study which aimed to amplify childhood voices of parental separation (Kay-Flowers, 2019). It examines the role of young people in designing and co-producing the research tools, specifically designed to give voice to childhood experiences of parental separation and divorce. It explains how the research findings were shared with different audiences and reflects on the effectiveness of the approaches taken.

The chapter starts by outlining the four elements of ‘space’, ‘voice’, ‘audience’ and ‘influence’ in Lundy's model (2007) before going on to identify the gap in existing research on children's experience of parental separation and divorce, explaining why their voices need to be heard.

A focus group of young people were involved in designing the study. Finding current methods unsuitable for addressing the research question, they co-produced new research tools specifically designed for the study, alongside the researcher, in a process known as bricolage. The chapter explains the processes involved in creating the bricolage and describes the newly created research tools which were an online questionnaire and Prompt Simulation Video (PSV).

The last part of the chapter explains how ‘audience’ and ‘influence’ informed decision-making about how the study's findings could be presented to amplify childhood voices of parental separation and divorce, to ensure they were heard by different audiences of academics, practitioners, parents, public and children. It concludes with consideration of the effectiveness of this approach.

Remarks on the parallel in the basis of the riches of the aristocracy and plutocracy. Illustrates the argument from the history of the development of the cotton textile industry, the underpinnings for its growth being the inventions prior to and during the eighteenth century. Exemplifies the part of inventions as the begetter of plutocratic wealth. Sir Richard Arkwright, notably, was its salacious issue.

The most successful companies want to remain successful and are continuously trying to improve their manufacturing operations. How and why these changes are decided, upon and driven through to implementation is of interest to all companies in any particular manufacturing sector. The research described in this paper looks at the drivers of change in UK clothing manufacturing companies. Clothing manufacturers face competitive pressures just as in other industries, but the sector has sonic particular characteristics. In the UK clothing industry, retailers rather than manufacturers dominate the list of key players. This concentration of retail buying power is coupled with intense competition in the home market from overseas and a highly negative balance of trade. The factors investigated as potential drivers of change included:

Via philosophy of science, the paper seeks to identify the role of trial and error in business and other managed activities, including economic development.

Drawing first on Karl Popper's view of trial and error as essential to the evolution of all life, including all human activity, the paper asks what we mean by science, and how distinctive is the scientific mode of enquiry. It goes on to look at, in particular, the treatment of trial and error, and of evolution, in two best‐selling management books of the last 25 years, and at the relevance of this treatment to some recent discussions of economic development.

Popper's distinction between science and various types of non‐science is not as clear‐cut as is sometimes portrayed. Moreover, there are significant variants to Popper's view of scientific method. But accepting Popper's view of the centrality of trial and error for problem solving the paper finds significant echoes in some management thinking. Related questions occur, also, in some recent discussions of economic development.

The paper argues that trial and error is a well‐established approach in business and other managed activities, and that there is potential to learn from many examples of success and disappointment.

The paper questions whether some views of science, and of the demarcation between science and non‐science, are as clear‐cut as is sometimes assumed. It argues against claimed novelty in some recent discussion of evolutionary process in business and elsewhere.

Argues that to match the right distinctive capabilities to the challenges of the business environment is the difference between corporate success and failure. Investigates John Kay, ex‐chairman of consultants London Economics (still a partner), visiting professor of economics at London Business School, and his work as one of the thinkers arguing for a stakeholder approach to the economy and society. States that success or failure at the corporate level is explained by an organization matching its capabilities to the challenges facing it in the business environment

The purpose of this paper is to consider why Richard Dawes (1793-1867) academic, college business manager and Church of England priest developed a curriculum in a nineteenth century English village school with which he sought to modify differences in social class and achieved outstanding results in student engagement and educational attainment.

The approach is documentary. It uses books and internet scans of original documents. It locates Dawes's work in the social movements of early nineteenth century Britain and associates Dawes's activities with those of Kay-Shuttleworth who was administrator of the British government's first move to provide education for poor children.

Dawes emphasised tolerance and secular teaching within a school system devoted to instilling Church of England doctrine. He based classroom teaching on things familiar to children and integrated subject content. He used science to encourage parents of “that class immediately above that of labourers” to send their children to his school to overcome class differences. For his system to be widely adopted he needed science teachers trained in his practical teaching methods. Initial government support for science in elementary schools was eroded by Church of England opposition to state intervention in education.

Dawes's pedagogic achievements are well known in the history of science education; his secular teaching in a church school and his valiant attempt to use science as an instrument of social change, perhaps less so.

This study aims to critically review recent contributions to the methodology of financial economics and discuss how they relate to one another and directions for further research.

A critical review of recent literature on new methodologies for financial economics.

Recent books have made important contributions to the study of financial economics. They suggest new approaches that include an emphasis on radical uncertainty, adaptive markets, agent-based modeling and narrative economics, as well as extensions of behavioral finance to include concepts such as diagnostic expectations. Many of these contributions can be seen more as complements than substitutes and provide fruitful directions for further research. Efficient markets can be seen as holding under particular circumstances. A major them of most of these contributions is that the study of financial crises and other aspects of financial economics requires the use of multiple theories and approaches. No one approach will be sufficient.

There are great opportunities for further research in financial economics making use of these new approaches.

These recent contributions can be quite useful for improved analysis by researchers, private participants in the financial sector and macroeconomic and regulatory officials.

Provides an introduction to these new approaches and highlights fruitful areas for their extensions and applications.