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This study aims to investigate the effects of climate change on harvestability for sugarcane-growing regions situated between mountain ranges and the narrow east Australian coastline.

Daily rainfall simulations from 11 general circulation models (GCMs) were downscaled for seven Australian sugarcane regions (1961:2000). Unharvestable days were calculated from these 11 GCMs and compared to interpolated observed data. The historical downscaled GCM simulations were then compared to simulations under low (B1) and high (A2) emissions scenarios for the period of 2046-2065. The 25th, 50th and 75th percentiles of paired model differences were assessed using 95 per cent bootstrapped confidence intervals.

A decrease in the number of unharvestable days for the Burdekin (winter/spring) and Bundaberg (winter) regions and an increase for the Herbert region (spring) were plausible under the A2 scenario. Spatial plots identified variability within regions. Northern and southern regions were more variable than central regions.

Changes to the frequency of unharvestable days may require a range of management adaptations such as modifying the harvest period and upgrading harvesting technologies.

The application of a targeted industry rainfall parameter (unharvestable days) obtained from downscaled climate models provided a novel approach to investigate the impacts of climate change. This research forms a baseline for industry discussion and adaptation planning towards an environmentally and economically sustainable future. The methodology outlined can easily be extended to other primary industries impacted by wet weather.

By engaging in critical literacy, participants theorized Blackness and antiblackness. The purpose of this study was to have participants theorize Blackness and antiblackness through their engagements with critical literacy.

The authors used a youth-centered and informed Black critical-race grounded methodology.

Participants’ unique and varied revelations of Blackness as Vitality, Blackness as Cognizance and Blackness as Expansive Community, served to withstand, confront and transcend encounters with antiblackness in English curricula.

This paper provides a model for how to engage Black youth as a means to disrupt anti-Black English education spaces.

This study provides a foundation for future research efforts of Black English outer spaces as they relate to English education. Findings in this study may also inform existing English educator practices.

This study theorized both the role and the flexible nature of Black English outer spaces. It defined the multi-ethnic nature of Blackness. It proposed that affirmations of Blackness sharpened participants’ critical literacies in Black English outer spaces as a transformative intervention to anti-Black English education spaces.

Organizational researchers have long recognized the important role that top managers play within entrepreneurial firms (Ireland, Hitt and Sirmon 2003). Utilizing Covin and Slevin’s (1989) conceptual framework, the current study explores three key entrepreneurial characteristics of top managers and the impact these characteristics have on firm performance. Specifically, we argue that top managers with a high tolerance of risk, those who favor innovative activities and those who display a high degree of proactiveness will positively impact firm performance. In addition, this study examines the influence of top managers’ prestige, structural and expert power on the relationship between entrepreneurial orientation and firm performance. We conclude the study with a discussion of theoretical and practical implications of our findings and suggestions for future research in this area of study.

The purpose of this paper is to continue the discussion about the actual and potential role of clients in driving more innovation in the construction sector through interviews with some of the Australian construction industry’s leading clients, contractors and consultants.

This paper synthesises previously disconnected literature reports interviews with 46 of Australia’s leading clients, contractors and consultants.

The findings confirm the importance of client leadership, yet also shows that lowest price remains the dominant selection criterion in tenders. Many clients lack the insight and tools to play a leadership role and are unwilling and unable to employ strategies to foster better performance and more innovation because of internal governance constraints, a poor understanding of how built assets contribute to core business objectives and a narrow understanding of their central role in driving innovation. The authors conclude that in reality, the potential for investment in innovation is restricted to the relatively few large companies who are lucky enough to deal with sophisticated clients which procure buildings on a frequent basis. The vast majority of the industry are left to work with clients who procure buildings very rarely, who want the lowest possible price for their investment and who do not see them as a key long-term asset in the success of their core business.

The research is based on 46 interviews. It represents and external perspective on client leadership. Further research is needed with clients to validate the results and provide a counterpoint.

The practical implications of this research are that clients need to be more wary of equating low price with good value. While the merits of competition are widely lauded, the research shows that clients can extract more value from the construction industry by an integrated project strategy that does not lock-in solutions too early, that provides scope and time for innovation to happen, which encourages collaboration, early involvement and which distributes risk and opportunity fairly and openly. According to the research, many clients are unwilling and unable to do this because of internal governance constraints, a lack of tools to value innovation in bids, a poor understanding of how built assets contribute to core business objectives and a narrow understanding of their central role in driving innovation.

Given the planned infrastructure programme in Australia and many other countries, the potential productivity and efficiency benefits to be derived from this research are significant. These saved resources would then be available for further investments in social and economic infrastructure.

This paper’s originality lied in the synthesis of previously disconnected literature on construction innovation, efficiency and productivity.

Social media technology use has elicited an increased interest among academicians and researchers worldwide. The present study examines the latent constructs, such as social media technology use (SMTU), innovation capability (IC), entrepreneurial orientation (EO) and innovation performance (IP), which have not been studied by researchers in the past. The purpose of the study is to examine the impact of SMTU and IC on EO and highlight the impact of EO on IP.

A questionnaire survey was conducted to collect data from 164 entrepreneurs, which included CEO/owners, managers or founders of start-up companies from India. The data were analysed with the structural equation model technique.

The results demonstrate that the model proposed in this study supports all the hypotheses of SMTU, IC, EO and IP. The results of this study provide evidence for the importance of SMTU as a crucial factor that came out from the analysis of Indian entrepreneurs which reiterates the point that the user-generated content could be very important. The results of the research show that entrepreneurs value and are looking forward to using social media for getting individual reviews from consumers about their marketing campaigns, product development and innovation.

At the level of practice there are significant implications for decision-makers in start-up firms to become more attuned to how SMTU can significantly add importance to the customer experience. This study would also help managers and policymakers in understanding the importance of SMTU when seeking to improve the performance of the organizations.

Owing to the increasingly collaborative innovation environment in entrepreneurship, the authors draw the attention of managers to the need of SMTU for innovation actions and provide a logical framework to guide action for organizational analysis.

This study aims to consider the impact of market orientation and learning orientation on organisational performance in the context of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Cape Town, South Africa. SMEs play a vital role in developing countries’ economies given their large contribution towards employment and the economic output (gross domestic product). However, many SMEs struggle to implement practices that are used to successful ends by their corporate counterparts. In view of this, this study sought to probe this issue within an emerging market context.

A survey of 162 enterprises, using partial least squares -structural equation modelling path modelling, was used to link the constructs of market orientation, learning orientation and organisational performance.

The results revealed a significant relationship between market orientation and organisational performance. However, in contrast to other studies in the developed world, this study found that learning orientation has neither a significant effect on organisational performance nor a moderating effect on the relationship between market orientation and organisational performance of SMEs.

The implications of these findings suggests that, inter alia, the organisation’s implicit marketing plans should be made explicit and shared with employees throughout the enterprise. Moreover, owners and senior managers should embrace a positive marketing philosophy and optimal organisational structure, as well as be willing to assume risks to achieve organisational objectives. However, further research is advocated to understand the nuances distinguishing developing and developed countries.

This is one of the first studies to consider the interrelationships between market orientation, learning orientation and organisational performance in the context of SMEs within an emerging market setting. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is pioneering research in the South African domain.

THE first of the Islington Public Libraries, opened on September 21st, has proved a phenomenal success, and, at the same time, has thrown an interesting light on several modern theories in librarianship. It is, as our readers know, the fust of a system of five libraries, towards the erection of which Dr. Carnegie has given £40,000. The building itself is, as many librarians had an opportunity of judging at the “private view” described in our last number, of an exceedingly well‐lighted and attractive character. The arrangement and accommodation provided present several novel features. On the ground floor, opening from the Central Hall, is the Children's Lending Library and Reading Room. This is stocked with about 3,000 volumes for lending purposes, including French and German juvenile literature, and the reading room portion has seating accommodation for about a hundred children. A representative selection of children's magazines are displayed here, and there are special study‐tables for girls and boys equipped with suitable reference collections. A feature of this room is a striking dado of pictures illustrating scenes from English history, which goes far to make the room interesting and attractive.

The purpose of this research was to investigate using the seminal writings of Schumpeter and Kirzner as a guide – individuals who are potentially involved in entrepreneurship can be identified as being innovators or opportunity‐alert. Specifically, this exploratory project attempts to answer the following question: “Are some individuals better at being innovators, while others are better able to recognize entrepreneurial opportunities and, if so, does academic‐career training matter?”

The study relied on purposive sampling and received survey responses from postgraduate students in business and engineering. The 26‐item survey was made up of demographic indices and questions from the Schumpeter and Kirzner literature. A total of 242 business and 525 engineering students received the e‐mail from academic advisors. Usable responses were received from 36 business students (15 percent response rate) and 67 engineering students (13 percent response rate).

The research found evidence that individuals with engineering training were not as proficient at recognizing opportunities as their business‐trained contemporaries.

This is an exploratory research project which acknowledges the associated limitations. As well as contributing to a deeper understanding of two core entrepreneurship topics these findings have pedagogical and practitioner implications. From a pedagogy vantage point, instructors will be better equipped to frame courses in entrepreneurship if they better understand the propensity of their audience. The results indicate that this is particularly relevant to engineering schools. In practitioner terms, funding groups and various supporters of entrepreneurs (business angels, family financiers, and the like) will be better able to understand and work with individuals if they are aware that they are not, for example, alert to new opportunities.

This paper contributes to a deeper understanding of innovation and opportunity alertness.

The aim of this paper is to describe the factors that contribute to understanding how collaboration improves performance in operating rooms (ORs) after introducing the concept of cross‐functional OR scheduling teams.

The concept was investigated at Radboud University Nijmegen Medical Center (RUNMC) in The Netherlands and used on an innovative path based on socio‐technical systems (STS) principles designed to address non‐routine tasks, variety, interferences and errors related to OR scheduling, with the aim of increasing both staff productivity and patient safety. The effects of implementing preoperative cross‐functional teams in the OR were compared qualitatively. The researcher observed all of the team meetings, available data and documentation, and 13 semi‐structured interviews were performed with team members for collecting additional data.

In the literature, it was found that the theory of socio‐technical systems and the fields of group dynamics and self‐managing teams fit the OR setting. The author applied six elements of these theories (setting common goals, cohesion, openness, single‐loop and double‐loop learning, feedback, and control options) to the aspects found in the study. The qualitative findings revealed that high‐performing teams were able to identify bottlenecks in order to improve continuity of care. The cross‐functional teams used several performance indicators to gain insight into their own performance. Consequently, through collaboration, these teams were able to minimise interference and therefore learn. Cross‐functional teams learned how to address interferences and improve their quality of service through improved collaboration and the improved use of control mechanisms.

This research highlights the importance of team‐based approaches and the need to improve collaboration between healthcare professionals.

The paper confirms the value of implementing the socio‐technical systems theory to improve collaboration between healthcare professionals. This case study is a valuable contribution, as it focuses on team‐based organisation in preparing an OR schedule.

The purpose of this paper is to explore how small firms in the tattooing industry actively shape institutional expectations of value for consumers in a changing industry.

The paper draws upon interviews with key actors in the firms under study to explore their experiences with consumers and other constituents in determining how competitive advantage is constructed in this environment. These data are complemented data with interviews with governmental representatives and material from secondary sources.

The results reveal efforts of firms to construct and increase organizational legitimacy through the prominence of discourses of professionalism based on artistry and medicine/public health. These bases of competitive differentiation are not the clear result of exogenous pressure, rather they arise through the active efforts of the firm to construct value guidelines for consumers and other constituents.

Strategic management in small firms is a complex and dynamic process that does not necessarily mirror that of large organizations. Constructing competitive advantage is an interacting process between key actors of small firms and various constituents.

The paper extends the application of institutional theory in strategic management by illuminating the active role that firms play in creating industry norms, especially in industries where norms are not well established or no longer entrenched. Moreover, exploring an alternative site of study offers a means through which to see well‐studied issues in new ways.