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This chapter aims to shed light on the hidden benefits and losses of US-China trade within the framework of unequal exchange theory. After presenting the evolutions of the trade balance between China and the United States, we propose two methods for measuring the unequal exchange between them: one considers the labor content directly incorporated into the exchange; the other focuses on the international values with input-output tables. This allows to present a synthesis of sectoral analyses. Our results show a significant unequal exchange in US-China trade over 1995–2014, the United States being actually the main beneficiary of this trade. Both methods exhibit the inequality in exchange tending to decrease over time; China's disadvantage has been gradually reducing from the 2000s. We finally suggest that the relative decline in the hegemonic status of the United States in this bilateral unequal relationship could help explain its decision to launch its trade war with China.

The aim of this chapter is to describe a four-type model of organisational structures and to discuss two cases, Embrapa and the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation, as well as additional cases at SAM-Research and the centre for shared medical support services established at the University of Bologna.

These cases should help readers understand the importance of designing distinctive, tailored-made support services while keeping these structures flexible for further adaptation under unforeseen changes.

The chapter concludes by stressing the role of institutions to steadily invest in the design of these tailored support structures and in personalised training for their support staff.

This chapter offers an introduction to two leading Sri Lankan Marxist political economists, S. B. D. de Silva and G. V. S. de Silva. By surveying their most influential writings – the 645-page book The Political Economy of Underdevelopment by S. B. D. de Silva and the pungent essays ‘Heretical Thoughts' and ‘Social Change’ by G. V. S. de Silva – -it traces the distinctive and provocative qualities of these two thinkers, especially concerning problems of development and underdevelopment. In doing so, it is argued that S. B. D. de Silva is best understood as a leading anti-imperialist political economist alongside Samir Amin, Immanuel Wallerstein and Giovanni Arrighi, distinguished by a classical Marxist focus on class struggle and relations of production in his narration of the ‘colonial mode of production’ in Sri Lanka. As for G. V. S. de Silva's erudite reflections on the trajectories of transition to capitalism and socialism as well as the prospects of social and economic development in countries emerging from pre-capitalist social formations in the wake of colonization, his remarkable attention to spatial questions at multiple scales – between country and city, colony and metropole – receives special attention. The conclusion underlines the sustained relevance of both de Silvas to making sense of the origins of the present crisis in Sri Lanka.

The concept of bleisure is a tourism term that has emerged recently and has become popular. Participation of employees, especially managers and people in business who go on business trips, in leisure activities during their full-time business trips has revealed the bleisure trend. Although bleisure has emerged as a term in recent years, it has been seen that people combine vacations and business trips in previous years.

Considering the research on bleisure tourism, it is thought that bleisure tourism can be helpful to increase employee productivity. The fact that individuals who go on business trips very often are away from their family or friends can create a social deformation. However, people who go on business trips within the scope of bleisure tourism sometimes can take their close friends or family members with them. This provides extra motivation for bleisure tourists and increases work efficiency. However, it is beneficial to plan bleisure tourism. Excessive entertainment or shopping can lead to distraction, being late for work and being over budget on a business trip. For this reason, bleisure should be planned jointly with tourism agencies and companies.

Bleisure tourism will benefit business travellers, travel companies, hotels, restaurants, other tourism businesses and local people. For this reason, it is necessary to focus on studies related to bleisure tourism, a new tourism trend.

The current era is characterized by hyperturbulence, population growth, attention to food security, the need to identify sustainable strategies to reduce pollution and poverty, and the disparity between developed and undeveloped economies. These circumstances force a global paradigm shift based on sustainable practices and processes that put people and the environment at the core of each activity, contributing to sustainable, social, and economic development and promoting well-being in the community.

In this spirit, a strong impulse can derive from the practices of Green Technology, considered here as that set of processes aimed at eco-sustainability that acquire undisputed relevance, especially for emerging economies.

This chapter focuses on the role that Green technology practices exert in generating local well-being in the world's fifth-largest country: Brazil. Dynamic growth and effective social policies lifted millions of people out of poverty in the 2000s, even if socio-economic development varies widely across the country. Brazil is a leading global agricultural, minerals, and oil producer. The natural environment represents the primary source of Brazil's development that deserves to be protected and push firms and citizens to find new sustainable solutions based on green policies. Drawing inspiration from a Brazilian case study, this chapter proposes a set of building blocks that foster sustainable business practices in emerging countries.

The chapter is organized as follows: the first part introduces the concept of green technology practices; the second highlights the opportunities of green technologies; the third focuses on a single case study.

This chapter aims to estimate the impact of the use of an innovative cultivation method on the social, economic and environmental aspects in the French region Aix-en-Provence, by using the survey data for 200 heterogeneous vegetable producers (organic and conventional). It distinguishes three types of producers in the French region Aix-en-Provence. First, conventional producers (n = 100) who used a high level of mechanization, better access to water, high yield, high labor costs. Second, certified organic producers (n = 70) who used organic technologies such as biotechnology and rotation, low yield, high organic product price compared to conventional products, a family workforce and high transport. Third, noncertified organic producers (n = 30) have used the same technologies as certified organic producers, while they sell their products at the same price as conventional products. Labor is the member of the family. These noncertified farms are marked by high operating and transport costs and low yield compared to conventional producers or certified organic producers. The results show that this cultivation method has a positive effect on the environmental aspect, however a negative one on the social and economic aspect.

The United Nations (UN) adopted Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs); agenda 2030 focuses on Climate Action (goal 13), targeting climate adaptability, as well as resilience, awareness and improving policy mechanisms on climate change. In order to enhance climate adaptability, climate-smart agricultural practices (CSAP) is a necessary step. CSAP is a sustainable agriculture approach with a strong focus on climate dimensions. The three pillars of climate-smart agriculture (CSA) are ‘Adaptation’: adapting to climate change; ‘Resilience’: building resilience against it and ‘Remove’: reducing carbon emissions. The new world economy uses Industry 4.0 technologies for sustainable advancement, including blockchain technology, big data analytics, artificial intelligence (AI), augmented and virtual reality, industrial Internet of Things (IoT) and services. Hence, technology plays a significant role in climate sustainable agriculture practices. This chapter shall consider three technologies consisting of IoT, AI and blockchain technology which contribute to CSAP in pre-harvesting (monitoring climate as well as fertility status, soil testing, etc.), harvesting (tilling, fertilisation, seed operations, etc.) and post-harvesting (predicting weather factors, seed varieties, etc.) periods of agriculture. All these three technologies work like the human nervous system; IoT helps in converting various information regarding demography, climate change, local agricultural needs, etc. into world data; AI works like a brain in combination with IoT, helps predict the use of climate-smart technology and blockchain, the memory part of the nervous system which deals with supply-side and ensures traceability as well as transparency for consumers as well as farmers. Hence, this chapter shall contribute to the importance of these three technologies in adopting CSAP in three stages of agriculture.

In this chapter, we investigate the role of the Internet of Things (IoT) for a more sustainable future. The IoT is an umbrella term that refers to an interrelated network of devices connected to the internet. It also encompasses the technology that enables communication between these devices as well as between the devices and the cloud. The emergence of low-cost microprocessors, sensors and actuators, as well as access to high bandwidth internet connectivity, has led to the massive adoption of IoT systems in everyday life. IoT systems include connected vehicles, connected homes, smart cities, smart buildings, precision agriculture, among others. During the last decade, they have been impacting human activities in an unprecedented way. In essence, IoT technology contributes to the improvement of citizens' quality of life and companies' competitiveness. In doing so, IoT is also contributing to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) that were adopted by the United Nations in 2015 as an urgent call to action by all countries to eradicate poverty, tackle climate change and ensure that no one is left behind by 2030. The World Economic Forum (WEF) recognises that IoT is undeniably one of the major facilitators for responsible digital transformation, and one of its reports revealed that 84% of IoT deployments are presently addressing, or can potentially address the SDGs. IoT is closely interlinked with other emerging technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Cloud Computing, for the delivery of enhanced and value-added services. In recent years, there has been a push from the IoT research and industry community together with international stakeholders, for supporting the deployment and adoption of IoT and AI technologies to overcome some of the major challenges facing mankind in terms of protecting the environment, fostering sustainable development, improving safety and enhancing the agriculture supply chain, among others.