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“It should also be noted that the objective of convergence and equal distribution, including across under-performing areas, can hinder efforts to generate growth. Contrariwise, the objective of competitiveness can exacerbate regional and social inequalities, by targeting efforts on zones of excellence where projects achieve greater returns (dynamic major cities, higher levels of general education, the most advanced projects, infrastructures with the heaviest traffic, and so on). If cohesion policy and the Lisbon Strategy come into conflict, it must be borne in mind that the former, for the moment, is founded on a rather more solid legal foundation than the latter” European Commission (2005, p. 9)Adaptation of Cohesion Policy to the Enlarged Europe and the Lisbon and Gothenburg Objectives.

Being resilient is often equated with the capability to return to a state of normalcy after individuals and organisations face unprecedented challenges. This chapter questions the notion of ‘normalcy’ in complex and ongoing turbulence as experienced variously in diverse cultural and sectoral contexts. In theorising organisational resilience and associated transformation, it draws on insights provided by a microfinance institution (MFI) operating in the Philippines. The chapter details its efforts to transform business in light of experience gained in frequent and overlapping emergency conditions (including COVID-19) to create a new level of resilience in its clients and itself. For clients, the goal is often to self-manage loss associated with socio-economic development and for the organisation, to stabilise and cordon the investment needed to support clients survive and move on from the relatively constant adverse impacts of disasters. Published accounts of such experience and insights provided by board members and the President illustrate the nature of transformational resiliency strategies planned, including changes to the business model around provision of micro-insurance services and strategic adaptation of digital services aligned with the organisation's mission. A model of ‘practical resiliency in emergency conditions’ details the culture of resiliency adopted, demonstrating how stakeholders gain confidence and opportunity to practice resilient behaviours in emergency contexts. It highlights the significance of cultural consistency across purpose, values and capability to create an adequate level of trust and certainty across stakeholders to support transformational resiliency behaviours in shifting and dynamic ecosystems.

The World Bank report Changing Wealth of Nations 2018 is only the most recent reminder of how much poorer Africa is becoming, losing more than US$100 billion annually from minerals, oil, and gas extraction, according to (quite conservatively framed) environmentally sensitive adjustments of wealth. With popular opposition to socioeconomic, political, and ecological abuses rising rapidly in Africa, a robust debate may be useful: between those practicing anti-extractivist resistance, and those technocrats in states and international agencies who promote “ecological modernization” strategies. The latter typically aim to generate full-cost environmental accounting, and to do so they typically utilize market-related techniques to value, measure, and price nature. Between the grassroots and technocratic standpoints, a layer of Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) do not yet appear capable of grappling with anti-extractivist politics with either sufficient intellectual tools or political courage. They instead revert to easier terrains within ecological modernization: revenue transparency, project damage mitigation, Free Prior and Informed Consent (community consultation and permission), and other assimilationist reforms. More attention to political-economic and political-ecological trends – including the end of the commodity super-cycle, worsening climate change, financial turbulence and the potential end of a 40-year long globalization process – might assist anti-extractivist activists and NGO reformers alike. Both could then gravitate to broader, more effective ways of conceptualizing extraction and unequal ecological exchange, especially in Africa’s hardest hit and most extreme sites of devastation.

This paper examines localized conditions and responses to what people see as ordinary variations in the weather, drawing on their own archive of knowledge and practice for “coping” with it, as distinct from year-to-year climate patterns that may entail “adaptation.”

This paper draws on ethnographic field research and rainfall statistics collected in 1968–1969 and 1987–1988, in a rural area of Western Nigeria where guinea-savannah small-scale farmers now grow increasingly for the market. Research in the 1980s was designed to track all changes since the 1960s. It is revisited here to draw out the rainfall variable.

In the 1980s, farmers noted a decline in the first rains of the early growing season, and a change in the short dry season, over a period of three years, in a way that differed from the expected patterns of twenty years previously. The shift is confirmed by rainfall statistics. Their crop repertoire choices are noted.

The paper’s themes are culled from a broader range of observations over the 20 years. The interweaving of the variables in complex change over several decades is noted as a research challenge.

Local time series, interpreted through the local archive of social and technical practice, offers a rich entry point into what the recent AAA climate change review refers to as coping and adaptation, with respect to what I call “weather” and “climate.”

Firm’s operating contexts and asymmetric perspectives of success versus failure outcomes are two essential features typically absent in research on firms’ implemented strategies. The study here describes and provides examples of formal case-based models (i.e., constructing algorithms) of firms implemented strategies within several of 81 potential context (task environments) configurations – large vs small, service vs production orientation, low vs high competitive intensity, low vs high technological turbulence, and ambiguous settings for each. The study applies the tenets of complexity theory (e.g., equifinality, causal asymmetry, and single causal insufficiency). The study proposes a meso-theory and empirical testing position for solving “the crucial problem in strategic management” (Powell, Lovallo, & Fox, 2011, p. 1370) – firm heterogeneity – why firms adopt different strategies and structures, why heterogeneity persists, and why competitors perform differently. A workable solution is to identify/describe implemented executive capability strategies that identify firms in alternative specific task environments which are consistently accurate in predicting success (or failure) of all firms for specific implemented capabilities/context configuration. The study shows how researchers can perform “statistical sameness testing” and avoid the telling weaknesses and “corrupt practices” of symmetric tests such as multiple regression analysis (Hubbard, 2015) including null hypothesis significance testing. The study includes testing the research issues using survey responses of 405 CEO and chief marketing officers in 405 Hungarian firms. The study describes algorithms indicating success cases (firms) as well as failure cases via deductive, inductive, and abductive fuzzy-set logic of capabilities in context solutions.

This chapter provides an overview of the South Pacific states from geographic, environmental, cultural, political, economic and demographic perspectives. Topics covered include environments and hazards, climate change, cultural diversity, colonialism and late independence, economic development, population and migration, trade, and aid. The contribution of the most important industries of agriculture, forestry, fishing, mining and tourism are reviewed. In terms of the future, it is argued that the key challenge in the South Pacific states is that of creating sustainable development, alongside employment and growth, and coping with environmental change.

The aim of this chapter is to approach marketing organization from a research perspective, research that reflects contemporary practices of the time. This is done through a review of some of the central texts in the field. The chapter starts by drawing attention to two previous attempts to review and revisit the field, two influential and frequently cited researchers and texts: Achrol’s (1991) frequently cited article entitled “Evolution of the marketing organization: New forms for turbulent environments” and Homburg and colleagues’ (2000) review a decade later entitled “Fundamental changes in marketing organization: The movement toward a customer-focused organizational structure.”

The chapter then reviews the field around 2010, leading into the author’s own concluding reflections on how circumstances internal and external to organizations have affected the organizing of marketing. The chapter argues that while some ideas and changes after 2010 might be viewed as new, other changes are apparently old changes in new shapes. Attention is drawn to six areas of marketing organization research that have emerged and taken a central position in marketing organization research: (1) the adaptation of marketing practice and organization to various business trends, (2) market- and customer-oriented organizations, (3) shifts in marketing’s general role and influence within the firm, (4) marketing’s strategic role and connection to business management, (5) marketing’s interactions with other internal functions, and (6) marketing organization and the application of a wider spectrum of organization theories.

We revisit the problem of redesigning the Master in Business Administration (MBA) program, curriculum, and pedagogy, focusing on understanding and seeking to tame its “wicked problems,” as an intrinsic part and challenge of the MBA program venture, and to render it more realistic and relevant to address major problems and their consequences. We briefly review the theory of wicked problems and methods of dealing with their consequences from multiple perspectives. Most characterization of problems classifies them as simple (problems that have known formulations and solutions), complex (where formulations are known but not their resolutions), unstructured problems (where formulations are unknown, but solutions are estimated), and “wicked” (where both problem formulations and their resolutions are unknown but eventually partially tamable). Uncertainty, unpredictability, randomness, and ambiguity increase from simple to complex to unstructured to wicked problems. A redesigned MBA program should therefore address them effectively through the four semesters in two years. Most of these problems are real and affect life and economies, and hence, business schools cannot but incorporate them into their critical, ethical, and moral thinking.