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Consumers often prefer sustainable goods and services but fail to follow through with purchases that reflect these espoused values. The green intention–outcome gap is studied in many contexts but has yet to inform deathcare decisions. Industry reports suggest that most Americans prefer sustainable deathcare options, yet unsustainable corpse dispositions dominate the market. The purpose of this paper is to understand how history informs this phenonea.

This study looks to the past – using historical narrative analysis of deathcare trends and influential intermediaries – to understand the future of sustainable deathcare and the prospective role that marketers can play in bridging the gap between decedents’ preferences and survivors’ purchase outcomes.

Historical ritualization, medicalization and commercialization have resulted in the monopolization of traditional deathcare services. Mortuary professionals remain unresponsive to consumer preferences for sustainable alternatives.

Socioeconomic shocks can allow humanity to reflect and transition from consumerism to sustainability. COVID-19 has led to greater awareness of self-mortality, and death has become less taboo. The slow market penetration of sustainable deathcare services suggests a lack of communication between a decedent and their survivors. Marketing scholars need to help marketing practitioners bridge the preference-outcome gap.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is amongst the first to examine how history informs the sustainable action–outcome gap for deathcare preferences in a post-COVID environment and the role that marketers can play in perpetuating change.

This research aims to examine the introduction of participatory budgeting (PB) in local governments in two Francophone countries, namely, Benin and Niger, and how local contextual factors influence its practices.

The research employs a multiple case study design with a comparative approach to analyze the introduction and practices of participatory budgeting across selected municipalities in Benin and Niger. Hopper (2017) and Lassou et al.’s (2018) notion of “pragmatism” within neopatrimonialism is mobilized to analyze the data from sources including interviews and documents. The analysis is conducted at both the country and local government levels.

Participatory budgeting took roots in a number of municipalities. Its introduction and adoption has promoted participatory governance especially from traditionally marginalized segments of society (e.g. women); albeit to varying degrees, in the face of the prevailing national neopatrimonial context. Furthermore, despite donor's push for a standardized model of PB implementation, actual practices took varying shapes, a consequence of differing local conditions and circumstances.

In terms of limitation, it was not possible to access a number of research participants sought, particularly in Niger. But access to key documents from government, donors and civil society organizations help mitigate this to a large extent.

A major practical implication is the importance of adaptation to local socio-economic contexts and circumstances. As shown in the study, a blanket introduction and implementation of PB across societies based on a standardized model is unlikely to succeed and be sustained in the long run. A great deal of flexibility is required to accommodate indigenous realities on the grounds.

The study contributes to shed light on public sector budgeting regarding participatory budgeting practices in an under-researched setting: Francophone Africa.

In recent years, gambling among university students has received significant focus as it may be viewed as an attractive and exciting form of income whilst studying. Given this, stakeholders in protection from gambling-related harm need to better understand student gambling behaviours. This understanding should include students on sports-based programmes given their closer connection to sporting events, and a heightened sense of competition among such often gendered cohorts. This study aims to provide greater insights into gambling behaviours among these cohorts.

The present pilot study comprised 210 university students on sports-based and non-sport-based programmes. Participants self-reported frequencies of gambling activity and expenditure via an online survey.

Results showed a significantly greater frequency of female student non-gamblers on non-sports-based degree programmes and a high frequency of male student gamblers on sports-based degree programmes (p = 0.02). Sports-based students also reported significantly higher scores on the Problem Gambling Severity Index (PGSI) than non-sports students (p < 0.01). Finally, gambling expenditure (p < 0.01) and regularity (p < 0.01) were significantly lower among students studying non-sports degree programmes.

The findings of the present study provide evidence to warrant further investigation into gambling perceptions and behaviours among students on sports-based programmes, with a view to assessing the potential need for targeted awareness, tailored support and how both can most effectively be provided.

Soil quality is in decline in many parts of the world, in part due to the intensification of agricultural practices. Whilst economic instruments and regulations can help incentivise uptake of more sustainable soil management practices, they rarely motivate long-term behavior change when used alone. There has been increasing attention towards the complex social factors that affect uptake of sustainable soil management practices. To understand why some communities try these practices whilst others do not, we undertook a narrative review to understand how social capital influences adoption in developed nations. We found that the four components of social capital – trust, norms, connectedness and power – can all influence the decision of farmers to change their soil management. Specifically, information flows more effectively across trusted, diverse networks where social norms exist to encourage innovation. Uptake is more limited in homogenous, close-knit farming communities that do not have many links with non-farmers and where there is a strong social norm to adhere to the status quo. Power can enhance or inhibit uptake depending on its characteristics. Future research, policy and practice should consider whether a lack of social capital could hinder uptake of new practices and, if so, which aspects of social capital could be developed to increase adoption of sustainable soil management practices. Enabling diverse, collaborative groups (including farmers, advisers and government officials) to work constructively together could help build social capital, where they can co-define, -develop and -enact measures to sustainably manage soils.

Management discretion in the decision to reduce payroll costs is an important but under-researched issue in management accounting. The authors leverage the experimental environment to test the role of organizational culture (close vs. distant) and managerial communion (concern for others) along with their interaction with sales decline persistence (one vs. two periods) on planned layoff decisions. The authors find that communal managers are hesitant to downsize employees and that a close organizational culture interacts with one period sales declines to reduce layoffs although the influence of culture is reduced with persistent sales declines. The authors also examine the influence of culture and communion on managers’ preference for pay cuts as an alternative to layoffs. The authors find that a close culture and higher communion are associated with decisions to choose pay cuts over layoffs; however, these costs interact such that managers low in communion in a distant culture express a higher preference for layoffs. These findings illustrate the combined influence of economic, organizational, and dispositional factors on manager decisions about the extent and form of labor cost reductions due to sales declines.

This study aims to investigate the interaction effect between offering supply chain finance (SCF) programmes and sustainability ratings on the liquidity performance of buyers and suppliers.

The study uses a unique sample of buyers that each have an SCF programme. The sample is complemented with financial information and sustainability scores. The data is analysed through a random effects model.

Aligning with recent advances in SCF literature, the results confirm a tendency for SCF programmes to favour buyers over suppliers. However, the relationship between SCF programme adoption and liquidity performance for buyers and suppliers is positively moderated by the strong sustainability performance of both parties.

Buyers and suppliers are advised to implement and adopt effective SCF programmes that are beneficial for both parties. For buyers, the authors suggest leveraging on SCF programmes as incentives to foster sustainable behaviour among suppliers. For suppliers, the authors recommend caution before joining programmes offered by buyers that do not perform well on sustainability.

Enhancing sustainability within global supply chains and fostering favourable payment practices towards suppliers are crucial for policy development and regulation. The findings clarify the connection between both components, offering valuable insights for policymakers in this domain.

The study is built on a manually picked, unique database of buyers offering SCF programmes to their suppliers. This allows, across a large sample, an evaluation of the differences between buyers that offer SCF programmes and those that do not.

This study aims to explore the linguistic and syntactic textual features of Central Bank of Nepal (Nepal Rastra Bank [NRB])’s monetary policy. Considering the recent literature and methodological advancement in computational linguistic analysis, this study intends to explore the features of published monetary policy reports.

Text mining technique has been used on the monetary policy published by Central Bank of Nepal for the period between 2002/03 and 2021/22 to describe the textual features such as length, tone, degree of forward looking, use of numerical contents and readability. The raw text was tokenized using Python’s Natural Language Toolkit. Considering the LM dictionary, the frequency of tokens matching with dictionary is computed and divided by total number of words to normalize the obtained value.

This study found that NRB publishes lengthy monetary policies during economic contractions and vice versa. The tone of the policies are pessimistic most of the time. NRB’s policies are not sufficiently forward looking and complex to be comprehended by layman. Ergo, NRB shall form a team of communication experts to ensure publication of optimistic policies with appropriate linguistic features. Furthermore, publishing the minutes of monetary policy meetings will help enhance effective communication through transparency and proper functioning of expectations channel.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, no similar study has been conducted to assess the textual features of monetary policy in Nepal. And this study will be helpful to gauge the status of central bank communication in the context of emerging and least developed countries.

Using the examples of Grenadian-born Jean Augustine, the first Black Member of Parliament in Canada, and Barbados' Prime Minister Mia Mottley, the piece argues that the ethos of the Emigrant Ambassador—the collective empowerment of Black feminism, liberation, and radicalism—ushered in a new era for change abroad and in Canada, as transnational and international change was driven by Black women from the West Indies.

The author used historical research and social science theoretical frameworks to formulate conclusions, lessons learnt and steps forward for current equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI) practitioners.

Black women born in the West Indies in the mid-twentieth century were the catalysts for social justice movements in the 2010 and 2020s. Many methods used for social change in the twentieth century are applicable in the 2020s and beyond.

Research is focused on Canadian and West Indian relations but will have implications for those across the British Commonwealth.

Practitioners and students of EDI will have a new tool on how to approach and confront anti-Black racism, particularly after May 25, 2020.

This article provides opportunities to support the dwindling efforts of anti-racism to support the lives of Black people across the Black Atlantic.

This is an original article built on previous scholarship of the author.

In the past 10 years, the scale of running events in China has increased dramatically, and the forms of running events have also become rich and diverse. Running is not only a social phenomenon but also a historical and cultural phenomenon as an organic part of human culture with its own sociological values in China. This chapter offers insight into the development of Chinese running culture and how this has emerged from ancient and modern Chinese running cultures based on Foucault's disciplinary power theory, biopower and the technologies of the self. This chapter argues that running culture in China constructs the subjectivity of the Chinese runners under the joint action of the technologies of power and the technologies of the self. The findings acknowledge how Chinese Runners present and express themselves by showing a ‘sense of presence’. Runners illustrate the implicit or explicit meaning and value of a particular way of life through running. Runners regard running as the technology of the self for self-expression and self-creation so that individuals can control their bodies and soul, thoughts, behaviours and ways of existence. Emerging technologies of power provide possibilities for the production of running culture in China, and the current policy under the technologies of power meets the needs of runners. In Chinese running culture, power was not oppressive but productive.

Challenging behaviour among school pupils has been the focus of extensive research in the UK and beyond; however, there has been a lack of recent comparable research on these issues in the further education (FE) sector. This paper aims to report the findings from a larger PhD research examining the introduction of interventions based on restorative justice implemented in colleges. This study focuses on the extent and nature of challenging student behaviour, as explained and understood by the students and staff.

The author used an interpretivist exploratory case study design and mixed qualitative research methods. The institute considered in the case study, Restorative College (pseudonymised), has education provisions for students aged 16+ years and enrols over 16,000 students annually. In the academic year 2017/2018, Restorative College committed itself to becoming a “restorative” institution. Data collection consisted of three stages (including semi-structured interviews, analyses of institutional policy documents and focus group discussions) and was conducted over 14 months.

The extent and nature of challenging student behaviours in the FE sector are significant and merit further research and analysis to support policy development.

Given the research methods adopted (single case study and qualitative research), the findings do not necessarily represent experiences across the FE sector.

This study emphasises the need to expand research on challenging behaviour in the FE sector, which has been limited thus far, also making a contribution in this direction.