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Despite large bodies of research related to the impacts of e-commerce on last-mile logistics and sustainability, there has been limited effort to evaluate urban freight using an equity lens. Therefore, this study proposes a modeling framework that enables researchers and planners to estimate the baseline equity performance of a major e-commerce platform and evaluate equity impacts of possible urban freight management strategies. The study also analyzes the sensitivity of various operational decisions to mitigate bias in the analysis.

The model adapts empirical methodologies from activity-based modeling, transport equity evaluation, and residential freight trip generation (RFTG) to estimate person- and household-level delivery demand and cargo van traffic exposure in 41 U.S. Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs).

Evaluating 12 measurements across varying population segments and spatial units, the study finds robust evidence for racial and socio-economic inequities in last-mile delivery for low-income and, especially, populations of color (POC). By the most conservative measurement, POC are exposed to roughly 35% more cargo van traffic than white populations on average, despite ordering less than half as many packages. The study explores the model’s utility by evaluating a simple scenario that finds marginal equity gains for urban freight management strategies that prioritize line-haul efficiency improvements over those improving intra-neighborhood circulations.

Presents a first effort in building a modeling framework for more equitable decision-making in last-mile delivery operations and broader city planning.

We propose a risk factor for idiosyncratic entropy and explore the relationship between this factor and expected stock returns.

We estimate a cross-sectional model of expected entropy that uses several common risk factors to predict idiosyncratic entropy.

We find a negative relationship between expected idiosyncratic entropy and returns. Specifically, the Carhart alpha of a low expected entropy portfolio exceeds the alpha of a high expected entropy portfolio by −2.37% per month. We also find a negative and significant price of expected idiosyncratic entropy risk using the Fama-MacBeth cross-sectional regressions. Interestingly, expected entropy helps us explain the idiosyncratic volatility puzzle that stocks with high idiosyncratic volatility earn low expected returns.

We propose a risk factor of idiosyncratic entropy and explore the relationship between this factor and expected stock returns. Interestingly, expected entropy helps us explain the idiosyncratic volatility puzzle that stocks with high idiosyncratic volatility earn low expected returns.

Bootstrapping is a practitioner-based term adopted in entrepreneurship to describe the techniques employed in micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) to minimise the need for external funding by securing resources at little or no cost and applying strategies to effectively use resources. Working capital management (WCM) is a term used in financial management to define a set of practices used to manage business resources, including cash management. This paper explores the overlap and divergence between these two disciplinary distinct concepts.

A dual methodology is employed. First, the usage of the two terms in prior literature is analysed and synthesised. Second, the study uses factor analysis to explore how bootstrapping practices described by owners of 167 established MSMEs relate to the components of WCM in financial management.

The factor analysis identifies two main bootstrapping practices employed by MSMEs: (1) delaying payments and owner-related bootstrapping and (2) customer-related bootstrapping. Delaying payments is an integral practice in trade payables management and customer-related bootstrapping includes practices that are integral to trade receivables management. Therefore, links between bootstrapping practices and WCM practices are firmly established.

The study is not without limitations. Based on cross-sectional evidence for established firms in Ireland only, future studies could explore cross-country longitudinal panel data to fully examine life cycle and sectoral effects, as well as other external shocks (for example, COVID-19) on bootstrapping and WCM practices. This study does not explain why some factors (for example, joint utilisation and inventory management) are present in some bootstrapping studies and not in others; further case study research might help explain this. Finally, changes in the business environment facing start-ups and established enterprise, including increased digitalisation, online trading, self-employment, remote hub working and sustainability, offer new avenues for bootstrapping research.

This is the first study to comprehensively explore the conceptual and empirical links between bootstrapping and WCM. This study will enable researchers and practitioners in these two distinct disciplines to learn from each other. Accounting researchers and practitioners can broaden their understanding of how WCM “works” in MSME settings. Similarly, entrepreneurship researchers and practitioners can deepen their understanding of how bootstrapping can be adopted by businesses to manage resources effectively.

The purpose of the article is to outline the insights provided by Alan Fox in Man Mismanagement in relation to the rise of the New Right political economy and the spread of unitarist managerialism. The article assesses the contemporary work and employment relations implications of mismanagement arising from a “second wave” of the New Right ideology from 2010 in the UK.

Responding to the Special Issue on Alan Fox, the article focuses on Alan Fox's book Man Mismanagement, considering industrial relations developments arising between the 1st (1974b) and 2nd (1985) editions relating to the political rise of the New Right. It reviews various literature that illustrates the contemporary IR relevance of the book and Fox's insights.

The New Right’s ideology has further fragmented work, disjointed labour rights and undermined collective industrial relations institutions, and macho mismanagement praxis is even more commonplace, compared to when Fox wrote Man Mismanagement. The stripping away of the institutional architecture of IR renders the renewal of pluralist praxis, like collective bargaining and other forms of joint regulation of work, a formidable task.

The value of the article relates to the identification of dramatic historical industrial relations events and change in the UK in Alan Fox's book Man Mismanagement, most notably relating to the rise to power of the Thatcherite New Right in 1979. Originality is evidenced by the authors’ drawing on Fox's ideas and assessing the implications of the “second wave” of the New Right in the contemporary industrial relations (IR) context of the 2020s under the conceptual themes of fragmented work, disjointed labour rights and undermined collectivism.