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This paper aims to trace and/or historicise modernisation as a conceptual framework from the antecedents to present times. It also highlights the recent and past attention provided to modernisation by business and economic history scholars to recognise their contribution.

This paper is a literature review which offers a sample of debate from foundational scholars regarding the concept of modernisation emanating from sociologists, historians and business scholars. To present an analysis of the recent activity from business scholars on modernisation from highly recognizable journals and draw conclusions about the conceptual framework regarding its future as a framing device, the authors used search functions in the Business Source Complete database and specific journal search engines.

A keyword search of modernisation produced 45 published articles from 2000 to 2016 in business-related history and Financial Times top 50 journals. The foremost recognizable aspect of modernisation, as a construct presented here, demonstrates the concept that aims to illustrate a basic and/or universal pattern of the social processes that primarily affect development (e.g. cultural, economic, organisational, ecological, technological, etc.). Moreover, the authors demonstrate that economic and business scholars helped identify and explain different types of modernisation, reinforce or connect specific characteristics to modernisation, develop modernisation as an index capable of measurement and provide evidence of modernisation as a rhetorical strategy.

Little to no previous studies on modernisation emphasised on the contribution of business and economic historians; instead, they focused on the contributions of sociologists and social historians. Business and management historians served as an important voice in the development of modernisation as a conceptual frame. They highlighted the opportunities that are available to position modernisation as a useful tool to predict the future of traditional and advanced organisations.

Perhaps the weakest dimension of the ‘triple bottom line’ understanding of sustainable development has been the ‘economic’ dimension. Much of the thinking about the appropriate ‘political economy’ to underpin sustainable development has been either utopian (as in some ‘green’ political views) or ‘business as usual’ approaches. This chapter suggests that ‘ecological modernisation’ is the dominant conceptualisation of ‘sustainable development’ within the United Kingdom and illustrates this by looking at some key ‘sustainable development’ policy documents from the UK Government. Although critical of the reformist ‘policy telos’ of ecological modernisation, supporters of more radical version of sustainable development also need to be aware of the strategic opportunities of this policy discourse. In particular, the chapter suggests that the discourse of ‘economic security’ ought to be used as a way of articulating a radical, robust and principled understanding of sustainable development, which offers a normatively compelling and policy-relevant path to outline a ‘green political economy’ to underpin sustainable development.

The chapter studies the problems of formation of regional mechanisms of modernization and development of infrastructure of regions and the country, which are determined by complexity of attracting private capital in financing of infrastructure, which is limited by a long return period and the level of profitability of projects. The mechanism of public–private partnership is offered, which allows leveling high risks of implementation of infrastructural projects under guidance of the state. Also, the methodology of foresight control is studied, which is the last stage of modernization and development of infrastructure of regions and the country, as innovational tools of forecasting the future, which is aimed at leveling the risks, allows determining and neutralizing the danger of nontarget usage of invested financial resources, and seeing the threats to internal environment and external environment.

The purpose of this paper is to explain three phases of modernisation change in the Sydney water sector from the early 1980s to 2007 and comments on how those phases of change are likely to be impacting the nascent development of water management processes in Sydney‐based water consuming organisations.

A framework of modernisation reform in the Sydney water sector has been determined through literature review.

This paper demonstrates that only moderate modernisation reform occurred in the Sydney water sector in the period from the early 1980s to 2007 tempered by water scarcity and a thrust to sustainability. As a result of these reforms, it is argued that water management processes in water consuming organisations are likely to have accelerated into the early 2000s.

This paper calls for empirical research to understand why organisations in the Sydney region have recently developed water management practices.

This paper contributes to an understanding of the impact of modernisation reform in the Sydney water sector from the early 1980s to 2007 and provides insight into the factors driving water management practices in water consuming organisations.

This paper provides public sector and environmental management researchers with an examination of modernisation reform in the Sydney water sector and relates this to the development of water management objectives in water consuming organisations.

The purpose of this paper is to use the theoretical insights provided by reflexive modernisation in examining the effects of globalisation on the development policies and trajectories of India.

After a presentation of the main ideas and concepts of reflexive modernisation and globalisation, the principal characteristics of the reflexive modernisation of India are identified and discussed.

This paper demonstrates that the development path taken by India is characterised by ambiguity, contradiction, and paradox. There is much doubt, uncertainty, and debate in academic, political, and social forums about whether India is on the right development path, as the nation attempts to graft western‐style capitalist structures and technologies on to traditional ways of life. Indeed, in its drive towards economic development and enhanced social well‐being India is at the same time compromising that development and wellbeing through the production of risks.

There are two main limitations of this paper. The first relates to reflexive modernisation. It is a much discussed and controversial theory that requires further enhancement, particularly with regard to developing nations. The second relates specifically to India in that it is difficult to make generalisations about such a diverse nation.

In spite of its limitations, reflexive modernisation offers a sound theoretical foundation for alternative perspectives and policy approaches to development. As developing nations such as India engage with global economic, cultural, and political structures and institutions, they are at the same time transforming and being transformed by the influences that these structures and institutions exert.

The purpose of this paper is to substantiate the importance of an educational platform for digital modernization of modern Russia’s regions in Industry 4.0 and to determine the functions and conceptual foundations of organization of regional market of educational services for execution of functions for stimulation of digital modernization of Russia’s regional economy.

The authors use the method of regression analysis for studying the influence of the indicators of adaptation of the market of educational services to the conditions of Industry 4.0 on efficiency of digital modernization of economy of the regions of the Volga Federal District of the Russian Federation as of late 2018-early 2019. The information and empirical basis of the paper is materials of the index “Digital Russia” of the Moscow School of Management “Skolkovo.”

It is determined that the market of educational services plays an important role in the process of transition of regions of modern Russia to Industry 4.0, performing two functions: training of personnel who are capable of working with digital technologies and training of personnel who are capable of creating new digital technologies at a region’s companies. As a result, the educational platform of digital modernization of the regional economy is formed. The developed conceptual foundations of an organization of the regional market of educational services for execution of its functions on stimulating the digital modernization of Russia’s regional economy allow for three variants of the process of training of personnel: within execution of the order of partner companies in a regional technological park, within participation of the region’s companies in a tender for training of personnel and within an independent initiation of the process of training of personnel by universities based on the results of digital marketing.

The offered authors’ recommendations ensure the following advantages during the creation and development of the educational platform of a region’s digital modernization in Industry 4.0: high marketing activity of universities, direct sequence of training of personnel and improved treatment of the effectiveness of regional universities as the ratio of efficiency in personnel training to expenditures, which stimulates competition between universities and maximization of effectiveness of educational platform of a region’s digital modernization in Industry 4.0.

Contextualizing its argument specifically into the role and impact of the traditional political culture on the process of modernization, this paper aims to examine the “culture matters” approach through the two‐century experience of the top‐down modernization of the Ottoman‐Turkish civilization in the realm of state‐labor relations.

The paper makes a comparative analysis of the interplay between the state and craft associations in the Ottoman Empire, and then the state and labor organizations in contemporary Turkey in terms of the influence of the rules, norms and institutions transferred by the bureaucratic élites from Western Europe.

The paper concludes that a substantive democratic setting for the interplay of the state and labor organizations could not be built up without a self‐supportive political culture in view of the fact that the process of top‐down modernization/Europeanization in the Ottoman‐Turkish context has given rise to a never‐ending center‐periphery dichotomy between both inter‐class and intra‐class relationships.

The paper sheds light on the labor relations part of the Ottoman‐Turkish political culture and reveals its impact on the never‐ending top‐down modernization initiative.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the convergence and divergence aspects of the Russian modernisation experience of c.1450–c.1600 and its role in both Russian history and management history.

This study combines in-depth data collection from multiple sources such as Russian Chronicles, eyewitness accounts (mostly by foreigners) and papers in history and management. The applied methodology also includes an examination of Ivan III’s modernisation initiative and its implementation in c.1450–c.1600. The analysis is conducted with an eye to understanding the extent to which Russian experiences converged or diverged from those found in Western Europe.

Russian modernisation is usually associated with Peter the Great. Early initiatives, such as those that occurred in Russia between 1462 (the ascent of Ivan III) and 1606 (the Time of Troubles) are overlooked. This paper, however, argues that without these earlier modernisation efforts Russia would not have survived as a country. Given the central role that Russia has played in European and world history, and understanding of this period is key to comprehending the modern world and global systems of management.

This paper seeks to understand a decisive period in Russian history and Russian management, highlighting the extent to which Russian experiences both diverged and converged with those found in Western Europe.

The paper helps us to understand both the successes and problems of Russian management since the 15th century.

To the best of author’s knowledge, this study is the first to consider Russian modernisation during the period c.1400–c.1600 with an eye to current debates in convergence/divergence theory.

The purpose of this paper is to look at the process of socio-economic modernization experienced by Poland in the period following the fall of communism in 1989 through the lens of three major narratives in domestic public discourse: the neoliberal, the conservative and the social democratic. Each of them distributes differently the accents, not only as regards preferred values and directions of change but also the modality, methods and pace of their introduction.

The reflections are inspired by a constructivist approach, stressing the large impact of ideas, narrative and discourse on social change. Moreover the author proposes in the analysis his own identification of three types of modernization: from below, from above and from beyond.

At least two conclusions follow from the paper. The first asserts that across the entire 25-year period from 1989 to 2014, the most powerful presence in the discourse has been marked by the neoliberal modernization narrative, although the popularity of conservative narrative has been important too. The other conclusion can be expressed in a nutshell as a thesis that impacts “from beyond” have had greatly shaped not only particular narratives but also the very systemic transformation of Poland. Those impacts have assumed forms of various transfers (ideological, institutional, financial and policy), with important roles being played by western governments, epistemic communities and integration structures of the western world.

The following analysis of the public discourse about the modernization of Poland in the recent 25 years is an attempt to develop an original approach to the said issue from the perspective of the three narratives identified by the author. The emphasis on international factors in explaining the nature of Polish transformations after 1989 appears to be another asset of the paper.

This study defines and critically analyzes Korean high modernism using the Sewoon Sangga project as a case study, as it has significant value in Korea's urban and architectural history.

The methodology applied for this study was a theory-interpretive analysis. This study examines the modernization process of Seoul based on the concept of “high modernism,” in that the theory-interpretive analysis method analyzes historical phenomena centered on a specific concept.

As a form of national belief, the various ideas that give birth to modern cities are defined as “high modernism.” As a Korean megastructure, the Sewoon Sangga project is significant in the history of Korean urbanism and architecture because it is the archetype of Korean high modernism and is representative of South Korea's compressed economic growth. However, soon-to-be-demolished Sewoon Sangga signifies the failure of Korean high modernism. This study identified the critical characteristics of Korean high modernism through the Sewoon Sangga project.

This study analyzed a representative Asian city through the specific concept of high modernism. It transpired that high modernism, which played an important role in the birth and development of modern cities, should be transformed for future cities and architectural development. This study has significance in that it expands the study of the history of urbanism and architecture centered on the West to the same in Asia.