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Michael Brown argues that what unites the human and social sciences is their evolving character, made explicit in the concepts of “reflexivity,” “course of activity,” and “theorizing.” Once the social sciences are taken as a whole, the notion of “sociality” will allow to grasp society as ever changing, as a becoming. I shall examine the notion of sociality in the literary criticism of Lukács, Goldmann, and Adorno, three authors who consider the essay as the adequate open form of critique in times of rapid social change. Originally adopted by the young Lukács, the essay tended to be abandoned by him when elaborating the concept of critical or socialist realism as a repository of timeless cultural values. In his studies in the European realist or the soviet novel, for example, on Balzac, Stendhal, Thomas Mann, or Solzhenitsyn, the dialectical concept of social totality becomes a sum of orientations, presenting the individual writer with the moral task to choose “progress” and discard “negativity.” The social is thus narrowed to individual choice. Different from Lukács, Goldmann's literary theory defines cultural production as a matter of the social group, the transindividual subject. Goldmann was deeply marked by Lukács's early writings from which he gained notably the notion of tragedy and the concept of maximum possible consciousness—the world vision of a social group which structures the work of a writer. Cultural creation is resistance to capitalist society, as evident in the literature of absence, Malraux's novels, and the nouveau roman. In the writings of Adorno the social is lodged within the avant-garde, provided that one takes its means and procedures literally, e.g., the writings of Kafka. By formal innovation—among others the adoption of the essay, the small form, the fragment—art exercises criticism of the ongoing rationalization process and preserves the possibility of change (p. 319).

In the new development stage of comprehensively building a socialist modern state, it is imperative to adhere to the guidance of Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era, comprehensively summarize China's practical experiences in economic development, strengthen research on capital issues, construct theories of socialist political economy with Chinese characteristics regarding capital and provide scientific theoretical guidance for further promoting the positive role of various types of capital while preventing and overcoming their negative effects, which is a major theoretical issue and a glorious task for the theoretical and economic circles in China.

From the perspective of Marx's theory on capital and historical development, modern capital represents the organizational mode of socialized mass production and market economy. It serves as both the economic foundation of bourgeois society and a tool for socialist economic development.

The market economy represents an inevitable historical stage and form of socialist economic development, necessitating the adoption of capital as an organizational form within socialist economies.

The utilization of capital to advance a socialist economy is a remarkable achievement by the CPC and Chinese people, representing a significant innovation in both theory and practice. The role of capital is inherently dual under any social condition. In the context of a socialist system, capital can play a positive role effectively, and its behavior can be guided and regulated correctly to curb its negative or even destructive impact.

The purpose of this paper is to uncover the right type of organizational slack for innovation. It examines how city managers conceive slack, and how they create slack to facilitate innovation while dealing with fiscal stress.

The study is built around a comparative case study approach to uncover contrasts, similarities and patterns of slack-building for innovation in austere times. It relies on the experiences of 12 experienced city managers. Data are sought from elite interviews and one focus group.

The main finding is that innovation in the public sector does not benefit from slack in general, but from a specific type of slack. The evidence shows that useful slack for innovation is not so much about financial slack or HR slack, but about psychological slack.

This study adds to the literature that the key questions of slack research should not only focus on identifying the “right amount” of slack but also on identifying of the “right type” of slack.

Public managers who want to deal with (fiscal) crises more innovatively might reconsider their perceptions of slack and its value. Rather than operating on a pure cost effectiveness paradigm, they should balance the costs of slack and its innovative abilities.

This paper highlights the social/psychological side of austerity management. It concludes that increasing the ability of public organizations to innovatively cope with fiscal stress is not so much about increasing predictive capacity or financial buffers, but about increasing the mental leeway of coworkers.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the emotional contagion theory in print ads, and expand the literature of smiling to different type of smiles and gender congruency. Emotional contagion happens when an emotion is transferred from a sender to a receiver by the synchronization of emotions from the emitter. Drawing on emotional contagion theory, the authors expand this concept and propose that smiles in static facial expressions influence product evaluation. They suggest that false smiles do not have the same impact as genuine smiles on product evaluation, and the congruence between the model gender–product in a static ad and the gender of the viewer moderates the effects.

In Experiment 1, subjects were randomly assigned to view one of the two ad treatments to guard against systematic error (e.g. bias). In Experiment 2, it was investigated whether viewing a static ad featuring a model with a false smile can result in a positive product evaluation as was the case with genuine smiles (H3). In Experiment 3, it was assumed that when consumers evaluate an ad featuring a smiling face, the facial expression influences product evaluation, and this influence is moderated by the congruence between the gender of the ad viewer and the product H gender of the model in the ad.

Across three experiments, the authors found that the model’s facial expression influenced the product evaluation. Second, they supported the association between a model’s facial expression and mimicry synchronization. Third, they showed that genuine smiles have a higher impact on product evaluation than false smiles. This novel result enlarges the research on genuine smiles to include false smiles. Fourth, the authors supported the gender–product congruence effect in that the gender of the ad’s reader and the model have a moderating effect on the relationship between the model’s facial expression and the reader’s product evaluation.

Marketing managers would benefit from understanding that genuine smiles can encourage positive emotions on the part of consumers via emotional contagion, which would be very useful to create a positive effect on products. The authors improved upon previous psychological theory (Gunnery et al., 2013; Hennig-Thurau et al., 2006) showing that a genuine smile results in higher evaluation scores of products presented in static ads. The theoretical explanation for this effect is the genuine smile, which involves contraction of both zygomatic major and orbicularis oculi muscles. These facial muscles can be better perceived and transmit positive emotions (Hennig-Thurau et al., 2006).

After the COVID-19 outbreak began, travel demand dropped sharply and the potential impact of COVID-19 on sharing accommodations appears to be significant. Thus, it would be meaningful to investigate how travelers have changed their perceptions of staying at sharing accommodations in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic. The purpose of this research was to compare consumers' perceived risks of using sharing accommodations, such as Airbnb, before and during the coronavirus pandemic.

Paired sample t-tests were applied, using two surveys collected in 2017 (pre-pandemic) and 2020 (peri-pandemic). The effects of stress levels from COVID-19 and previous experience with sharing lodging services on risk perception changes were also examined.

Consumers showed higher social, physical, performance and convenience risk perceptions during the pandemic. Not surprisingly, those respondents who were more conscious of the pandemic in terms of concern and anxiety had higher changes in their risk perceptions. In addition, changes in risk perception differed by consumers' usage experience.

The results of this study add to the body of knowledge about consumers' risk perceptions of the sharing economy, particularly in connection with a huge disruption such as the COVID-19 pandemic.