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Affordable and clean energy as well as regulation and decrease in emissions are in the heart of sustainable development goals. In order to achieve these goals, cleaner technologies together with responsible consumption and production need to be adopted. Therefore, the knowledge, skills and habits – the human capital and increased awareness of its importance, play an important role. The relationship between sustainability and human capital has been addressed only recently. There had been two streams of literature, investigating either (i) the relationship of human capital and the economic growth, or (ii) the nexus of economic growth and sustainability, without realizing the interconnectedness of these concepts. In this chapter, the authors add contribution to this scarce, yet growing body of literature by investigating the relationship between human capital (measured by Index of human capital) and two measures of sustainability: electricity use and CO₂ emissions for a panel of European Union Member States. The authors show that the increase in human capital is associated with the decrease in energy consumption and CO₂ emissions and therefore is associated with the increase in sustainability. This chapter bears important policy implications since it shows that the human capital, its stock and quality, should be included in the sustainability discussions and is important for achieving the sustainability goals.

Since 2009, different challenge-based learning (CBL) activities have been implemented at Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (UPM), with a shared objective: provide the students a learning experience that covers the acquisition of technical knowledge, soft skills, and other generic competences, while bringing them closer to the current technologies and industry. The shared background of these activities is the participation of Master's students of aerospace engineering in the preliminary design of a space mission. During the 18/19 academic year, the UPM participated in the 2018 ESA Concurrent Engineering Challenge (ESA CEC), where the students complemented their technical knowledge with dedicated training in Concurrent Engineering and learnt how ESA assesses the feasibility of real space missions. This experience further motivated the organization of the UPM CEC, which was first executed in the 19/20 academic year (and is expected to be carried out in future courses). After a decade implementing CBL, different research methodologies and instruments have been used to evaluate its impact on different aspects of the learning process. In this chapter, we describe the main CBL activities performed, focusing on the instruments used to evaluate them. We draw attention to the main advantages and disadvantages of implementing CBL from a learning perspective, as well as the associated impact in the student's motivation and student–teacher relationship. In many cases, different teaching scenarios are assessed, thus making it possible to compare CBL against traditional methods.

This chapter presents a theoretical reflection on the possible impact of politicians' positive Word of Mouth (pWOM) on the tourists' risk perception and destination image of Portugal in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. The reflection is based on the collection of remarks or comments made by international politicians collected using Google as the search engine and subsequent manual textual content analysis. The results show five recurring themes in the politicians' pWOM: general praise, pandemic numbers, politician positioning, health care and population attitude. The discussion includes a reflection on the outputs of the channels used for the dissemination of the messages and the importance of the politicians' countries of origin to a market strategy that highlights Portugal as a tourism destination.

This chapter analyses the development of oleotourism through the use of local resources in a democratised decision-making process. It explains that the production of olive oil is making a novel contribution to the tourism industry. The authors suggest that oleotourism is also offering opportunities for stakeholder engagement. Therefore, the authors identify key elements that serve as drivers for the development of oleotourism in Jaén. They put forward a framework that can lead to a democratised decision-making process that is intended to support the stakeholders of oleotourism.

Purpose – This study focuses on the relationship between local governments and public sector joint ventures (JVs). Public sector JVs are separate administrative entities that undertake public service activities on behalf of local governments. The aim of this study is to examine the vertical management control packages that are used by local governments to control the relationship with their public sector JVs.

Design/methodology/approach – Two case studies have been conducted in two public sector JVs, owned jointly by more than 20 local governments. The analysis of the two cases is informed by an integrated conceptual framework describing how transactional and relational factors influence control, trust, and risk in the context of public sector JVs.

Findings – The case studies provide a nuanced understanding of the interplay between the vertical management control packages, trust between the parents and the public sector JVs, and risks as perceived by the local governments. The case findings not only reveal how local governments struggle with adequate outcome control but also highlight how and why they rely on behavioral control. A related finding is that while the probability of poor business performance does not have a significant impact on the design of the vertical control packages, the social impact of failure has the potential to create a sense of urgency with regard to changes in the design of vertical management control packages.

Originality/value – This study adds to the literature on interorganizational relationships by providing insight into the use of vertical management control packages in the specific, but relevant, setting of public sector JVs.

Financial contagion refers to the propagation of shocks that can generate widespread failures. The authors apply a financial contagion model proposed by Elliott, Golub, and Jackson (2014) to a cross-shareholding network of firms in Ecuador. The authors use a novel dataset to study the potential channels for contagion. Although diversification is not high, results reveal enough conditions for a contagion event to occur. However, the low level of integration attenuates the effects of shocks. The authors run simulations affecting a particular firm at the time, and find that two firms coming from the finance and trade industry cause the highest contagion. In addition, when an entire industry receives a shock, trade and manufacturing industries contagion more companies than the rest. Finally, the model can assist policymakers to monitor the market and evaluate the fragility of the network in different scenarios.

• Learn about ethical dilemmas in retailing with the advances in artificial intelligence (AI)

• Be able to reflect critically about the use and potential misuse of AI within the retailing industry

• Learn about the history of AI

• Be able to define and classify AI

Learn about ethical dilemmas in retailing with the advances in artificial intelligence (AI)

Be able to reflect critically about the use and potential misuse of AI within the retailing industry

Learn about the history of AI

Be able to define and classify AI

The growing displacement of theory and other forms of wide-ranging knowledge of social phenomena by empirical research methods in economics is widely noted by economists and historians of economic knowledge. Less attention has been devoted, however, to understand the materialization of such changes in the scientific practices. This article studies the recent transformations in the epistemological practices at CEDE, a research center in Colombia. I use a machine learning technique called Topic Modeling, interviews to CEDE researchers, and exegesis of papers to characterize a shift in the production of knowledge in microeconometrics at CEDE during the years 2000 and 2018. I explain this shift by characterizing two sets of epistemological practices that implies a recent tendency to disdain research that cannot make a “strong” causal inference.

Purpose: The first objective is to explore how narcotelenovelas and news can be compared in their representation of drug violence and figures. The second is to explore a method which identifies intertextual references in fiction by contrasting them with journalistic reports. Methodology/approach: Qualitative content analysis is of three narcotelenovelas: El Señor de los Cielos, El Chapo, and Narcos: México. After documenting clear historical references and figures, a search was made through news engines and portals to make a comparison of the fictional versus journalistic representation of such references. Findings: Many elements of narcotelenovelas such as events and public figures are highly comparable to those described in news. While producers openly warn that they changed facts for dramatic purposes, it’s possible to propose hypotheses in which audiences construct their historical memories based on fictional narratives. Research limitations: This chapter does not offer an exhaustive list of intertextual references from all three narcotelenovelas. Originality/value: This type of comparative analysis between fiction and journalism hasn’t been explored for the study of narcoculture media products. The author poses a hypothesis, in which fiction contributes significantly to collective memories and imaginaries, especially when it appeals to historical references audiences might identify.