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The importance of financial assets in the determination of a company's market value is decreasing fast and it is equally recognised that non‐financial (or intangible) assets are now the main drivers of performance and market value. To date, however, there exists little or no objective, quantitative measures of intangible assets, and where they are claimed to exist (e.g. in the valuation of brands, intellectual property, patents, etc.) they are very specific and limited in scope. Based on the seminal work by Leif Edvinsson at Skandia AFS, the present authors have developed a model for identifying and quantifying intangibles as components of intellectual capital (IC). This model serves to evaluate a company's return on all the capital it employs, helping to explain the difference between book and market value. It also provides guidance as to how and where management should put its attention to grow the organization's overall IC. The 4‐Leaf Model^® identifies the sources of added value and competitive advantage in businesses and in particular of virtual organizations – collaborative networks of otherwise independent economic entities – that build their business models around the Internet using minimal financial assets. The quantification of IC will be illustrated using examples of information and communication technology and financial services companies.

Value‐at‐Risk (VaR) has become a mainstream risk management technique employed by a large proportion of financial institutions. There exists a substantial amount of research dealing with this task, most commonly referred to as VaR backtesting. A new generation of “self‐learning” VaR models (Conditional Autoregressive Value‐at‐Risk or CAViaR) combine backtesting results with ex ante VaR estimates in an ARIMA framework in order to forecast P/L distributions more accurately. In this commentary, the authors present a systematic overview of several classes of applied statistical techniques that can make VaR backtesting more comprehensive and provide valuable insights into the analytical properties of VaR models in various market environments. In addition, they discuss the challenges associated with extending traditional backtesting approaches for VaR horizons longer than one day and propose solutions to this important problem.

The purpose of this essay is to argue that, for Veblen, the contribution of advertising to mature business enterprise was crucial. Although Thorstein Veblen’s Theory of the Leisure Class is widely credited with introducing the concept of “conspicuous consumption”, that book is silent on the contribution of the sales effort – or advertising – to such consumption. One must turn to Veblen’s later writings on the business system to find an analysis of advertising within oligopoly capitalism, what Veblen called the system of “absentee ownership”. At the beginning of the twentieth century business faced looming threats of technological progress and democratic discontent. The material prospect of accelerating productivity might soon “end the struggle or lessen the strain” of economic life; democracy might insist that the industrial system serve social needs in efficient ways. To ward off such challenges, business developed a two-prong approach to perpetuate scarcity: carefully managed control of output and an increasingly insistent, rationalized and expensive sales effort. The growth of advertising reflected a systematic expenditure of energy, talent and resources on a misdirection of human effort, one whose chief effect was to prolong “the strain” of everyday life in futile pursuit of waste. Whether such irrationality could be sustained indefinitely, or whether it might finally undermine the society that propels its pursuit, is an issue that Veblen raises, but to which he refuses to give any final answer.

The paper analyzes the full range of Veblen’s theoretical writings on consumption, technology and the sales effort.

The paper insists that Veblen is the first radical political economist to provide a systematic critical analysis of advertising as an essential element of mature capitalism.

The paper connects Veblen’s earliest thinking on “conspicuous consumption” to his mature analysis of advertising in the functioning of business enterprise. It will enrich understanding among academics and students, scholars of marketing and economic and social theorists, of Veblen’s critical analysis of the evolution of consumption, production and business enterprise.

This article’s indented contribution is to provide novel theoretical insights and empirical observations on “who gets what” in the way of incomes, including wages. The article challenges the conventional wisdom about stratification, especially power and status, as an outcome or function of economic distribution. It posits that income distribution is conditional on pre‐existing social stratification expressed in antecedent differences in class, power, status and related factors.

Dewey, through his contributions to pragmatism (America’s sole original philosophy), has long been considered relative to symbolic interactionism (SI), which emerged from that philosophy. His impact on SI, while falling short of those of Mead and Cooley, has mainly come from (and has been limited to) concepts and insights developed in Human Nature and Conduct: An Introduction to Social Psychology (1922/1957) and his earlier, seminal, article, “The Reflex Arc Concept in Psychology,” published in 1896 during his tenure at the University of Chicago (1894–1904). SI, however, has wrongly ignored Dewey’s political theory, especially his concept of domination. In order to rectify this inattention, I summarize the social and historical contexts that motivated Dewey’s turn toward domination; outline the radical nature of his political theory; illustrate similarities of his political theory with Marx’s; expatiate on his concept of domination, including his argument for social practices to reduce surplus domination; and explicate the theoretical and political implications of taking his political theory seriously.

Implementing the sustainable development goals (SDGs) has proven a significant challenge for companies. While multinational enterprises (MNEs) have shown a real intention to contribute to these goals, they face major barriers in implementing the SDGs in their core business strategies. Extant academic studies on this phenomenon have primarily explored why companies “should” address the SDG agenda but have not (yet) explored what “works,” what does not “work,” and why. Therefore, evidence of a sizable gap between intention and realization is growing. Besides, there is a limited explanation for the existence of this gap and no validated implementation models that could help overcome it. Additionally, management research remains relatively fragmented. The diversity of existing theoretical and empirical frameworks makes it difficult to consolidate scientific and practical insights on “how” to guide companies to accelerate the global goals through their core operations.

This study is one of the first attempts to draw lessons from extant research on effective SDGs’ implementation strategies. For that, we upgrade the “SDG Compass,” which has been recognized as a leading framework for SDGs implementation in companies’ core activities. A critical assessment of the literature on the SDGs implementation has been conducted through a systematic literature review (SLR) and bibliometric analysis. This has helped us identify gaps in the SDG implementation practice and accumulate relevant insights supporting a more integrated and upgraded implementation framework: the SDG Compass+. This framework can advance coordinated theoretical and practical research by identifying the antecedents and critical factors of impactful SDG implementation strategies.

Sustainable development requires businesses to improve their positive and reduce their negative impacts. This chapter discusses how the impact of business on sustainable development can be measured and managed using the sustainable development goals (SDGs). First, it introduces two complementary approaches for measuring impact: a top-down approach that departs from the economic activities that companies undertake; and a bottom-up approach that defines the impacts of individual companies. Second, it argues that companies can manage their impacts on the SDGs through a nexus approach. Instead of treating SDGs as isolated silos, a nexus approach aims to advance multiple SDGs simultaneously (creating co-benefits) while reducing the risk that contributions to one SDG undermine progress on another (avoiding trade-offs).

This article examines relationships between capitalism and democracy as perceived by contending perspectives within the liberal capitalist‐liberal democratic tradition(s). Bentham and the Mills are taken as initiating both this tradition and the core elements of the debate within it. Pre‐Benthamite theories are first reviewed. Then, after discussion of Bentham and James Mill and of John Stuart Mill, Mill's late nineteenth and early twentieth century successors are examined. We then go on to consider hypotheses concerning the “exceptional” quality of relationships between capitalism and democracy in the United States. The penultimate section of the article adumbrates the main contours of mid‐twentieth century pluralist‐elitist theories. We conclude with a summary.

The global biofuels sector has expanded rapidly in the past decade, with feedstock expansion penetrating many tropical areas. While the emerging demand for biofuels represents an opportunity for developing countries, it also poses a host of social and environmental risks. Large investments are needed to finance expansion of biofuel and feedstock production, suggesting that the financial sector may have a crucial role to play in mitigating these risks. This paper seeks to explore the role of financiers in expanding biofuel feedstock production and refining in tropical forest‐rich countries of Africa, Asia and Latin America to better understand the role and future potential of responsible finance in the biofuel sector.

The analysis draws on published data and reports from academia, industry, governments, civil society and the press, to quantify the magnitude and source of investments made from 2000‐2010 in 16 countries sampled from “ecoregions” subject to high rates of forest conversion, weak land tenure institutions, and vulnerable communities.

It is found that the case study countries received USD 5.3‐7.3 billion for feedstock production and USD 5.7‐6.7 billion for biofuel refining between 2000 and 2009. This was financed by a mix of entrepreneurs, private banks, investors, governments and multilateral banks. While no clear patterns emerge, foreign banks and institutional investors rank as “important” for most feedstocks and regions. Multilateral banks and domestic institutional investors seem to be the least important. Few financiers have criteria in place in order to ensure sustainable investing practices, and those who do tend to have policies of limited quality.

While much has been written on biofuel sustainability and governance, there is little research that delineates the nature of investment and finance in the sector.