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In this chapter, we argue that the four songs we hear on 3rd April 2016 serve as both background music and a means of revealing the inner world of Helen and Rob.

In this study, we produce mean-variance efficient portfolios for various universes in the U.S. equity market, and show that the use of a composite of analyst earnings forecast, revisions, and breadth variable as a portfolio tilt variable and an R&D quadratic term enhances stockholder wealth. The use of the R&D screen creates portfolios in which total active return generally rise relative to the use of the analyst variable. Stock selection may not necessarily rise as risk index and sector index returns are affected by the use of the R&D quadratic term. R&D expenditures of corporations may be integrated into a mean-variance efficient portfolio creation system to enhance stockholder returns and wealth. The use of an R&D variable enhances stockholder wealth relative to the use of capital expenditures or dividends as the quadratic term. The stockholder return implications of the R&D quadratic variable are particularly interesting given that most corporations allocate more of their resources to capital expenditures than R&D.

This chapter considers the environmental damage related to Ireland’s recent ‘ghost estates’, placing this disastrous waste of resources in the long historical context of ancient ruins that also dot the land.

It considers ruins from an ecocritical perspective, as material artefacts attesting directly to people’s relationship with their environment.

From ancient megaliths and sacred sites to imposing castles, Ireland’s impressive ruins ignite romantic reflections in many. Yet, just like the modern ruins of ghost estates, they also tell of an often oppressive relationship between human cultures and the natural environment. Ironically perhaps, stone circles and tombs that seem to speak of people living in much closer relation to non-human nature than we moderns do are also associated with the environmental scourge of deforestation. Yet, they at least stand testament to an ethic of timelessness and robust building, as well as resistance to a seemingly irresistible process of capitalistic modernisation; the recent ruins are devoid of such ethical commitments. Given this, however, creative responses should also be noted to the logic of the ghost estates, including Cloughjordan’s Ecovillage and the NamaLab project.

Three sets of responses that all work more realistically with a recognition of the limits of sustainable development are considered in the conclusion: Transition Towns, an Ecovillage and architectural reutilisation of defunct buildings.

The market cross was a common structure and symbol used in early markets in England and Scotland. Although its precise origin is obscure, its use appears to be connected with religious traditions. Early markets in medieval Britain, especially rural markets with no central authority present, likely faced obstacles in serving as places of trade between strangers. Many market towns and trading centers did exist at church or religious gatherings, but these might have followed pre-Christian or pagan sites, and similarly, the market cross itself may be related to the pre-Christian practice of constructing stone pillars to create trade sanctuaries or to represent a divine witness. Such structures used as religious symbols, therefore, are likely to have facilitated the emergence of impersonal markets of exchange.

Our Dublin correspondent telegraphed last night:

This chapter addresses the question how entrepreneurial synergies can be stimulated in places by leadership and network governance in the context of the knowledge economy. The chapter not only analyses the role of leadership in a regional case in the Netherlands, but also assesses to what extend place-based characteristics play a role.

The chapter is based on a case-study-analysis of the region Brainport Eindhoven. Data were collected via 27 interviews in 2 rounds (in 2008 and in 2012), and retrieved from academic literature, case documents and governmental plans.

This chapter shows the importance of knowledge leadership in creating entrepreneurial synergies in the region Brainport Eindhoven. Entrepreneurial synergies is defined here as the creation of governance conditions and a context for effective entrepreneurial activities and regional co-operation between entrepreneurs, to enhance innovation. The socio-spatial quality of this place, path-dependency and the establishment of a regional regime explain the clustering of high-tech firms in a context of pro-active policy support, embedded in a cultural tradition of public–private co-operation. Key-persons of the private sector, science, and government enabled the development by taking initiative, co-operating, framing issues and aligning people around the agenda of Brainport.

The chapter gives insights on how leaders can enhance entrepreneurial synergies rooted in place-based assets and characteristics, by using network power, resources, ‘windows of opportunity’ and by linking ideas, inspiration and individuals from different strands of the triple-helix.

Revealing normative leadership lessons – how leadership is enacted in ‘everyday’ practice – may also allow us to explain, at least to some limited extent, why some localities are able to adapt to the ever changing social and economic conditions of the modern world, and are successful in creating entrepreneurial synergies. Beyond this, deeper critical appreciations provide us with insights into the interplay between leadership, power and resources – and shed light on the questions of why and for whom economy and society are ‘organised’, in different places and at different times.

The chapter offers new insights in the importance of place and the leadership dimension in the context of the continuing debate around the effectiveness of sub-national economic development policy for the so-called ‘knowledge era’.