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We compare environmental impacts associated with incoming foreign direct investment versus domestic capital in China. We use aggregate data on Chinese provinces’ economic and pollution indicators to explore the effects of the financial origin of fixed capital. Our simultaneous models consider three prime channels through which these effects work: economic scale, sectoral composition, and pollution intensity. Results show that emissions associated with foreign financed capital are lower than with domestically financed capital for some but not all of the considered types of pollution.

This chapter is a descriptive and exploratory study of the challenges and opportunities faced by franchisors in adapting their franchise systems to accommodate cultural diversity among franchisees. It uses literature on migrant entrepreneurs and cultural diversity in small business settings in the United Kingdom, Europe, and the Americas as a basis for application to a franchising context. Triggered by events in the Australian franchising sector over the past two years, in which franchise systems have been embroiled in controversial and illegal activities undertaken by franchisees – many of whom were business migrants – the research begins to unravel the complexities of utilizing migrant franchisees as vehicles of system growth. Two sources of data provide indicative evidence about the issues associated with migrant franchisees. Firstly, two surveys of franchisors were conducted in 2014 and 2016 to obtain descriptive data about the incidence of migrants as franchisees. Secondly, a series of focus groups provided insights into the challenges and opportunities faced by franchisors in recruiting and managing migrant franchisees. Tentative findings of best practice in accommodating migrant franchisees are revealed. This research begins to fill an important gap in the literature about cultural diversity in franchising.

Purpose – This study provides insight on how Sub-Sahara African (SSA) countries can ameliorate the impact of environmental pollution in the face of increasing inflow of multinational corporations (MNCs).Design/methodology/approach – An analytical model describing the role of institutions in reducing the environmental impact of MNCs was formulated and analysed for a sample of 43 SSA countries (1996–2010) using descriptive and the System Generalised Method of Moments techniques.Findings – It was found that the ‘tragedy’ of environmental pollution can be ‘managed’ if there are strong institutional framework especially regulatory quality and government effectiveness that will drive environmental policies and make MNCs to comply to the tenets of corporate social responsibility (CSR) in host countries. The study also established that the environmental hazards in the previous year will occur in the current year, but with strong institutions in place, it will be at a decreasing rate. How increase in trade, inflow of MNCs and population growth affect the current extent of environmental pollution was underscored.Research limitation – Aggregated data on the variables were utilised, and thus the results were dependent on the reliability of the data. Examining how MNCs respond to CSR with respect to environmental issues in SSA can be taken up in future studies using micro-data. This will complement this study and further establish the impact of MNCs activities on the environment in SSA.Originality/value of chapter – The relevance of institutions in regulating the behaviours of MNCs with regards to environmental pollution in SSA was emphasised.

This chapter presents the differential approach to applied demand analysis. The demand systems of this approach are general, having coefficients that are not necessarily constant. We consider the Rotterdam parameterization of differential demand systems and derive the absolute and relative price versions of the Rotterdam model, due to Theil (1965) and Barten (1966). We address estimation issues and point out that, unlike most parametric and semi-nonparametric demand systems, the Rotterdam model is econometrically regular.

Educational sustainability has acknowledged the value of transformation, which offers an opportunity of researching and rethinking how appropriate and successful educational practices in an active learning environment could help prepare students for jobs that do not yet exist. So, to meet the job market needs, it became essential to focus on designing more context-specific programs where interdisciplinary courses are provided. The interdisciplinary courses are based on integrating different disciplines where there is a blur between the borders of the disciplines to shift the focus from structured courses to cooperation with external entities. In addition, the interdisciplinary programs allow students to choose modules from across subjects and encourage cooperation with staff from different departments. Thus, the purpose of this chapter is to present a framework of how transformation in education requires key drivers such as transformational visions, faculty commitments, students' engagement, resources (i.e. curriculum), and external relations to develop the values and competencies that the future professionals will need in the attempt to make decisions aiming at reaching a more sustainable world.

This chapter’s goal is to determine the essence and causal connections of the emergence of conflicts at the level of economic systems (countries) due to technological inequality and to find the perspectives of overcoming these conflicts. The chapter models the economic and political conflict of modern time under the conditions of high-tech development based on the methods of variation analysis and regression analysis. It is proven that the scale of technological inequality in the world economy is very large. It is the economic and political conflict of modern time, the essence of which is as follows: the differentiation of economic systems amid digital development predetermines the opportunities for their entering the world markets. This chapter contributes to the development of the theory of economic and political conflicts, proving the existence of technological inequality as a new form of differentiation of economic systems amid digital development and defining this inequality as a new economic and political conflict of modern time. The chapter also contributes to the development of the theory of international trade, disproving – for the first time – the action of the principle of freedom of international trade. The authors describe technological barriers of the world markets, which limit the presence of countries that are behind the leading countries by digital development. Three key factors that determine the level of technological development of the economy are given: knowledge-intensive employment, venture investments and financing of innovations in business. Due to the above, the chapter provides opportunities for technological conflict management.