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The aim of the paper is to investigate the architectural firm's role in the briefing process on international projects and to identify the strategies of successful firms to overcome barriers.

A model is developed based on a critique of briefing models and international design management theory. The development of a reflexive capability model borrows cultural theory concepts of capital and reflexivity. The model is based on maximizing reflexive capability through the management of social, cultural and intellectual capital. Two case studies of architectural firms identify barriers during the briefing process and strategies to overcome these barriers. Data collection involved 16 interviews with senior management and design team staff.

There are various barriers and strategies used to achieve success in the briefing process. However, the management of a firm's capital is key to successful briefing on international projects and is a characteristic of reflexive practice. Reflexivity is based in a positive interpretation of change, and a continual responsiveness to change by participants in a system. The study provides useful information on management of the design and briefing stages of international projects.

The study is limited by the number of case studies used and the difficulty of generalisability of findings.

The research is that it provides useful information about how to approach constant change during briefing for the architects and clients who work on international projects.

The model is original and has value as it assists in explaining why some firms are more successful than others. The case studies provide new knowledge on international projects and the briefing process. The value of the paper is for the academic community, professionals in the built environment and clients involved in international projects.

Explanations for voluntary or intentional childlessness range from macro-level forces, such as feminism and access to contraceptives, to micro-level or individual preferences, such as the prioritisation of leisure time over childrearing. However, some researchers contend that the decision (not) to have children is likely impacted by overlapping factors rather than a dichotomised characterisation of internal or external factors. This debate similarly reflects Pierre Bourdieu’s ‘third way’ theoretical and methodological orientation. Bourdieu argued against a false dichotomy between the influence of structure over an individual and the ability for individuals to make active, free choices. He instead claimed that the social world consists of a complex interplay of both individual and structural factors, which he conceptualised as habitus, capital and fields. This chapter initiates the link between current understandings of childbearing preferences with Bourdieu’s concepts of habitus (our taken-for-granted, internalised ideologies or identities), capital (economic, social, cultural and symbolic resources) and fields (the external social structures or institutions in which we interact) and proposes quantitative measures of childbearing habitus and capital.

This chapter consists of an exploratory comparison of characteristics of non-parents in relation to childbearing preferences, suggesting measures to identify deeply rooted childbearing habitus and the relationship between access to various forms of capital and the habitus. This study utilises survey responses from a sample of 972 childless men and women between 25 and 40 years of age, assessing measures of social support, cultural norms and economic resources in relation to participants’ preference to have or not to have children in the future. A multivariate nested logistic regression was conducted to explore the odds of identifying as voluntarily childless (VC) (not wanting or probably not wanting, to have children in the future) based on socio-demographic factors, as well as various measures of social, economic, cultural and symbolic capital. Findings indicate several variations in significant factors contributing to a preference to remain childfree. Measures of cultural capital, including gender ideologies and pronatalist ideologies, appeared to be the greatest predictors of childbearing habitus. These findings support research suggesting that VC adults are more egalitarian and less traditional in gender relations as well as pronatalist assumptions.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the use of social, cultural and symbolic capital alongside economic capital, according to Pierre Bourdieu, in small family businesses. The paper demonstrates that social, cultural and symbolic capital, play an important role in maintaining the family farm business and ensuring its survival.

Ethnographic case studies were selected using theoretical sampling techniques and a variety of data collection tools were used, interviews and participant observation, to construct the contextual and historical elements of each case.

The results, though highly case specific, indicate that: social networks (social capital) are important to farmers and their families, and these networks have been weakened over the years. Knowledge transfer is crucial to successful succession in the family business and as such cultural capital (knowledge, skills, qualifications, etc.) is retained within the business and accumulated from wider fields through educational qualifications. Symbolic capital is highly important to farmers and their families and could enlighten family business researchers as to why family farm businesses manage to survive the transition from one generation to the next.

This paper provides insights into how family businesses use non-economic resources to pursue survival strategies. It also demonstrates the importance of exploring all family members, however small their contribution is to the business. The paper highlights how the different relationships between family members enable and hinder capital usage in the family farm business.

This paper explores family farm businesses from a sociological perspective to shed light on how they survive passing between generations, unlike many other family-owned businesses.

The purpose of this paper is to highlight the importance of the field of visual arts marketing in the development of wider branding theory and practice. Drawing on examples from visual artists and the art mechanism that connects them, the paper reveals how artists and art professionals foster various types of capital (social, cultural, symbolic) as a way of developing a brand name, ensuring longevity in the field, and gaining financial value on the market.

As a conceptual paper, the authors draw on a range of published works as well as examples from the world of visual arts in order to provide fresh theoretical insight into how branding in the arts may be applied to other industries.

The key findings are the importance of the consideration of the development and nurturing of social and cultural capital in developing brand identity. Additionally, visual art brands are required to be innovative and dynamic, and lessons learned regarding these processes have relevance for mainstream brands. The paper also found that creativity is often collective and that looking to methods for developing work in the visual arts can be utilised by brand managers more broadly in the age of social media and user generated content.

This paper follows on the developing body of work, which indicates what mainstream business can learn from looking at the visual arts. The paper highlights the collective nature of creativity in building the art brand as well as the importance of non-economic measures of value in the realm of branding.

This paper examines the influence of micro-credential learning on students' perceived employability. In addition, the study aims to explore different components that will help students to gain knowledge, enhance their careers and develop their human capital (social, cultural and scholastic capital). Hence, the study also analyzed the mediating role of human capital on the aforementioned association.

Explanatory research was conducted by utilizing a correlational research design. A questionnaire comprising of closed-ended items was utilized in the study. The data was analyzed by employing PLS-SEM technique.

Our findings stipulate that micro-credential learning is an essential component to improve students' perceived employability. The study identified that micro-credential programs have a positive relationship with students' perceived employability. Moreover, the findings that micro-credential learning significantly impacts students' human capital, i.e. cultural, social and scholastic capital. Additionally, human capital acts as a significant mediator in the relationship between micro-credential learning and students' perceived employability. Moreover, participation in micro-credential learning can ensure that students can identify diverse career directions, seek information about the labor market and educational system, attain relevant qualifications for their vocations, and develop a plan for their future.

Micro-credential programs are short and focused educational programs that offer specialized knowledge and skills in a particular area. These programs are becoming increasingly popular in the modern workforce to upskill or reskill quickly and efficiently. However, lack of empirical evidence is the ultimate gap in determining the importance of micro-credential learning; as the limited literature is unable to determine the importance of MCL on students' perceived employability. Thus, the study identifies the impact of micro-credential learning on students' perceived employability.

The aim of this research is to determine the stages that women in resource-constrained environments go through in order to emancipate themselves through entrepreneurial activities. Based on their fieldwork, the authors develop a process framework of emancipation-through-entrepreneurship.

Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 57 female entrepreneurs in two resource-constrained countries in West Africa. Non-participant observations were employed as a secondary data collection technique to provide important sources of information for triangulation.

This study's findings indicate that the process of female emancipation through entrepreneurship begins with the perception of one's personal motivations, followed by the choice of economic activities, the gathering of various necessary resources, and finally the commencement and running of a venture to bring about the desired emancipation. Various factors, such as family, the external environment, personal qualities and ease of operations, were found to influence the choice of entrepreneurial activities. We also found that human, social, cultural and political capital interact to produce economic capital, a central form of capital for the starting and running of ventures in resource-constrained environments.

Although extant studies have shown that entrepreneurship can be a vehicle for women to liberate themselves from various constraints, it is as yet unclear which process these women follow to achieve such emancipation. The development of a process framework of emancipation-through-entrepreneurship is the key contribution of this paper. Despite extant research demonstrating that entrepreneurship can assist women in financially limited settings to achieve economic independence, the specific steps these women take in the process remain unclear. Thus, this paper presents a process framework that focuses on women in constrained environments and their journey to emancipation through entrepreneurship.

This paper aims to analyse the development of patient safety as a field within which patients are peripheral stakeholders.

The authors examined the patient safety movement from the perspective of a field in which agents struggle for control over various forms of capital, including economic, social, cultural and symbolic capital. In order to undertake this analysis the authors drew on the literature on errors and patient safety, key inquiries into patient safety, and research conducted with health professionals in New South Wales, Australia.

The patient safety movement has created a heightened sense of awareness of errors and risk across health systems, thereby attracting and creating significant amounts of capital. The authors argue that in the process of struggle to constitute and contain a new field of health, patients and their narratives are rendered vulnerable to appropriation and incorporation.

By considering patient safety from a sociological rather than a technical framework, it is possible to gain new insights into why reducing the levels of medical errors have proven so difficult.

Improved knowledge of how patient safety operates as a field may contribute to more effective strategies in reducing those types of errors.

Despite the growth in the number of publications in patient safety there has been only minimal analysis of the field itself, rather than its technical or organisational components. This paper contributes to a new way of conceptualising and enacting patient safety, one that acknowledges the vulnerability of the parties involved, particularly patients.

Sustainability is viewed as an encompassing perspective, as endorsed by the international policy context, driven by the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). We aim to examine how women entrepreneurs transform capitals to pursue sustainability, and to generate policy insights for sustainability actions through tourism entrepreneurship.

Applying qualitative approach, we have generated empirical evidence drawing on 37 qualitative interviews carried out in Turkey, whereby boundaries between traditional patriarchal forces and progressive movements in gender relations are blurred.

We have generated insights into how women entrepreneurs develop their sustainability practice by transforming their available economic, cultural, social and symbolic capitals in interpreting the macro-field and by developing navigation strategies to pursue sustainability. This transformative process demonstrates how gender roles were performed and negotiated in serving for sustainability pillars.

In this paper, we demonstrate the nature and instrumentality of sustainable tourism entrepreneurship through a gender lens in addressing some of these SDG-driven challenges.

We advance the scholarly and policy debates by bringing gender issues to the forefront, discussing sustainable tourism initiatives from the viewpoint of entrepreneurs and various members of local community and stakeholder in a developing country context where women’s solidarity becomes crucial.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether a pattern of interlocking directorates is emerging following reforms in Mexican corporations, and who, if any, are the powerful actors in this network. Drawing on the Bourdieusian notion of social capital, the paper also analyses theoretically the interlocking directorates, networks and powerful actors, and their influences on and potential implications for corporate governance mechanisms.

The data used in the study consisted of 1,442 internal and external board members of the population of 126 Mexican corporations trading on the Mexican Stock Market as of January 2011. Use of social network analysis (SNA) demonstrates individuals’ links with corporations and allows the production of spatial maps to visualise the network structure of interlocking boards.

Using the measures of SNA developed by Freeman (1979 and Bonacich (1972), the authors identify the most powerful and influential directors in the network structure of board members in Mexico. Board members with the greatest number of connections occupy central positions in the network. The authors also find a catalogue of corporate governance scandals. The inclusion of independent directors seems to have had no influence in ensuring better corporate governance.

Mapping out the directors’ links might offer excellent opportunities for policy makers to see how many companies a single director represents, how they share boards, and the implications for minority shareholders of sharing boards, and to understand the workloads of directors in carrying out the monitoring tasks expected of them.

This paper makes an important contribution by employing SNA to illustrate interlocking directorates and the positions of powerful and influential actors. Examining networks of directors from a “social capital” point of view also provides an understanding of why the role of independent directors remains toothless in family-dominated corporations.