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Informal settlements are inherently unstructured in nature, lack adequate services, regularly have high population densities and can experience social problems. Thus, fires can easily propagate rapidly through such areas, leaving thousands homeless in a single fire. The purpose of this paper is to present an appraisal of various interventions and strategies to improve fire safety in informal settlements in South Africa (globally, similar settlements are known as slums, ghettos, favelas, shantytowns, etc.), considering aspects of both technical suitability and social suitability.

This paper focusses on three specific aspects: ignition risk management, active fire protection interventions and passive fire protection interventions. These are presented within a framework to outline how they may mitigate the impact of fires.

Often “solutions” proposed to improve fire safety either lack a sound engineering basis, thus becoming technically inefficient, or do not consider social circumstances and community responses in settlements, thereby becoming practically, socially or economically unsuitable. It must be understood that there is no “quick fix” to this significant problem, but rather a combination of interventions can improve fire safety in general. A broad understanding of the various options available is essential when addressing this problem, which this paper seeks to provide.

This paper seeks to provide an overview to guide policymakers and organisations by illustrating both the advantages/benefits and disadvantages/challenges of the interventions and strategies currently being rolled out, as well as potential alternatives.

A broad but succinct appraisal is provided that gives insight and direction for improving fire safety in informal settlements. It is hoped that the challenges associated with the fire safety interventions discussed can be addressed and improved over time.

Information and communications technologies (ICTs) have transformed the lives of many people around the world, yet billions remain unconnected. While many initiatives attempt to “connect the unconnected,” initiatives focused on access and skills-development alone will still fall short. Based on the authors’ experience with the SolarSPELL initiative, this study aims to propose using the concept of socio-technical awareness as a step forward in conceptualizing a more accurate picture of capabilities necessary to enable people to make meaningful use of the internet.

This paper uses an integrative literature review for the ideas related to the digital divide, digital inclusion and digital literacies, as well as the applied work of the authors in the SolarSPELL initiative, to develop the concept of socio-technical awareness, which is presented as a method for understanding empowered, meaningful internet use.

The argument is made that access, skills- and literacy-development are necessary but insufficient conditions for meaningful ICTs use. Accordingly, a third concept, socio-technical awareness, is introduced, and the case is made for including this concept in both application and measurement of meaningful use of ICTs.

The design of digital inclusion initiatives should focus on increasing socio-technical awareness to empower users to make meaningful use of digital technologies.

Taking a step further than most assessments of the digital divide or digital inclusion, this study proposes that to achieve meaningful internet use, people need access, requisite skills development and socio-technical awareness, to be able to make informed, empowered decisions about ICT use.

The purpose of this paper is to incorporate the demand and supply‐side theories of entrepreneurship development in a series of stage‐based models that analyze how macro‐level and contextual variables influence social entrepreneurship activity. The paper investigates the macro‐level influences, including the socio‐political, cultural and economic factors that can stimulate or impede the emergence of social entrepreneurship. Although little research on these determinants has been conducted, this study seeks to reveal that several variables that are crucial in traditional entrepreneurial studies do not appear to significantly affect social entrepreneurship.

To measure social entrepreneurial activity, the authors used the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) findings from the 2009 study. Hierarchical multiple regression was used to test three multi‐level stages of the socio‐political, economic, and cultural determinants of social entrepreneurship activity. The series of three stages for all of the variables were entered in the following order: first, socio‐political variables; second, cultural variables; third, economic variables. This approach allows the authors to explore and thus extend the previous research reviewed here, on how the economic context beyond socio‐political and cultural factors affects social enterprise activity.

A three‐stage analysis revealed that socio‐political variables accounted for 76 percent of the variance in social entrepreneurial activity. It was found that the single greatest determinant of social entrepreneurial activity is the degree of female participation in the labor force. Additional findings and implications for understanding the role of macro‐level factors on social entrepreneurship are discussed.

Social entrepreneurship has the potential to confront and address some of society's most challenging and complex problems arising from market and government inadequacies or failures. Social entrepreneurial firms exist within environments that are often severely resource‐constrained. Therefore, social entrepreneurs may rely on a unique set of strategies to mobilize resources available to them, such as collaboration with others and accessing social capital to generate value solutions for their communities. The growth of women's participation in the labor force is a powerful influence on social entrepreneurship activity, and with the increase in training programs and local networks to support women's business ownership, it is likely that this trend will continue and positively impact communities around the world.

In recent years, circular economy (CE) has come to prominence as an alternative to the classic approach of “make-use-dispose”. How companies can exploit the opportunities of CE to position themselves better are not well articulated in the literature. The purpose of this paper, therefore, is to identify the barriers and opportunities of CE in the manufacturing sector through a socio-political, economic, legal and environmental perspective.

The study adopts a positivist approach, which is deductive in nature. A survey questionnaire was designed and distributed to manufacturing companies operating in the UK and EU. The study used FAME database and social networking platform LinkedIn to identify manufacturing companies. More than 200+ companies were approached for this study and data collection lasted over two months.

The study provides a comprehensive review of the CE literature and identifies a number of barriers and opportunities to CE implementation from a socio-political, economic, legal and environmental perspective. The findings highlight key barriers, opportunities and benefits of CE for the manufacturing industries operating in the UK and EU.

The findings are limited to 63 responses from the survey questionnaire distributed to manufacturing companies in the UK and EU. The present study aims to equip manufacturers with necessary understanding of the key opportunities and barriers to address the challenges encountered during the implementation of CE.

This study adds to the limited empirical literature on CE barriers and opportunities to manufacturing organisations operating in the UK and EU. The paper also identifies barriers and opportunities of CE from a socio-political, economic, legal and environmental lens.

The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the ongoing debate on governance, accountability, transparency and corporate social responsibility (CSR) in the mining sector of a developing country context. It examines the reporting practices of the two largest transnational gold-mining companies in Tanzania in order to draw attention to the role played by local government regulations and advocacy and campaigning by nationally organised non-governmental organisations (NGOs) with respect to promoting corporate social reporting practices.

The paper takes a political economy perspective to consider the serious implications of the neo-liberal ideologies of the global capitalist economy, as manifested in Tanzania’s regulatory framework and in NGO activism, for the corporate disclosure, accountability and responsibility of transnational companies (TNCs). A qualitative field case study methodology is adopted to locate the largely unfamiliar issues of CSR in the Tanzanian mining sector within a more familiar literature on social accounting. Data for the case study were obtained from interviews and from analysis of documents such as annual reports, social responsibility reports, newspapers, NGO reports and other publicly available documents.

Analysis of interviews, press clips and NGO reports draws attention to social and environmental problems in the Tanzanian mining sector, which are arguably linked to the manifestation of the broader crisis of neo-liberal agendas. While these issues have serious impacts on local populations in the mining areas, they often remain invisible in mining companies’ social disclosures. Increasing evidence of social and environmental ills raises serious questions about the effectiveness of the regulatory frameworks, as well as the roles played by NGOs and other pressure groups in Tanzania.

By empowering local NGOs through educational, capacity building, technological and other support, NGOs’ advocacy, campaigning and networking with other civil society groups can play a pivotal role in encouraging corporations, especially TNCs, to adopt more socially and environmentally responsible business practices and to adhere to international and local standards, which in turn may help to improve the lives of many poor people living in developing countries in general, and Tanzania in particular.

This paper contributes insights from gold-mining activities in Tanzania to the existing literature on CSR in the mining sector. It also contributes to political economy theory by locating CSR reporting within the socio-political and regulatory context in which mining operations take place in Tanzania. It is argued that, for CSR reporting to be effective, robust regulations and enforcement and stronger political pressure must be put in place.

“Corrupt practices” is a recurring feature of media coverage. The paper seeks to encourage debates about the influence of institutional structures on agency to break away from methodological individualism. This paper aims to encourage reflections on the role of both the structures and actors which have shaped the continuous expansion of corrupt practices in Nigeria.

Whilst recognising that deviant behaviour by some individuals is always possible, this paper has rejected methodological individualism and shows the value of locating anti-social practices within the broader socio-political and historical context. Within a socio-political framework, this study adopts the theories of critical realism, developmental state and globalisation to understand the relationship between social agency and society, focusing upon the institutional structures and the role of social actors.

The evidence shows that socio-political and economic development, politics, power, history and globalisation have continued to reproduce and transform the institutional structures and actors which have facilitated anti-social practices in Nigeria. The paper concludes that large sums of government revenue have been undermined by the anti-social practices of the Nigerian political and economic elite (both local and international), which have enriched a few, but impoverished most, Nigerians.

As a consequence of recurring corrupt practices in Nigeria, there is a pressing need for reform to curb these practices which have had, and continue to have, a serious effect on Nigeria and its future development.

It provides a framework for understanding and explaining the inter-relations of actors and institutional structures and the linkages and influences that have shaped the practices in Nigeria.

The purpose of this paper is to enhance the understanding of what project complexity is, what drivers and factors that influence complexity and how consequences for organizational performance can be assessed.

The research is explanatory and based on literature review, model development, interviews and case studies. The model is validated through a case study.

The findings are a model for identifying and analyzing complexity drivers and complexity factors. The model starts with generic complexity drivers such as ambiguity, uncertainty, unpredictability and pace. These drivers are in each project influenced by nature and by socio-political, economic and technological surroundings to result in complexity factors that are specific to the project analyzed. The model can be used to analyze project complexity and to define requirements for the organization of the project and guidelines for the execution.

The research is limited to large projects with a technical delivery of some kind of facilities.

The model can be used to assess the required capability of the organization for successful project execution.

The contribution of the research is a new model for understanding project complexity. The distinction between project complexity drivers and factors is essential as well as the taxonomy for the factors building on and adding to already published research.

Perhaps no other topic was given so much attention in the Kuwaiti socio‐political, economic literature as that of human resources. This is so for a number of reasons. First, Kuwait being a small economy cannot survive on its own labor force. Foreign labor helps the country but has some serious consequences. The imported labor force is very cheap compared to national labor. This had resulted in a malallocation of manpower in various sectors of the economy. Secondly, Kuwait, like many Muslim Gulf societies, does not fully utilize its female labor force; and thirdly, there are problems regarding the attitudes of Kuwaitis towards labor of particular types. In addition, there are many challenges in the area of human resources that the country faces as it moves into the 21st century.

Contemporary literature has paid scholarly attention to corruption from a variety of competing perspectives. However, broader accounts of the impact of corruption on development in developing countries are relatively scarce. The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of corruption as a social impediment to development, which has a devastating effect on developing countries.

The paper explores the relevant literature and the different perspectives that have been developed and conducted for investigating corruption in developing countries. The paper uses publicly available evidence to show that political, economic elite engaged in corrupt practices.

The evidence shows that socio‐political and economic development, politics, power, history and globalisation have continued to reproduce and transform the institutional structures and actors which have facilitated corrupt practices in developing countries. The review shows that large sums of government revenue have been undermined by the corrupt practices of the political and economic elite (both local and international), which have enriched a few, but impoverished most.

The paper seeks to bring the anti‐social activities of political, economic and professionals under scrutiny and offers some suggestions for reforms.

Corruption has played a major role in causing serious damage to the economic and social landscape in developing countries. This in turn, has undermined social welfare and also investment in the public services, thereby eroding the quality of life and producing a decline in average life expectancy.

The paper is a general review of literature and evidence on contemporary issues.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the conditions of entrepreneurship in transition and post-conflict societies, using Bosnia and Herzegovina (B&H) as a case study. There are many features of this country which make it an interesting case such. It was once a part of Yugoslavia and had a socialist regime. Post-socialism, B&H turned to creating and maintaining a market-based economy, making it a transition country. Lastly, the transition process has been disturbed and delayed due to the war that began in 1992.

The author chose a single case study research design to present a unique case and to give in-depth analysis. The author has used the method of data triangulation to increase reliability and credibility of the case study research.

The case study's findings reveal that three types of conditions influence entrepreneurship in B&H: socio-political, economic and legal. The paper has several implications; more specifically, inter alia, it has helped understand complexity of transitional environments and the implications of the same on entrepreneurship development.

The paper adds to the existing literature on factors affecting entrepreneurial activity within a post-conflict context by simplifying categorization into three broad categories. By doing so, the paper emphasizes particular areas obstructing the development of the enterprise sector in B&H.