Search results

This chapter explores social enterprises as an alternative and addition to traditional entrepreneurial ecosystems (EEs). It reviews the substantial social enterprise literature in order to identify the myriad of competing tensions constraining development and success of social EEs in areas of significant poverty and economic deprivation. Following this, the findings of several contemporary and novel studies are discussed. These collectively evidence ways social enterprises are overcoming the seemingly immutable constraints they operate under. In particular, the Social Enterprise Places initiative has been highly effective in supporting the development of flourishing social EEs in many locations in the UK. However, the growth of social enterprises, both in number and economic importance, presents further challenges that social enterprise owners and managers will have to contend with. Consequently, these organisations and their allied ecosystems require continued structural, financial and skills support.

The librarian and researcher have to be able to uncover specific articles in their areas of interest. This Bibliography is designed to help. Volume IV, like Volume III, contains features to help the reader to retrieve relevant literature from MCB University Press' considerable output. Each entry within has been indexed according to author(s) and the Fifth Edition of the SCIMP/SCAMP Thesaurus. The latter thus provides a full subject index to facilitate rapid retrieval. Each article or book is assigned its own unique number and this is used in both the subject and author index. This Volume indexes 29 journals indicating the depth, coverage and expansion of MCB's portfolio.

This paper presents a parallelised substructure based finite element approach to the solution of fully coupled heat, moisture and deformation problems in partially saturated soil. A numerical model, based on previous work, is developed so that it is capable of solving larger and more complex problems with limited computing resources. The algorithm also offers the advantage of the strategy for further development within the context of parallel computing. A refinement to the standard substructure algorithm has been introduced for the matrix condensing procedure employed at the sub‐structure level, to improve computational efficiency. A numerical simulation is then performed using a parallel computer code for the fully coupled analysis, operating on a MIMD parallel computer (the Paramid). The benefits of the new approach are thus displayed. As a check on the accuracy of the new method, good correlation with other independent solutions are observed. Finally, the computing work performed indicates that the algorithm is yielding encouraging results, providing confidence in the further development of the approach.

This systematic literature review analyses the determinants and consequences of executive compensation-related shareholder activism and say-on-pay (SOP) votes. The review covers 71 empirical articles published between January 1995 and September 2017. The studies are reviewed within an empirical research framework that separates the reasons for shareholder activism and SOP voting dissent as input factor on the one hand and the consequences of shareholder pressure as output factor on the other. This procedure identifies the five most important groups of factors in the literature: the level and structure of executive compensation, firm characteristics, corporate governance mechanisms, shareholder structure and stakeholders. Of these, executive compensation and firm characteristics are the most frequently examined. Further examination reveals that the key assumptions of neoclassical principal agent theory for both managers and shareholders are not always consistent with recent empirical evidence. First, behavioral aspects (such as the perception of fairness) influence compensation activism and SOP votes. Second, non-financial interests significantly moderate shareholder activism. Insofar, we recommend integrating behavioral and non-financial aspects into the existing research. The implications are analyzed, and new directions for further research are discussed by proposing 19 different research questions.

Due to the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, ventilation in a small cabin where social distancing cannot be guaranteed is extremely important. This study aims to find out the best configuration of open and closed windows in a moving car at varying speeds to improve the ventilation efficiency. The effectiveness of other mitigation measures including face masks, taxi screens and air conditioning (AC) systems are also evaluated.

Each window is given three opening levels: fully open, half open and fully closed. For a car with four windows, this yields 81 different configurations. The location of virus source is also considered, either emitting from the driver or from the rear seat passenger. Then three different travelling speeds, 5 m/s, 10 m/s and 15 m/s, are examined for the window opening/closing configurations that provide the best ventilation effect. A study into the effectiveness of face masks is realised by adjusting virus injection amounts; and the simulation of taxi screens and AC system simply requires a small modification to the car model.

The numerical studies identify the top window opening/closing configurations that provide the most efficient ventilation at different moving speeds, along with a comprehensive ranking list. The results show that fully opening all windows is not always the best choice. Simulations evaluating other mitigation measures confirm good effect of face masks and poor performance of taxi screens and AC systems.

This work is the first large-scale numerical simulation and parametric study about different window opening/closing configurations of a moving car. The results provide useful guides for travellers in shared cars to mitigate Covid-19 transmission risks. The findings are helpful to both individuals' health and society's recovery in the Covid-19 era and they also provide useful information to protect people from other respiratory infectious diseases such as influenza.