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Within entrepreneurship literature, the conventional approaches inspired by Schumpeter's “creative destruction” have largely emphasized the role of human cognitive processes to come up with new business ideas. In contemporary studies, however, there is a recent research stream wherein creativity is aestheticized. As a research line of the aesthetic approach, there is an increasing interest for playfulness and other signals of enjoyment that can also stimulate the entrepreneur's creative acts.

This chapter is a reflexion about the liberating and creative role of play in the context of sport entrepreneurship, particularly, in the fitness industry. It aspires to give to the recent development of the sport entrepreneurship field a novel twist by relating it to a theology of play. Drawing on the work of one of the most influential twentieth-century theologians who has approached play theology, Hugo Rahner, we present how his theological approach may be used to widen our understanding of sport entrepreneurship. This theological perspective allows us to develop alternative thoughts based on concepts that transcend the typical rationalist business approach and its instrumental language.

The “New Paradigm” of disability and the International Classification of Function Disability and Health both describe an ecological model of disability that has significantly influenced policy and law, and this model is frequently cited as a background in published research. Given the central role of “the environment” in this ecological model, we asked, what is the status of research on the environment and disability? Specifically, is a scoping review warranted in this area of research?

We conducted a “rapid scan” of the National Rehabilitation Information Center (NARIC) database for articles reporting studies of the environment – defined as the arranged or built environment. We also scanned Google Scholar to ascertain the frequency of articles that might report research into the environment.

NARIC archived 12,486 items published from January 2007 to June 2012; 530 (4.2%) of which contained the search term “environment.” Of the 530 items, 78 (14.7%) also included the terms architecture space, accessibility, and ICF. Over the same time period, Google Scholar returned 109,000 entries to search terms “disability and environment,” 349 (0.3%) of which also included the terms architecture space, accessibility, and ICF.

This application of a method for rapidly assessing the status of the literature suggests that research into some aspects of the environment and disability may be under-represented. A more complete review, requiring more resources, is warranted.

This chapter introduces and sets the scene for a discussion on women's sport in a professional era. Initiated in the wake of the second-wave feminist movement in America in the 1950s with the professionalisation of golf and tennis, the move for other women's sports to be professionalised has been slow, sporadic and marred with difficulties. However, since the turn of the twenty-first century, there have been significant changes in the landscape of elite women's sport. Alongside an overview of the developments in elite level women's sport, we conceptualise the terms ‘professionalisation’, ‘professional’ and ‘professionalism’. Furthermore, the chapter identifies the scope of the book, drawing upon the importance to consider women's sport as distinct from men's sport and identifying issues that are specific to female athletes, such as maternity and the gender pay gap. We also recognise the diverse and multiple nature of women's identities, highlighting the intersectionality of female athletes in professional sport (specifically around race/ethnicity, gender and sexuality, and national identity).

While steroid use in the sports context has already been extensively studied by academic researchers, its patterns and implications in the prison context have received scant attention. Why do inmates use androgenic–anabolic steroids (AAS)? How does this use relate to sports activities, in particular fitness training, and what does it mean vis-à-vis the body image that is promoted in this environment? Does it even relate to fitness or sport? How do prison authorities regulate or prevent prisoners' AAS use? This empirical study is based on 28 interviews with 19 inmates and nine staff members (guards, managers) of four Belgian prisons. We showed that steroid use is largely connected with fitness activities and that it has an instrumental, goal-oriented dimension. AAS are used for athletic/performance purposes, e.g. increasing muscular strength. They also help gain or maintain a satisfactory body (self-)image, which has implications on the own identity, prestige and power relations within the prison community. In jail, the body is a major type of symbolic capital that is intended to reinforce status and cope with the difficulties and actual conditions of incarceration. We also observed differences in the perceived legitimacy of the various drugs that are used in prison. While guards are more tolerant towards AAS than other drugs, prisoners are less prone to openly confess to using AAS. Admitting to using AAS would damage the inmate's reputation, the legitimacy of his muscled body, and the subsequent goals of individual power and prestige.

This chapter deals with the development of banking in the Crown of Aragon from the end of the thirteenth century through the establishment of money changers, which followed similar patterns as in other Western European territories. It starts with a review of existing literature and follows with an explanation on the different banking services provided by money changers and the specific legal framework that supported such activities. It then examines the geographical distribution of private banks in cities and towns within the domains of the kings of Aragon, as well as their evolution throughout the fourteenth century. After that, it offers an analysis of the most common professional profiles among these bankers and financers. Finally, drawing on a heterogeneous pool of unpublished data, it seeks to shed light on the diversity of investors and clients of these establishments, a crucial proof of their role in integrated financial markets.