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Busan (Pusan), Korea’s second largest city (population 3.6 million) and fifth busiest port in the world, is experiencing rapidly increasing trade, global connections, events, and resulting infrastructural projects. What should Busan do to better handle the social, political, and economic complexities brought by these changes?

To answer this question, this paper explores the relationship of globalization and culture, as treated by cultural anthropology. It also considers how the tools of applied social science and anthropology can be mobilized to help Busan and the southeast region of Korea deal with these challenges.

After introducing anthropological treatments of culture, globalization and global problems, I discuss how applied social science/anthropology is used in international business/trade, tourism, and transport/logistics, especially the third area. To show how applied social science can help transportation and logistics projects in Busan and Korea, I present lessons from case studies and examples in Denver, Colorado Springs, Chuuk (Truk, South Pacific), and Korea.

Applied social science and applied anthropology present a wealth of helpful methods and insights to help Busan and Korea improve planning, public participation, political, social and environmental issues in transport and logistics projects, and to help prevent ethical and budgetary lapses. Finally, I offer suggestions for initial training programs and future studies to help expedite these goals.

This article considers how digital technologies are informed by, and implicated in, the systematic and interlocking oppressions of colonialism, misogyny, and racism, all of which have been identified as root causes of the missing and murdered Indigenous women crisis in Canada. The authors consider how technology can facilitate multiple forms of violence against women including stalking and intimate partner violence, human trafficking, pornography and child abuse images, and online hate and harassment and note instances where Indigenous women and girls may be particularly vulnerable. The authors also explore some of the complexities related to police use of technology for investigatory purposes, touching on police use of social media and DNA technology. Without simplistically blaming technology, the authors argue that technology interacts with multiple factors in the complex historical, socio-cultural environment that incubates the national crisis of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls. The article concludes with related questions that may be considered at the impending national inquiry.

Covert research has a mixed reputation within the scientific community. Some are unsure of its moral worth, others would proscribe it entirely. This reputation stems largely from a lack of knowledge about the reasons for choosing the covert method. In this chapter, these reasons will be reconstructed in detail and all the elements that will allow one to judge the level of ethicality of covert research will be laid out for the reader. In particular, the chapter will answer the following questions: What harms can result from covert research to the subjects participating in the research? Is covert research necessarily deceptive? In which cases is it ethically permissible for a researcher to deceive? What is the scientific added value of the covert research, that is, what does covert research discover that overt research does not? What are the risks to researchers acting undercover? Finally, some suggestions will be offered to research ethics reviewers to help in their appraisal of covert research.

Advance the state-of-the-art on how frugal innovation links to sustainability outcomes and based on content analysis of empirical publications in the field of frugal innovation, analyzing when and how FI is connected with social, environmental and economic outcomes.

Quantitative content analysis on empirical papers published on frugal innovation, using data visualization techniques to disclose relationships among the constructs adopted. Materials were collected following a step-wise methodology. In total, 130 articles were identified, read in depth and coded according to five main categories: context; development; implementation, adoption, diffusion; characteristics; and impacts.

The potential of frugal innovation to drive sustainability outcomes is influenced by the type of actors developing the innovation, regarding their organizational form (large firms, small firms, non-firm actors), their geographical origin (foreign or local) or motivations (mostly profit-motivated or socially-oriented). Collaboration plays a key role along the various stages of the frugal innovation cycle and is thus relevant for its potential to drive sustainability outcomes. The results reaffirm the need for greater attention to where and when sustainability-enhancing outcomes of frugal innovation are more likely to occur.

This study provides a qualitative study based on content analysis of empirical studies to explore the associations between frugal innovations and improved economic, environmental and social sustainability outcomes. The key novelty of this study lies in the systematic coding of each paper regarding the features of the innovation, the innovators, and the outcomes achieved. This allows taking stock of the evidence emerging in such a scattered literature, quantifying the extent to which insights take place in the empirical literature, looking for correlations, and highlight research gaps to understand to what extent frugal innovation can contribute to sustainable development.

This paper aims to document the adaptation strategies developed by local farmers to adjust to climate change and related hazards in Lijiang Prefecture in Southwest China, and quantify the determinants of the adaptation measures.

The study conducted a household survey with 433 respondents in Lijiang to documents adaptation measures. The authors used a multivariate probit model to quantify five categories of adaptation measures against a set of household features, extension and information, resources, social network, financial assets and perception variables.

The most significant determinants consisted of information on early climate warnings and impending hazards, ownership to land and livestock, irrigation membership in community-based organisations, household savings, cash crop farming and perceptions of climate change and its related hazards. Adaptation strategies and policies highlighting these determinants could help to improve climate change adaptation in the region.

This study quantified the determinants of adaptive strategies and mapped important determinants for the region that will provide farmers with the appropriate resources and information to implement the best practices for adapting to climatic changes. The method and findings could be useful and easily replicable for future agriculture policies.

This study investigates the effectiveness of microfinance-backed entrepreneurship as a mechanism for the holistic empowerment of women.

This study employs a mixed-method research-design consisting of quasi-experimental design (quantitative approach) involving women, both entrepreneurs (132) and non-entrepreneurs (238), as well as in-depth semi-structured interviews (qualitative approach).

Quantitative analysis revealed that female entrepreneurs are better off than female non-entrepreneurs in terms of economic, social, political and psychological indicators of empowerment. However, relatively lesser impact was found in terms of political, and to an even smaller extent, social empowerment of women. Analysis of in-depth interviews corroborated these findings confirming that entrepreneurship serves as an effective tool for the holistic empowerment of women. However, non-entrepreneurs also exhibit social empowerment.

Given the restricted geographical ambit of the study, prudence ought to be exercised in drawing inferences applied to alternate contexts. That the vast majority of questionnaire respondents are illiterate presented a notable impediment in the process of collection of accurate responses.

Microfinance intervention ought to be specifically directed to cultivating entrepreneurship among women; in particular, to achieve the full benefits of empowerment, women availing microfinance ought to exert full control over their own business ventures.

In analyzing holistic empowerment through microfinance supported businesses set up by women, the study adds to the existing literature on women entrepreneurship and empowerment.

The dynamics of the competitive performance of the small medium firms is an evolving field of research in the developing countries like India. The influence of the innovation on the competitive performance of the firms is still an evolving area in India. This paper aims to explore the influence of the innovation on the competitive performance. The study is based upon the agro-food processing industry of the Jammu and Kashmir state of India.

The paper is based upon the exploratory design. It uses quantitative as well as qualitative method for the firm level analysis of competitiveness. The aggregate index method has been used to construct the innovation competence and total competitive performance index. The regression analysis is used for describing the model based upon the primary data.

The results of the study provide for a significant relationship between the innovation competence and firm level competitiveness. It describes the position of the agro-food processing firms under study with respect to the innovation competence index score and total competitiveness performance index.

The paper provides for the managerial implications of strategically incubating the innovation-based competence for the firms in specific geographical areas. The policy implications in terms of developing specific clusters and incubators for incremental and radical innovations can be derived, in regional economies.

The paper discusses the issue of interaction of innovation competence and firm level competitiveness of the agro-food processing industry, which is dynamic, specifically in the developing states. The paper discussed unique methodology of using aggregate index method for defining the innovation competence and competitiveness for the firms where the consistency of data is a major issue for such a complex phenomenon.

This conceptual paper seeks to critically evaluate and illuminate the diverse autoethnographic methodologies that are pivotal for understanding the dynamics of contemporary workspaces. The objective is to contribute to the ongoing scholarly debate on the value of autoethnography in workplace research and explore how it can shed light on complex organizational phenomena.

The paper adopts a narrative literature review approach, focusing on four main forms of autoethnography: realist, impressionistic, expressionistic and conceptualistic autoethnographies. Each form is discussed and dissected, emphasizing their specific sub-forms and illustrating their application through representative examples. The paper engages in a critical debate on utilizing autoethnography in workplace research.

The findings illuminate how autoethnographic methods can be used to gain nuanced and complex understandings of personal experiences situated in workplace culture, as well as how broader social and cultural contexts shape these experiences. The study also highlights the potential of these methods to explore marginalized and silenced stories within workplaces and contribute to the knowledge on power dynamics, inequalities and injustices embedded in the organizational culture.

The following contribution discusses approaches for conducting autoethnographic explorations of selected work environments, offering researchers valuable insights into these methods' application. Through better comprehension and application of these methodologies, researchers can enhance their contribution toward cultivating more inclusive and equitable workplace environments.

The paper stands out in its extensive review and critical discussion of the autoethnographic methods as applied in workplace research. It expands upon individual autoethnographic studies by providing a comprehensive, multifaceted perspective, delving into the merits and limitations of these approaches in particular context of researching contemporary places of work.

The purpose of this paper is to understand the dynamic and power-laden nature of university–society collaboration from the individual academic's point of view.

This paper applies an autoethnographic approach in following a specific collaboration process through detailed fieldnotes and continuous reflections.

This research presents university–society collaboration as an emergent, volatile and fairly unpredictable process, involving a multitude of actors on both sides. The interactions among actors shape the emerging process and power relationships. The academic's situation could be understood in terms of multiple and shifting subject positions that could be embraced, accepted, resisted or surrendered to by the academic.

These findings may help academics with own experiences of collaboration to shed light on their observations. Novice academics, interested in collaborating with society, should be aware of the possibility of tensions and exercise of power in interactions with societal actors. When setting up collaboration agreements, academic and societal actors are advised to openly discuss potential problems and how to handle those.

This unique, in-depth testimony of a single collaboration process from the individual academic's point of view uncovers previously unobserved dynamic and political attributes of the process.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the fluidity of the fieldwork roles “insider” and “outsider.” The paper aims to move the discussion of insiders from an a priori categorized status and contribute to the literary insider–outsider debate by unfolding the micro process of how the role of an insider is shaped in situ. Grounded in empirical examples, the paper illustrates how the researcher’s role is shaped through interactions with organizational members and by context.

The paper is based on an ethnographic study in an IT department of a Nordic bank and draws on empirical material generated through a combination of data: shadowing, interviews, observations and documents. Excerpts from fieldnotes are included to invite the reader into “the scenes” played out in the field and are analyzed in order to illustrate the shaping of roles in situ.

The study finds that, independent of the researcher’s role as sponsored by the organization, the interactions with organizational members and context determine whether the researcher is assigned a role as insider or outsider, or even both within the same context.

The paper contributes with a new discussion of how the roles of insiders and outsiders are fluid by discussing the shaping of the roles in situ. By drawing on relational identity theories, the paper illustrates how interactions and context influence the researcher’s role, grounded in empirical examples. In addition, the paper discusses what the assigned roles enable and constrain for the ethnographer in that particular situation.