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Ah la famille …! We tend to say that we do not choose it. But there are beautiful family stories, even in business, and particularly in France. Indeed, when it comes to business, the French take family as a serious matter – with about 80% of all companies in the country family controlled. Whether big or small, French family businesses are particularly noticeable in sectors such as food and beverages, as well as luxury.

The chapter gives a general overview of family firms in France, considering in particular their main legal structures, how diverse they are in reality, and finally their governance rules, and notably their family constitutions. It concludes that business and family stories often prove to be a good match, at least in France.

Australian mining projects frequently undertake cultural salvage, involving archaeological consultants and Aboriginal Elders to identify important artefacts. However, the storage conditions within shipping containers present challenges, such as weather, insects, and limited access for Traditional Owners. The author, reflecting on his experience working as a project heritage advisor in Western Australia’s Pilbara region, emphasises the need for collaborative engagement between the mining sector and Aboriginal communities to develop effective storage strategies that prioritise both scientific integrity and cultural significance. The author raises questions about the purpose and sustainability of storing cultural artefacts in containers, while highlighting the need to balance safeguarding heritage with the evolving needs of Indigenous communities. Ultimately, the author emphasises the importance of empowering Traditional Owners in decisions about artefact storage and engaging in meaningful consultation to preserve cultural heritage. The author suggests that the process should prioritise not just tangible artefacts but also intangible aspects like stories and songlines that make up the living Indigenous culture.

The purpose of this study is to examine the impact of political relations on trade in strategic emerging industries (SEIs) in the Belt and Road initiative (BRI) associated countries. This investigation encompasses not only from the perspective of bilateral political relations but also the political intervention of third parties.

The study employs the temporal exponential random graphmodel to analyze the dynamic structure and influencing factor of SEIs trade network among 150 BRI-associated countries from 2015 to 2020.

The results indicate that the trade of SEIs in the BRI-associated countries exhibits a pattern of concentrated exporters and decentralized importers. Amicable bilateral political relations foster trade cooperations in SEIs, while political pressure from the United States has the opposite effect. Furthermore, compared with the influence of third parties, the BRI has created a more robust trade environment characterized by political mutual trust.

BRI-associated countries should strengthen their political communication, and endeavor to transform political consensus and shared vision into concrete collaborative projects, while mitigating geopolitical uncertainties through a sound risk evaluation system. Moreover, they should establish a more transparent and consistent consultation mechanism and leverage the BRI trade network to foster balanced and mutually beneficial partnerships that minimize rivalry and dependence on a single market.

This study goes beyond observed trade cost and incorporates the political factor into the determinants of the BRI trade, thereby expanding the theoretical boundaries of existing BRI research. Also, this study employs bilateral trade data to construct SEIs trade networks (SEITNs) along the BRI route. It provides a comprehensive understanding of the dynamic determinates of the SEITNs will provide valuable practical guidance for enhancing and expanding trade and cooperation among BRI-associated countries.

Culture is considered a critical aspect of social media usage. The purpose of this paper is to explore how cultures and languages influence multilingual users' cross-cultural information sharing patterns.

This study used a crowdsourcing survey with Amazon Mechanical Turk to collect qualitative and quantitative data from 355 multilingual users who utilize two or more languages daily. A mixed-method approach combined statistical, and cluster analysis with thematic analysis was employed to analyze information sharing patterns among multilingual users in the Chinese cultural context.

It was found that most multilingual users surveyed preferred to share in their first and second language mainly because that is what others around them speak or use. Multilingual users have more diverse sharing characteristics and are more actively engaged in social media. The results also provide insights into what incentives make multilingual users engage in social media to share information related to Chinese culture with the MOA model. Finally, the ten motivation factors include learning, entertainment, empathy, personal gain, social engagement, altruism, self-expression, information, trust and sharing culture. One opportunity factor is identified, which is convenience. Three ability factors are recognized consist of self-efficacy, habit and personality.

The findings are conducive to promoting the active participation of multilingual users in online communities, increasing global resource sharing and information flow and promoting the consumption of digital cultural content.

The study explores how the intention to export affects financing and non-financing variables for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in a low-income country (LIC). The objectives of this study are (1) to discern between regional and global exporting and (2) to evaluate its policymaking implications.

Primary survey data were collected from 330 Rwandan SMEs and were analysed using ordered logistic models as an application of the expectation-maximisation iterating algorithm, which was tested for robustness using a sampling model variation.

The results show that alternative sources of finance are the predominant choice to finance the intention to export within and outside Africa. As the scope of export intentions broadened from regional to global, there was a shift in preferences from less formal to more formal lending technologies, moving from methods like factoring to lines of credit. Moreover, reliance on bank officers became more significant, with increasing marginal effects. Finally, the study determined that government financing schemes were not relevant for SMEs pursuing either regional or global exporting.

Whilst alternative sources of finance predominate the export intentions of Rwandan SMEs, establishing a robust banking relationship becomes crucial for global exporting. Despite this implication, the intention to export should prompt more transparent communication regarding government financial support programmes. There is an opportunity for increased usage of relationship lending to customise support for SMEs involved in exporting, benefiting both the private and public sectors.

This study accentuates how export distance alters SME financing priorities. The results also contribute to understanding how the value of relationship lending changes when less familiar markets (i.e. global exporting) are the objective. Moreover, the study offers a new perspective on how institutional voids affect entrepreneurial financing decisions in LICs.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the current research data management practices among researchers in Ghana and their impact on data reuse and collaborative research. The study aims to identify the methods used by researchers to store and preserve their research data, as well as to determine the extent to which researchers share their data with others.

The study uses a mixed-method research strategy to blend qualitative and quantitative data and is conducted at two public and two private universities in Ghana.

The study revealed that researchers in Ghana currently store and preserve their research data using personal devices, such as laptops, CDs and external flash drives, rather than keeping the data in university data repositories. They also do not share their research data with others, which negatively affects collaborative research. The current practice of storing data on personal devices and not sharing data with others hinders collaborative research. The study recommends that universities in Ghana revise their research policy documents to address RDM-related issues such as data storage, data preservation, data sharing and data reuse.

The study was conducted at two public and two private universities in Ghana, but the findings were placed in a wider context through appropriate references.

This study emphasises the need for sound research data management procedures to support research collaboration and data reuse in Ghana. Universities should provide incentives to academics to disclose their data to encourage data sharing and collaboration.

The government and management of universities should consciously invest in the needed technologies and equipment to implement research data management in their universities.

This study looks at how researchers in Ghana manage their research data and how it affects data reuse and collaborative research.

This study aims to provides the insights on the advantages and disadvantages of international franchising and licensing from the perspectives of legal and business considerations in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC).

Using a quantitative research approach, the authors conducted a survey with 150 business owners and franchisees in the GCC and analyzed the data using descriptive statistics, structural equation modeling and frequency analysis.

The findings reveal that while international franchising and licensing offer significant benefits for business expansion and revenue growth, they also pose risks related to legal compliance, cultural differences and intellectual property protection. Indeed, the results of this study provide valuable insights into the advantages and disadvantages of international franchising and licensing in the GCC from both legal and business perspectives.

There is limited research on the legal and business perspectives of international franchising and licensing in the GCC. This study contributes to the literature by providing a comprehensive analysis of the legal and business perspectives of international franchising and licensing in the GCC.

This study examined the factors impeding the implementation of micro-credentials and accepting it as a credible source of earning professional qualifications and certifications necessary for pursuing higher education or other career goals.

The factors were identified by reflecting on the recent literature and Internet resources coupled with in-depth brainstorming with experts in the field of micro-credentials including educators, learners and employers. Two ranking methods, namely Preference Ranking for Organization Method for Enrichment Evaluation (PROMETHEE) and multi-objective optimization based on ratio analysis (MOORA), are used together to rank the major challenges.

The results of this study present that lack of clear definitions, ambiguous course descriptions, lack of accreditation and quality assurance, unclear remuneration policies, lack of coordination between learning hours and learning outcomes, the inadequate volume of learning, and lack of acceptance by individuals and organizations are the top-ranked and the most significant barriers in the implementation of micro-credentials.

The findings can be used by educational institutions, organizations and policymakers to better understand the issues and develop strategies to address them, making micro-credentials a more recognized form of education and qualifications.

The novelty of this study is to identify the primary factors influencing the implementation of micro-credentials from the educators', students' and employers' perspectives and to prioritize those using ranking methods such as PROMETHEE and MOORA.

The coal-fired power plants have been confronted with new operation challenge since the unified carbon trading market was launched in China. To make the optimal decision for the carbon emissions and power production has already been an important subject for the plants. Most of the previous studies only considered the market prices of electricity and coal to optimize the generation plan. However, with the opening of the carbon trading market, carbon emission has become a restrictive factor for power generation. By introducing the carbon-reduction target in the production decision, this study aims to achieve both the environmental and economic benefits for the coal-fired power plants to positively deal with the operational pressure.

A dynamic optimization approach with both long- and short-term decisions was proposed in this study to control the carbon emissions and power production. First, the operation rules of carbon, electricity and coal markets are analyzed, and a two-step decision-making algorithm for annual and weekly production is presented. Second, a production profit model based on engineering constraints is established, and a greedy heuristics algorithm is applied in the Gurobi solver to obtain the amounts of weekly carbon emission, power generation and coal purchasing. Finally, an example analysis is carried out with five generators of a coal-fired power plant for illustration.

The results show that the joint information of the multiple markets of carbon, electricity and coal determines the real profitability of power production, which can assist the plants to optimize their production and increase the profits. The case analyses demonstrate that the carbon emission is reduced by 2.89% according to the authors’ method, while the annual profit is improved by 1.55%.

As an important power producer and high carbon emitter, coal-fired power plants should actively participate in the carbon market. Rather than trade blindly at the end of the agreement period, they should deeply associate the prices of carbon, electricity and coal together and realize optimal management of carbon emission and production decision efficiently.

This paper offers an effective method for the coal-fired power plant, which is struggling to survive, to manage its carbon emission and power production optimally.