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This study aims to investigate the drivers of political embeddedness and the possible outcome in terms of autonomy and subsidiary unique competences.

This study draws on resource dependence theory and applies structural equation modeling on a sample of 193 subsidiaries.

Political embeddedness is confirmed as a source of potential autonomy and the development of competences and is usually boosted by previous existing networks at the internal and external levels.

The authors investigate and discuss how multinational corporations can leverage political resources in host-country political arenas, extending their understanding of the interplay between political activities and market strategies.

This study examines specific budget execution items (as proxies of vulnerability and sustainability) along with political factors to identify earnings management (EM) practices in Greek municipalities.

The study employs a sample of 1,831 financial and budget execution statements for the period 2011–2019. EM is proxied by unsigned discretionary accruals that are assessed through the performance-matched modified-Jones model and the modified-Jones model.

The findings provide evidence that the municipality’s dependence on subsidies (or its self-sufficiency) affects EM, especially during the pre-election year. Municipalities that maintain their financial autonomy engage less in EM in pre-election years. Lastly, it is proven that electoral cycles, weak opposition and other variables exert an effect on the size of EM. Sensitivity analysis confirms the results.

This paper contributes to the literature on EM by analyzing for the first time budget execution items (as proxies of vulnerability and sustainability) and their impact on the size of unsigned discretionary accruals.

Drawing on the work of Niklas Luhmann, the paper argues that technology can be viewed as a self-referential system which is autonomous from both human beings and other function systems of society. The paper aims to develop a philosophy of technology from the work of Niklas Luhmann. To achieve this aim, it draws upon the systems-theory work of Jacques Ellul, a philosopher of technology who focuses on the autonomous potential of technological evolution.

The paper draws on the work of Niklas Luhmann and Jacques Ellul to explore the theme of autonomous technology and what this means for our thinking about technological issues in the twenty-first century. Insights from these two thinkers and researchers working in the Luhmannian sociological tradition are applied to remote work.

The sociological approach of Luhmann, coupled with Ellul's insights into the autonomous nature of technology, can help us develop a systems theory of technology which takes seriously its irreducibility to human functions.

The paper contributes to the growing sociological literature that thematizes the Luhmannian approach to technology, helping us better understand this phenomenon and think in new ways about what technological autonomy means.

The paper brings together the work of Luhmann, Ellul and contemporary researchers to advance a new understanding of technology and technological communication.

This study analyzes the advantages and disadvantages of the electoral mechanism of local education superintendents in South Korea, draws conclusions and makes suggestions for future reforms.

The research method of this study included document analysis and interviews. Document analysis was used to collect and analyze the relevant official documents of education superintendents across countries. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with four professors and two superintendents.

The results of the interviews indicate the following: 1) Korean stakeholders are getting more familiar with the direct election of superintendents, as the interviews indicate a more mature direct election system due to previous experience and public officials taking direct election into account; 2) The direct election of superintendents has advantages and disadvantages. The advantages include increasing the participation of the general public in education, and the disadvantages include conflict between the central government and local superintendents belonging to different political parties. However, the current system is likely to be retained; 3) The superintendent systems in various countries differ due to their respective traditions and social contexts. However, the authors can always learn lessons and implications from foreign countries if the authors compare their education systems with their foreign counterparts.

As far research limitations, although this was a small study, it shows the importance of collecting multiple stakeholders' views on the direct election of education superintendents as a basis for future reform of education management.

The Korean system for electing superintendents provides a good model for other countries reflecting on the educational autonomy and accountabilities of their own systems.

The direct election of superintendents provides an example of professionalism, independence and political neutrality in education that other countries can learn from. The separation of general and educational administration in Korea through direct elections protects educational activities from political influence.

In terms of originality/value, this study adds a new perspective to the debate about whether the general public should directly elect education superintendents, as well as to the literature on local education management.

This paper aims to examine the secessionist orientation of Kurdistan Region’s paradiplomacy in the context of two main variables: the internal structural variables in Iraq after 2003 and the nationalism variable.

This study relies on the theory of neoliberalism to explain the transformation of Kurdistan’s paradiplomacy to protodiplomacy. It also relies on legal approach through using the Iraqi constitution and the draft constitution for the Kurdistan Region.

The internal structural variables are one of the main variables to motivate the region with advanced nationalism to pursue a protodiplomacy. Secession or forming an independent state of Kurds is a historic requirement supported by the advanced nationalism of Iraqi Kurds.

This study encourages focusing on the crucial role of the internal structural variables that drive the regions, especially with the advanced nationalism to pursue a protodiplomacy. Also, this study recommends giving more focus on the external variables and Kurdistan’s secession.

This paper reveals the reality of Kurdistan’s protodiplomacy.

This paper focuses on governance in higher education in China. It sees that governance as distinctive on the world scale and the potential source of distinctiveness in other domains of higher education. By taking an historical approach, reviewing relevant literature and drawing on empirical research on governance at one leading research university, the paper discusses system organisation, government–university relations and the role of the Communist Party (CCP), centralisation and devolution, institutional leadership, interior governance, academic freedom and responsibility, and the relevance of collegial norms. It concludes that the party-state and Chinese higher education will need to find a Way in governance that leads into a fuller space for plural knowledges, ideas and approaches. This would advance both indigenous and global knowledge, so helping global society to also find its Way.

This chapter discusses the extension of legal equality between male and female citizens in four states in North Africa – Tunisia, Egypt, Morocco and Algeria – through one specific lens: A married woman's legal capacity to initiate and obtain divorce without the husband's consent. Building on the works of Stein Rokkan and Reinhard Bendix on the expansion of citizenship to the ‘lower classes’, it is argued that amendments in divorce law by introducing in-court divorce for women, in addition to out-of-court divorce, is a significant institutional change that extends legal equality between men and women. The introduction of in-court divorce expands female citizenship by bolstering woman's juridical autonomy and capacity in state law. Changes in divorce laws are thus part of state centralization by means of standardizing rules that regulate family law through public administrative institutions rather than religious organizations. Two questions are addressed: First, how did amendments in divorce laws occur after independence? Second, in which ways did women's bolstered legal capacity in divorce have a spill over effect on reforms in other patriarchal state laws? Based on observations on sequences of change in four states in North Africa, it is argued that amendments that equalize between men and women in divorce should be seen as a key driver for reforms in other state laws, that reduce legal inequality between male and female citizens. In all four states, women's citizenship was extended in nationality law and criminal law after amendments in divorce law gave women unilateral legal power to exit a marital relationship.

This chapter explores the writings of Pakistani sociologist Hamza Alavi, especially on the post-colonial state, ethnicity, peasantry and kinship relations. In contradistinction to most (partial) uptakes of Alavi, I evaluate his work as a whole in order to shed light on its continuities and discontinuities. I demonstrate both the strengths and pitfalls of Alavi's theorisation of the post-colonial state, mode of production and ethnicity by placing him in context of wider Marxist debates at the time. I then suggest that Alavi's other work (e.g. on the peasantry and kinship relations) may serve to complement the weaknesses of the former. Thus, by reading Alavi contra Alavi, I advocate for an ‘integral’ perspective on the relations between civil and political society, arguing for a conjunctural awareness of mediations between the same, and their imbrications with differentiated relations of class, ethnicity and kinship.