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Since its introduction by Chari, Kehoe, and McGrattan (2007), Business Cycle Accounting (BCA) exercises have become widespread. Much attention has been devoted to the results of such exercises and to methodological departures from the baseline methodology. Little attention has been paid to identification issues within these classes of models. In this chapter, the authors investigate whether such issues are of concern in the original methodology and in an extension proposed by Šustek (2011) called Monetary Business Cycle Accounting. The authors resort to two types of identification tests in population. One concerns strict identification as theorized by Komunjer and Ng (2011) while the other deals both with strict and weak identification as in Iskrev (2010). Most importantly, the authors explore the extent to which these weak identification problems affect the main economic takeaways and find that the identification deficiencies are not relevant for the standard BCA model. Finally, the authors compute some statistics of interest to practitioners of the BCA methodology.

Bootstrapping is a practitioner-based term adopted in entrepreneurship to describe the techniques employed in micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) to minimise the need for external funding by securing resources at little or no cost and applying strategies to effectively use resources. Working capital management (WCM) is a term used in financial management to define a set of practices used to manage business resources, including cash management. This paper explores the overlap and divergence between these two disciplinary distinct concepts.

A dual methodology is employed. First, the usage of the two terms in prior literature is analysed and synthesised. Second, the study uses factor analysis to explore how bootstrapping practices described by owners of 167 established MSMEs relate to the components of WCM in financial management.

The factor analysis identifies two main bootstrapping practices employed by MSMEs: (1) delaying payments and owner-related bootstrapping and (2) customer-related bootstrapping. Delaying payments is an integral practice in trade payables management and customer-related bootstrapping includes practices that are integral to trade receivables management. Therefore, links between bootstrapping practices and WCM practices are firmly established.

The study is not without limitations. Based on cross-sectional evidence for established firms in Ireland only, future studies could explore cross-country longitudinal panel data to fully examine life cycle and sectoral effects, as well as other external shocks (for example, COVID-19) on bootstrapping and WCM practices. This study does not explain why some factors (for example, joint utilisation and inventory management) are present in some bootstrapping studies and not in others; further case study research might help explain this. Finally, changes in the business environment facing start-ups and established enterprise, including increased digitalisation, online trading, self-employment, remote hub working and sustainability, offer new avenues for bootstrapping research.

This is the first study to comprehensively explore the conceptual and empirical links between bootstrapping and WCM. This study will enable researchers and practitioners in these two distinct disciplines to learn from each other. Accounting researchers and practitioners can broaden their understanding of how WCM “works” in MSME settings. Similarly, entrepreneurship researchers and practitioners can deepen their understanding of how bootstrapping can be adopted by businesses to manage resources effectively.

The COVID-19 pandemic is considered a “once in a century” public health shock that, at the time of writing, continues to have a profound impact on global tourism and New Zealand. The paper aims to assess how consumer behaviour trends changed using a trends analysis framework.

Positioning the paper in the prognosis–prediction paradigm from futures studies and using a trend analysis approach, the authors forecasted a series of tourist trends at the beginning of COVID-19 based upon a multitude of sources trends. Then, 12 months later, they reported on the accuracy of these forecasts.

The matrix identifies 15 trends based upon consumer behaviour changes, which are either dominant, slowed, advanced or arrested. The prognosis was largely correct, which was supported by evidence gathered 12 months later.

The paper uses a series of different data sources to reflect on the initial forecasts. To some, this may be an issue of rigor, but the authors argue that through triangulation, credibility and validity are increased.

First, the evaluation matrix allows users to make sense of COVID-19 based upon the concepts of dominant, slowed, advanced or arrested trends. Second, the matrix allows users to evaluate changes and movement of trends. Third, the trends featured in this paper could be generalisable to several different circumstances associated with simple identity. Fourth, this paper has tested the ability to predict trends in an uncertain environment within the context of the ontological paradigm of prognosis and prediction of futures states.

The transition to a circular economy in the built environment is key to achieving a resource-effective society. The built environment can be made more circular by applying circular building components. The purpose of this paper is to present a design tool that can support industry in developing circular building components.

The tool was developed and tested in five steps. In Step 1, the authors analysed existing circular design frameworks to identify gaps and develop requirements for the design tool (Step 2). In Step 3, the authors derived circular design parameters and options from existing frameworks. In Step 4, the authors combined and specified these to develop the “circular building components generator” (CBC-generator). In Step 5, the CBC-generator was applied in the development of an exemplary component: the circular kitchen and tested in a student workshop.

The CBC-generator is a three-tiered design tool, consisting of a technical, industrial and business model generator. These generators are “parameter based”; they consist of a parameter-option matrix and design canvasses. Different variants for circular components can be synthesised by filling the canvasses through systematically “mixing and matching” design options.

The developed tool does not yet support establishing causal links between “parameter-options” and identification of the most circular design variant.

The CBC-generator provides an important step to support the building industry in developing and implementing circular building components in the built environment.

Whilst existing tools and frameworks are not comprehensive, nor specifically developed for designing circular building components, the CBC-generator successfully supports the integral design of circular building components. First, it provides all the design parameters which should be considered; second, it provides extensive design options per parameter; and third, it supports systematic synthesis of design options to a cohesive and comprehensive circular design.

The future retirement of US Air Force (USAF) legacy weapon systems (WSs) removes their associated funding from within the Air Force Working Capital Fund and their parts from its organic supply chain inventory. The trending outsourcing of product support to contracted logistics support and its potential long-term consequences to the USAF government-owned, government-operated, organic supply chain and the reconstitution capabilities it enables in the USAF’s organic industrial base, suggests the need to assess its risks. Although there is an existing body of research into the risks of outsourcing the USAF’s industrial repair, and federal legislation such as Core 50/50 laws enacted to institutionalize its risk management, there is comparatively little research into the outsourcing risks to the long-term viability of the supply chain on which that repair capability is dependent. The aim of this research is to fill that research gap by assessing and modeling those risks. This research concludes by providing several future research directions that may be evaluated to provide more detail.

Leveraging a conceptual model derived from research and a multi-criteria analysis framework to assess supply chain risk. Quantifying the predicted impact of retirements on funding and inventories of unique parts. Modeling the potential risk due to WS retirement.

Results indicated long term enterprise risks to the Air Force’s supply chain correlated to the retirement of WSs and their associated funding and spare parts inventory.

This research provides an in-depth evaluation of the USAF’s supply chain to assess the holistic risk of product support outsourcing and its long-term impacts on viability by using resource-based view and contingency theory as theoretical underpinnings. In addition, insights and implications for defense supply chain managers and decision-makers.