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This paper aims to highlight the possibility that the same cultural and/or institutional environment can differentially affect each of the two moments of entrepreneurship – opportunity identification and opportunity exploitation. It is possible that the cultural and institutional environment in a particular place may encourage opportunity identification, but discourage opportunity exploitation, or vice versa. Specifically, this paper argues that understanding entrepreneurship in Trinidad and Tobago requires that we focus on how Trinidadian culture and institutions differentially affect both moments of entrepreneurship.

To examine how Trinidad and Tobago’s culture and institutions affect entrepreneurial opportunity identification and exploitation in that country, the paper uses a qualitative approach. In total, 25 subjects agreed to interviews, conducted in July and August 2009 in Trinidad. The questions were geared at understanding attitudes toward work and entrepreneurship in Trinidad, and how politics, culture and ethnicity interacted with those attitudes. The paper also examined institutional indicators from the Economic Freedom of the World: 2013 Annual Report and the World Bank’s 2016 Doing Business Report.

The research identified features of the cultural and institutional environment in Trinidad and Tobago that help to explain why opportunity identification is relatively common among all ethnic groups there, but why opportunity exploitation appears relatively suppressed among African–Trinidadians. In particular, the research finds that the inheritance of British institutions, a post-colonial political culture, a post-colonial business culture and ethnically based social networks all have positive and negative influences on each moment of entrepreneurship.

Further research would involve an analysis of a wider set of both formal and informal entrepreneurial activities in Trinidad and Tobago, across industries and periods.

This paper has implications for understanding the complex nature of entrepreneurship, which many policymakers try to encourage, but which is shaped by deep cultural and historical factors, and also indirectly influenced by state policies and laws.

Ethnic patterns in entrepreneurship shape the way groups see themselves and others.

While authors writing about opportunity recognition/identification and opportunity exploitation have captured the important dimensions of entrepreneurship, they underestimate the possibility of a disconnect between entrepreneurial identification and exploitation. Focusing on instances where the disconnect exists allows us to move away from characterizations of cultures as progress-prone or progress-resistant, and instead allows us to focus on these gaps between identifying and exploiting entrepreneurship across cultures.

The purpose of this paper is to review the complexity of post‐Communist transition with regard to the processes of creating a legal and institutional environment, which will predispose social actors to cooperate to solve social problems and neutralize disparities. The paper also seeks to consider the shift from social destruction (everyone fighting with one an other) to social collaboration.

The focus of the paper is on the scope of the simultaneously functioning political, social and moral extremes. They are seen as the key attributes of chaotic social transition and as material for creating cooperative links.

Political and social transformation running simultaneously, and followed by legal and administrative modernization, provoked formerly unknown social conflicts in the transitional society. The case of Lithuania shows that the old methods for dealing with new conflicts were not suitable. Society became fragmented. Social costs of disintegration were high but not equal, when compared internationally. Interdependence between functionality, innovative and cultural potential of the state, and its capability to regulate conflicts and social controversies had been brought into political debates and public discussions after transition had been in progress for several years. This was a signal that political parties and the most influential social players became concerned about social outcomes of the reforms. Developing a new legal and institutional environment, empowering cooperation and conflict management in social interactions, is perceived as an indicator of the progress of the continuing transition.

Because of its nature and size, the research does not develop insights into the processes which were in some sense dependent on, and simultaneously became incentives for, the culture of cooperation in society; for example, dynamics of cooperation and competition among authorities and citizens, business and politics.

Though great interest is shown in transitional processes in social and humanitarian studies, the rise of conflicts in society as well as the limitations of constructive ways of dealing with such conflicts are not yet the focus of social investigation.

To develop a more thorough understanding of culture in a rapidly changing global environment.

The recent literature dealing with ways in which cultural dynamics are influencing the nature and meaning of culture are examined. Different perspectives of culture related to three key components of culture, intangibles, material culture and communication, are explored. Based on this, directions for research on the content of culture are discussed as well as how it should be approached.

Culture is becoming increasingly deterritorialized and penetrated by elements from other cultures. This is resulting in cultural contamination, cultural pluralism and hybridization. It has become more difficult to study culture as it is becoming diffuse. At the same time, it is becoming more important to study it because of its pervasive influence on consumer behavior.

Given that culture is no longer a phenomenon defined by and isolated to a particular locale, research on culture must carefully specify the role of culture, define the appropriate unit of analysis, isolate confounding influences and expand the range of contexts.

The parallel trends of globalization and multiculturalism make it increasingly important to develop a deeper understanding of culture and its various manifestations. For progress to be made, research designs must account for this complexity and span multiple contexts to establish the generality of findings. This will result in improved knowledge of culture and its role in molding consumption behavior.

This essay summarizes the formation of the concept of “sociality” as it was developed in The Concept of the Social in Uniting the Humanities and Social Sciences. Its thesis is that if the human sciences are to have a representative discipline – in contrast with a field of largely topical studies – that defines human reality in the course of its work, then that discipline must have a concept of its distinctive reality, and the basic fact that the concept describes must be indisputable: that is, it must be irreducible and irrepressible as well as distinctively human. These qualities are satisfied by the formula “each-dependent-on-All,” where each shows itself as “intra-dependence” and, therefore, as “being-in-the-middle” of a “course of activity without immanent beginning and end.” This concept is then applied to theoretical positions presented or hinted at by the other chapters of this volume in order (1) to see how a given theory might differ from what is conventionally taught as sociological theory when the basic fact is systematically taken into account, and (2) to find among the implications of the concept a dialectic of social progress and societal change that is incompatible with received positive ideas of society, e.g., as an entity, system, or totality and compatible with the idea of such an apparent formation as a project in which the manifold (internal) relations of each-dependent-on-All present social progress as the ongoing reality of human reality.

In order to explore the impact of the recent wave of a technological revolution on global culture and society, the purpose of this paper is to re-read the two most outstanding dystopian novels of the mid-twentieth century. George Orwell and Aldous Huxley observe and anticipate technological development in relation to questions of human nature and culture, individual identity and close relationships, matters of care, privacy and private life. The totalitarian regimes both authors experienced in their time have disappeared, yet today the two fields of high technology that fueled their fantasy are reaching levels of development to surpass Orwell’s and Huxley’s daunting visions.

This paper approaches the recent innovations in the information and communication technology as well as the upsurge of life sciences and bio-technology from a philosophical perspective, considering their impact on the social structure (division of labor, distribution of wealth) as well as on the symbolic order of advanced industrial societies (the sign and the body, life and death).

Taking up Michel Foucault’s distinction between ancient sovereign rule and modern biopolitics, the author suggests discerning a third stage of domination: bio economics plus culture industries. In contrast to the two previous forms of domination, this new regime does not endeavor to suppress but to foster and unleash life. Therefore, it instigates less resistance and opposition but meets with more approval and compliance. Domination in this neoliberal-libertarian guise may prove not less dangerous than the former totalitarian variant. It forces the author to re-think ways of resistance and critique.

This paper makes a theoretical contribution to the analysis of care, society and democracy.

Major technological innovations are usually associated with central R&D facilities in large companies and leading edge technologies that are key to unlocking business opportunities in promising, embryonic markets. The purpose of this paper is to identify and analyze several factors that determine the success of a major process innovation in a mature but changing industry. The paper furthermore shows that the periphery of a company can be as innovative as headquarters and central R&D‐labs.

This paper is based upon an in depth case study of the “Business Group Influenza” (BGI) at Solvay, a multinational company in the chemical and pharmaceutical industry based in Brussels. BGI turned a mature business into a growth engine for the company through the development of a cell culture technology. Next, we identified 20 success factors of innovations based on extensive literature research. These factors can be placed in four main categories; strategic factors, market environment factors, development process factors, and organizational factors. In this paper, we apply these key drivers to the renewal of Solvay's influenza vaccine business.

It is found that a systematic analysis of the case using the 20 key drivers allows us to evaluate the management of this major innovation process. In this way, one can easily spot the drivers that need more attention or require another management approach. We also find that the management of attention of the top‐management is crucial in long‐term innovation projects.

The contribution of this study is twofold. On the one hand, the rejuvenation of Solvay's influenza vaccine business shows that changing markets conditions in combination with a breakthrough process technology can turn a cash cow into a growth business. On the other hand, the systematic analysis of key innovation drivers allows one to identify the strength and weaknesses in the management of a long‐term, breakthrough process innovation.

This paper examines the role of government procurement as a social policy mechanism within a multilateral open trading system. Government regulations globally are being transformed to foster more responsible business conduct in multinational enterprises (MNEs). Yet, concern that sustainability may present a discriminatory barrier to trade has stalled the progress of sustainable public procurement (SPP) at the international level, raising questions regarding the role and scope of the World Trade Organisation’s (WTO) Government Procurement Agreement (GPA) to align taxpayer-funded contracts with the United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals.

With a focus on social sustainability, this paper reviews the grey and academic literature to assess the changing landscape of public procurement policy and supply chain legislation in high-income countries.

Frontrunner nations are adopting a mandatory approach to sustainable public procurement and due diligence legislation is elevating supply chain risk from reputational damage to legal liability. While technological innovation and the clean, green production of manufactured goods dominates the sustainable public procurement literature, the social aspects of sustainability poverty, inequality and human rights remain underrepresented.

The scope of this paper is limited to the examination of government procurement covered by the WTO-GPA (2012). Smaller value contracts, under the WTO-GPA thresholds and the category of defence are beyond the scope of the paper.

The paper focusses on the underserved topic of social sustainability in business-to-government (B2G) – business to government – supply chains arguing that for responsible business conduct to become a competitive advantage, it must be more meaningfully rewarded on the demand-side of all taxpayer-funded contracts in organisation for economic co-operation and development countries. The paper introduces the idea of priceless procurement as a mechanism to build system capacity in the evaluation of non-financial sustainability objectives.

To build the capacity to stimulate competition based on social and environmental policy objectives, the paper introduces the concept of priceless procurement in B2G contracts.

This paper seeks to make people aware of the condition of Chinese cultural information resources sharing through the case of the National Cultural Information Resources Sharing Project (NCIRSP). The paper seeks to provide an overview of NCIRSP, and summarize its achievements.

This paper first indicates that cultural information resources sharing is a kind of special resources sharing, and NCIRSP in China is a good example of the realization of this kind of resources sharing. The author introduces NCIRSP in general, and analyzes the operation and its achievements. The author considers that there are some problems which exist in the practice of NCIRSP which will hinder its development and proposes measures to solve those problems.

NCIRSP is a project which is advanced by the Chinese government as well as governments at other levels, which means the project has a strong organization and powerful support. The operation of NCIRSP is made up by four aspects: the network, the construction of digital resources, the implementation of technology, and the websites of services. These four aspects determine the effective operation of NCIRSP and promote the project to make great achievements. Meanwhile, there are problems which hinder NCIRSP from developing further, including the unbalanced collection of cultural information resources in various areas, the scattered storage of resources, and the absence of a sophisticated training mechanism for professionals engaged in the project. Measures to solve the problems are suggested.

NCIRSP is an innovative project supported by the Government of China, even though it is rarely known about by people outside China. This paper introduces NCIRSP in detail, and makes people aware of the situation of cultural information resources sharing in China.