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Arsenic contamination in shallow groundwater aquifers in the lower Gangetic basin constitutes a major health hazard in the Bengal basin extended over Bangladesh and India. It has been estimated that at least 35 million people in Bangladesh and 6 million people in India are severely affected by arsenic-contaminated water. More so, about 57 and 9 million people in Bangladesh and West Bengal, respectively, are exposed to arsenic-contamination risk. The use of hazardous, arsenic-bearing groundwater for drinking, cooking, and irrigation in West Bengal and Bangladesh has led to what has been described by the WHO as the worst case of mass poisoning in human history. In case of West Bengal, the problem of arsenic contamination was discovered in the 1980s; since then several mitigation measures were adopted by the provincial and federal governments, community organizations, and NGOs. Yet, poor infrastructural arrangements, dire poverty, lack of awareness, and education increased the risk of arsenic exposure over the decades. In this chapter, an effort has been made to critically analyze the extent of mitigation measures adopted so far in the state of West Bengal. It discusses in detail the chronological responses of the provincial government in arsenic risk mitigation, implementation of adopted mitigation measures, and the consequent response and actions of arsenic-affected communities in West Bengal. The chapter also highlights the emerging challenges of arsenic risk mitigation in West Bengal and proposes a “system-based” framework for risk mitigation.

Despite their economic significance, empirical evidence on the growth constraints facing micro-businesses as an important subset of small and medium enterprises remains scarce. At the same time, little consideration has hitherto been given to the context in which entrepreneurial activity occurs. The purpose of this paper is to develop an empirically informed contextual understanding of micro-business growth, beyond firm-level constraints.

The paper draws on 50 in-depth interviews with stakeholders and micro-business owner–manager entrepreneurs (OMEs henceforth) in a peripheral post-industrial place (PPIP henceforth).

The paper shows that, beyond firm-level constraints generated by their OME-centric nature, there are “additional costs” for micro-businesses operating in PPIPs, specifically limited access to higher-skilled labour, a more challenging, “closed” business environment and negative outward perceptions stemming from place stigmatisation. All of these “additional costs” can serve to stymie OMEs' growth ambition.

The paper is based on a limited number of interviews conducted in one region in England. However, the contextualisation of the findings through a focus on PPIPs provides valuable insights and enables analytical generalisation.

The article develops a context-sensitive model of micro-business growth constraints, one that goes beyond the constraints inherent in the nature of micro-businesses and is sensitive to their local (socio-institutional) operating context. The implications serve to advance both how enterprise in the periphery is theorised and how it is addressed by policymakers and business intermediaries to support the growth of micro-businesses.

Attempts to explain the limitations and constraints of government policy makers in the regulation of street vending. Looks at ways that street vendors in Mexico City create alternative forms of regulation that complement and challenge the state’s attempt to impose a “one size fits all’ form of regulation for the national economy. Cites two distinct forms of regulation and how these resppond to the different needs of vendors depending on their ability to negotiate their status with the state. Covers the organizations which the vendors have formed to assist them and question the “Mafia” status applied to these by the establishment.

There is a need to proactively address strategic weaknesses in protecting the built environment from a range of hazards. This paper seeks to focus on the mitigation for flood hazards in the UK; particularly in understanding the extent of the problem, collating key guidance and legislation related to flood hazard mitigation, identifying who the key construction decision makers are and the most opportune stages of the Design‐Construction‐Operation Process when they need to make their key decisions.

A pluralistic research design was adopted for the study, which included a UK‐wide questionnaire survey and a set of semi‐structured interviews involving a range of professionals from construction, planning, insurance, emergency management and local/national government agencies was undertaken.

Despite the publication of a range of guidance on flood hazard mitigation in the UK there is still insufficient evidence that key construction stakeholders are playing an active role in mitigating flood risk. The pre‐construction phase of a building's life cycle is identified as is the most critical stage when key stakeholders need to adopt flood hazard mitigation strategies. The socio‐institutional constraints to the proactive attainment of built‐in resilience are highlighted as are recommendations as to how these constraints can be addressed.

The paper reports on the provisional findings of an ongoing project but these findings nonetheless provide essential foundations for the latter development of the PRE‐EMPT toolkit and also raise some important considerations about flood resilience in the UK.

The findings presented reveal how stakeholders should be better involved, and what issues they need to address, regarding the integration of built‐in resilience into construction decision making.

Appraises the scope for cost‐effective government intervention into the mobilization of resources for training, examining measures catalytic in nature as well as direct interventions. Asserts that economic recession and shrinking government revenues have led to a reconsideration of the role played by the state in training provision and to a growing acknowledgement and appreciation of the role of the private sector. Suggests that although the documentation is incomplete, the government is, and has always been, the junior partner. Discusses how training is financed by the private sector. Analyses situations where privately financed training provision may be sub‐optimal in scale and where there are grounds for government intervention. Addresses the issues of how best to provide financial incentives and mobilize the resources required for financial intervention.

Social entrepreneurship (SE) is an emerging social phenomenon gaining tangible traction for its ability to tackle complex social and environmental problems against a backdrop of global sustainability challenges. This paper aims to unpack SE intentions, mindset and motivations to elucidate “why” and “how” social entrepreneurs (SE) initiate, perpetuate and sustain pro-social entrepreneurship activity. It specifically asks why SE do what they do, how they develop and sustain pro-social entrepreneurship action and how these normative drivers affect the social change process.

This qualitative research adopts an exploratory multiple case design approach in examining the tacit experience of eight SE tackling complex water, sanitation and environmental challenges in Indonesia, and combines this with scholarly insights from multiple bodies of knowledge. Case studies include six SE recognised by the Ashoka Foundation and two lesser-known “social enterprises” to enable finding patterns across the cases and compare key differences between pro-social and conventional entrepreneurship. Triangulating semi-structured interviews with secondary data analysis and semi-ethnographic fieldwork observations, this paper provides a rich theoretical and empirical basis to understand the emerging transformative potential of SE in tackling a range of sustainability issues.

Interviews with eight SE highlighted their intentions to advance inter and intra-generational equity, social justice and sustainability, bringing socially embedded empathetic values and a growth mindset to overcome challenges associated with disrupting existing social order. Direct engagement with the SE revealed 10 critical enabling factors to foster future SE potential, namely, individual background and experience, unmet social needs, empathy, sense of belonging, willingness/passion to alleviate other’s suffering, growth mindset, internal/external catalysts, intrinsic and extrinsic needs, beliefs and goals and declaration of a social mission to ensure consistency in behaviour and action. This demonstrates that while SE are motivated by a variety of self and other-oriented mechanisms, it is ultimately the process of developing empathy, a growth mindset and declaring a social mission that drives and sustains pro-social entrepreneurship action.

The output of this research is a new intentions model, which outlines the 5 phases of enterprise development and 10 critical enabling factors to foster future SE potential. These insights are critical to leveraging the emerging transformative potential of SE in tackling the world’s most urgent sustainability issues.

The paper presents a deep analysis of data on individual background, experience and characteristics in developing a new SE intentions model.

The distinct focus on inputs over processes and outcomes answers to a highly elusive topic while offering an alternative approach to understand how SE create remarkably different strategies, processes and outcomes to conventional developmental approaches.

This study aims to assess the risks of systematisation of corruption in the UK following the Brexit referendum.

The study applies theoretical and empirical findings of criminological, social, psychological, economic and legal research on the causes of systemic corruption to the socio-institutional developments following the Leave vote.

The events surrounding the referendum confirm that the resort to corrupt practices is normalised in certain sectors of the British institutions, business and media and that socio-political processes activated by the Leave vote and inadequate UK policymaking and lawmaking can aggravate the situational and socio-psychological enablers of systemic corruption. Effective solutions must go beyond mere anti-corruption laws and address deeper social issues.

The study focuses only on some of the major situational and socio-psychological causes of systemic corruption, including the unintended criminogenic effects of the law. More interdisciplinary research is required to address other causes, such as historical and cultural factors.

The findings of this study can inspire practical solutions by policymakers and future research.

The study contributes to raising social awareness and stimulating public discussion on systemic corruption in the UK and on the consequences of the referendum on public and private integrity.

The study offers the first systematic analysis of the effects of Brexit and the referendum on corruption through an integrated interdisciplinary approach to systemic corruption in the UK.

The discourse of construction practitioners and decision-makers worldwide has begun to appreciate and acknowledge the advantages of sustainable building. Toward this goal, one of the main steps is creating a control mechanism, which provides the context for moving to sustainable buildings by monitoring the environmental, economic and social dimensions of sustainability. The previous research studies indicate the social dimension has received far less attention than the economic and environmental aspects. Therefore, this study aims at developing a social sustainability framework to evaluate building systems.

This research has chosen the Parsons sociological theory as its theoretical framework basis and acquires the research theoretical framework with its modification and completion by grounded theory (GT). In the next step, to realize the GT structure validity and model fitting, the confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was used and the research hypotheses were tested.

An integrated social sustainable framework is presented with five subsystems: socio-political, socio-cultural, socio-institutional, socio-economic and socio-environmental. This research addresses the void of a comprehensive social sustainability framework in the construction industry, and the findings can contribute to construction industry practitioners and decision-makers to evaluate building systems socially.

The application of this framework is not limited to the construction industry and building systems. It can deliver a general use for integrating social perspectives into decision-making on various subjects. Localization and specialization of current research's social sustainability components and factors can be a high potential research topic for future studies, in all fields and scopes. This framework can be a significant contribution to the sustainable development goals (SDGs) as a basis for creating comparable models to assess social aspects of buildings, campuses and urban sustainability.

This is the second part of a two‐part paper on the future of electronic payments. Part 1, which was published in the last issue of this journal, examined the various electronic forms of payment that are likely to emerge in the future, and considered some of the main technological and economic factors that will shape this evolution. This second part focuses on major regulatory and institutional issues that will influence the wider acceptance of electronic payment.

This chapter opens the second part of the Volume, focusing on the small farms' role and dynamics within the evolving food system. Assessing small farmers' actual and potential contribution to the change towards a sustainable food and nutrition security requires a deep understanding of their strategic decision-making processes. These processes take place in a context highly conditioned by internal and external conditions, including the complex relations between farm and household, which are mapped and described. Building on an adaptation of Porter's model (Porter, 1990), the chapter investigates how farmers, given those conditions, define their strategies (in particular their innovation strategies) aimed at economic and financial sustainability through a multidisciplinary analysis of scientific literature. Internal conditions are identified in the light of the Agricultural Household Model (Singh & Subramanian, 1986) which emphasizes how family farming strategies aim at combining business-related objectives, and family welfare. Then, a comprehensive set of external conditions is identified and then grouped within eight categories: ‘Factors’, ‘Demand’, ‘Finance and Risk’, ‘Regulation and Policy’, ‘Technological’, ‘Ecological’, ‘Socio-institutional’ and ‘Socio-demographic’. Similarly, six types of strategies are identified: ‘Agro-industrial competitiveness’, ‘Blurring farm borders’, ‘Rural development’, ‘Risk management’, ‘Political support’ and ‘Coping with farming decline’.